Advocate for Inclusive and Supportive Communities:
A person who is an advocate for inclusive and supportive communities is one that can see the problems and inequalities in our society. In order to properly advocate for inclusive and supportive communities, one has to understand the root of it. In the IES and MACI programs at Chapman, we have always been taught how to diversify our classrooms and find ways to fix those disadvantages that children face in our education systems as well as create classroom environments that accommodate every student’s needs. An advocate for inclusive and supportive communities needs to know that not all students learn the same nor have been given the same opportunities. As an educator, we must advocate for marginalized communities who are not able to advocate for themselves.
Evidence #1: IES 102 Comparative Cultural Biography and Advocacy Project
In IES 102 our final project was to interview someone who was of a different race, geographical location, or culture and compare it to my own life. Through this paper, I was able to gain an understanding of my interviewee’s upbringing, schooling, and morals in comparison with my own. I interviewed my friend who was under the alias, Miss Kiesha. Through the interview, I learned a lot about what it is like to be an Asian American woman going to Chapman University. After interviewing her I was able to gain a better understanding of the privileges that I have as a white woman. In the essay, I discuss this idea of privilege and how I grew up in a sheltered environment surrounded by people who were very similar to me. I never thought of how different people’s lives were compared to my own until I came to Chapman.
After learning about the prejudices that my friend faced and the pressures of doing well in school solely because of her race, I realized that like much of society, the educational world is not an equal playing field for everyone. Miss Kiesha and I both had similar upbringings in the sense of the kinds of education we had yet, we both face extremely different obstacles. In the Comparative Cultural Biography and Advocacy Project, I talked about how educators and schools group students together and develop preconceived notions of who they are based on things such as race, religion, and socioeconomic status. I went on to say, “In order for this to change for future students, teachers need to refrain from developing bias based on who they think their students should be as opposed to who they really are. If teachers, the role models, are also playing into these cultural stereotypes how can we expect the other students and teens not to as well?” I still stand by this statement that I made during my spring semester of freshman year.
Teachers need to be the ones to break those stereotypes and create classroom environments that are diverse and accepting of all students. From this assignment, I learned how to create classroom environments that are inclusive of all students and learn how to advocate for minority groups in and out of the classroom. I also learned how to value and identify the differences in the way students learn and to create a classroom curriculum that utilizes those differences.
Evidence #2: MACI 464 Key Assignment
In MACI 464, English Language Acquisition and Issues of Diversity our final project was a compilation of an IRIS Module about ELL students, a lesson plan that I taught to a group of high school students, and a reflection on the content of the course and the experience I had teaching my lesson plan. This premise of this MACI class was about ELA learners and implementing diversity in a classroom setting. Because of this, I learned a lot about how to properly advocate for English Language Learners and create a classroom environment where the content reflected their English language abilities.
In order to properly create an inclusive community when developing my lesson, I had to implement different modifications in my lesson plan. For example, because I was presenting to ELL students whose reading level did not match their grade level, I made sure to use both Spanish and English for every written aspect on both the slides and the Nearpod. I did this in order to help develop student’s comprehension through the use of both CALPS and BICS. Furthermore, I provided images on all the slides as well as providing a matching activity that was intended to foster visual learning while also providing context. I also used Nearpod as interactive technology to allow students to put what they learned to practice.
I decided to do my lesson on the history of dogs and different dog breeds. Likewise, I also implemented UDL strategies to make sure that the content I was teaching was universal and easily applicable to all types of learners. For example, I was able to activate students’ background knowledge by having them talk about their prior experience with dogs before teaching them about specific dog breeds. In order to achieve this, I asked questions such as, “what do you already know about dogs?”
I believe that the lesson I created was one that effectively advocated for ELL students and overall supported their learning and English language acquisition. While technology, such as zoom, made teaching the lesson difficult, I still learned about what types of assistive technologies work for ELL students, which do not, and how to properly advocate for inclusive learning opportunities for them.
Evidence #3: IES 405 Interview Report
In IES 405, the first part of my senior capstone, I had to conduct an interview report based on the topic of my thesis which is the academic success of foster care students. For this interview report, I interviewed three people who offered three different perspectives on my thesis topic of foster care. I decided to interview one teacher, one parent, and one student.
For the first interview, I interviewed a biological mother of a child in the foster care system. I asked her about what she noticed when it came to her daughter’s academic performance during her time in the system. She offered me insight into a perspective that, in research, is much overlooked. The second interviewee was an experienced elementary school teacher of 40 years who has seen, firsthand, the emotional and negative academic impacts the system places on students. The third individual I decided to interview was a friend of mine who was in the foster care system herself. I chose to interview her due to her unique situation of being in the system while in high school and wanting to terminate her biological mother’s parental rights.
This interview report allowed me to understand the struggles many different groups of people involved in the foster care system face. By interviewing three extremely different people with opposing perspectives, I was able to gain well-rounded insight on a topic that means so much to me. As a future educator, I believe it is important that I educate myself on all aspects of the foster care system that are often forgotten. Through these interviews, I learned the kinds of resources schools need to provide their teachers to help them properly support foster youth. Likewise, these interviews further proved some areas of my research done for the literature review. I was able to gain insight into the common characteristics of students in the system, and the overall toll the system has on this marginalized group.
Because of this assignment, I have a stronger desire to advocate for more supportive and inclusive environments that benefit the individuals affected by the foster care system. My interview report demonstrates my understanding of the multiple perspectives of those involved in the foster care system and the kinds of resources each group is lacking. This assignment also allowed me to further develop my thesis topic that is so near to my heart because of my personal experience with being in the foster care system as a high school student. I was able to validate the struggles I went through during my time in the system and in turn, learn to advocate for others like me.
Evidence #4: The Freedom Writers Foundation Internship
In January 2021 during my senior year, I was offered an internship with The Freedom Writers Foundation. The Freedom Writers Foundation is a nonprofit organization that aims to provide educators with the tools to empower all students to be able to succeed. The Foundation was started by a high school teacher, Erin Gruwell, whose story has shaped the world of education as we know it. Ms. Gruwell’s story of bringing together a group of students who were divided by race with literature and through an inclusive and supportive classroom environment caught the attention of many. This story went on to be a published book and then a major motion picture. Now, The Freedom Writers Foundation helps to bring classroom communities together in the same way that Ms. G brought room 203 together.
I was originally offered the position of Curriculum Innovation & Creative Design Intern and participated in that role for 9 weeks alongside 8 other interns. Our job was to help create and refine the classroom curriculum that would later be given to educators as part of the foundation’s Catalyst for Change classroom curriculum. Along with that, I was given the opportunity to help create podcast teasers for The Freedom Writers podcast show that would also be used for their classroom curriculum. After those 9 weeks ended I was then offered to stay on the with foundation and given the opportunity to go into 5 virtual classroom settings each week and help facilitate the Catalyst for Change classroom curriculum to elementary, middle, and high school students.
My current job as a facilitator for the catalyst for change curriculum coincides with being an advocate for inclusive and supportive communities. Additionally, the overall mission of The Freedom Writers Foundation aims to foster educators who can also be advocates for inclusive and supportive communities. In the classrooms that I go into every day, I am met by students of different races, religions, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Hearing the stories of these students allows me to gain a better understanding of those different from me and in turn, be an advocate of other groups of people. I have learned so much about these students during my time with The Freedom Writers Foundation and how to properly provide a supportive and inclusive classroom environment from Erin Gruwell. The work she has done, and the lives she has changed, have inspired me to be an educator who is an advocate for students of all backgrounds and to find ways to bring my students together through commonalities.