course co-creation and workshop planning

I would love to branch off of the ideas from the lessons we did on empowering children with chronic illnesses and learn instead about how to empower children with various learning disabilities.  In my current field placement, there are many kids on the spectrum with autism.  I haven’t had much experience working with children on the spectrum or those with other learning differences, and I would really like to learn how to best do this.  I think this topic would be a very important lens for practicing using desire-based thinking, and also learning the best ways to use language and teaching tools to empower.  I have noticed in many schools that students with learning differences are followed by and aide or taken to an entirely separate classroom, and it always felt to me like this approach can be disempowering.  I know that there is another education class focused specifically on special education, but I think that it would be very applicable to the topics of empowerment that we are exploring in our course, and I think it would be a rich and informative subject for our class.

I have been really interested Tuck’s deficit/desire based approach to teaching. I have been looking at how people/ideas/movements have been erased inn our history this semester in another class and I kept coming back to how erasure is a form of deficit. There has been a lot of talk just out there about how important representation of minorities (ie: POC, LGBTQAI+, women, non-gender conforming, transgender, etc.) in pop culture is, and I feel like it is important to have those representations.  By including these groups in teaching about school you can begin the process of un-marginalize them. One specific example I can think of is how by teaching LGBTSAI+ in both history and sex education you can normalize not only talking about them, but bring more awareness about what they are. During the civil right movement there was a push to start too include back history in American history and this is when a lot of (no traditionally black colleges) began to create their African American studies departments. This became a model that led to women and Asian and other minorities becoming a field in which they studied. While that is problematic in that it meant hose things were being taught in a separate sphere then the hegemonic history, it was still a step in the right direction because before that they weren’t being represented at all. This need to create a separate space for minorities outside of the main education system while it gave access to those who wanted to learn about that type of history, it was not forced upon the general knowledge of the vast majority of the population, so that it was not interfering with (or opposing ) the greater society and its norms. So one the one hand we have the erasure of these groups form the main society removing them and their story. Then on the other hand we have marginalized as to accentuate the fact that these histories are not our histories, they are their histories. This creates an othering effect, and creates a further rift. Its kind of like the idea in society of black history month, we set aside time then to talk about African American and their history, but some (and if we are going to be honest a lot) od people think thinks that absolves them from having to deal with POC issues the other 11 months of the year. While having those times set aside specifically dedicated to the history and celebration of those who are often marginalized by society can be a form of empowerment, it is also a time when we could be thinking about how we can expand on these issues into the rest of society and the rest of the school year.

I've noticed more and more what an important role nutrition plays in my life. The food I eat can directly impact my mood and school performance. What are ways that we can involve nutrition into our self-care regiment? This is obviously an issue for kids in k-12 settings. I remember my elementary school cafeteria offering tacos and pizza twice a week! We can discuss issues of acess; healthier food being more expensive, children who live in food deserts, etc. Also I'd like to discuss the recent push from the White House to supply healthy food in cities, and how it's not simply about supplying the food, but about educating. Healthy eating is influenced by access, but it's also a behavior that has to be created. How can we encourage these behaviors in school? Should nutrition be a part of education and do schools have the right to ban certain foods? P.S. I found this article to be super interesting: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/takes-grocery-store-eliminate-food-desert/ 

I'd like to learn more about mindfulness.  We have a simple definition of the word and have talked about how there is little existing research on the topic, but this has left me wanting to know more since we have talked about it as a potential classroom benefit.  We have also said that mindfulness is not a cure-all, nor is it appropriate for every situation, so I am curious when it is a good time to try to incorporate and how to do so.  Mindfulness is a big buzzword right now, which makes me interested in the media’s role in its future.  I recognize that there are many ways to explore mindfulness in the context of our course and that I have not identified a path that I’m interested in exploring, but I am open to any topic related to mindfulness. 

I mentioned including nutrition and health in the next part of the course during mid-course feedback. I have been able to see school lunches at each school I have been placed at, and even when they're better than average, it is hard to think of them as truly nourishing meals, and when you consider that sometimes those meals are the only meals they receive, it is hard to imagine that they're able to learn as well when they're hungry. Malnourishment is a result of poverty, poor nutrition education in poorer communities, and a lack of access to fresh, healthy foods. My internship that I worked/work for is intent on reducing the number of food deserts by building farms and markets in poor areas, specifically housing projects in the Kansas City area. We also work with the housing association to provide nutrition and parenting classes in order to inform parents on how they can best feed their children on a budget. In addition, many schools, particularly urban schools, do not have a space for children to play, outside or inside. Schools are taking away phys ed and other sports programs, dangerously increasing the rate of obesity. When children are unhealthy, it is harder for them to focus in class. Healthier students are able to learn without distractions. Maslow's hierarchy of needs supports that when a student's physical needs are met, only then can they pursue their growth needs.

            I would really like to go more in depth about specific mindfulness activities and which ones might work best with different age groups and settings. I would also like to learn about the integration of mindfulness into edcaution. As mindfulness is something that can be done in schools of any socioeconomic status, it seems like a no-brainer to implement into all public school curricula, yet it hasn’t been. If the benefits of mindfulness as clear cut as the guest speakers made them out to be, why hasn’t it become much more widespread? How would we go about making mindfulness in education widespread?

I would like to explore eheller's suggestion about concrete applications of a desire-based framework in the classroom in greater detail. In particular, cultural diversity is one aspect that is often toted as a desire-based approach but this does not always translate to an actual understanding or acceptance of the differences. How can we promote cultural diversity through ways that are not transient or perfunctory but instead empower our learning and contribute positively to an appreciation of our fellow students? While many textbooks may have a damage-based framework, maybe we could explore how the curriculum could be made more flexible for teachers to present the material through a desire-based approach. 

I would appreciate using some of our time during the rest of the semester to have full class cross-placement discussions. I feel like I am learning a lot through my placement and am enjoying the opportunity to discuss these experiences with other students who also go to the PALM, but I think we might be able to get a lot more out of these experiences if we analyze them in relation to other placements. Sometimes people bring elements of their placement experiences into full-class discussions that are not specifically focused on placements (and when this happens I definitely find it useful), but I don't know if we have ever discussed an empowerment concept/topic as a class from our placement-based perspectives. I'm not sure whether we need to devote entire class periods to this, but maybe every workshop group could designate a chunk of time at the end of their class to a placement-focused discussion on the workshop's issue of focus? 

Because I am also taking Multicultural Ed right now, I often see connections between the two courses and I think a lot about the ways in which students’ personal lives and cultures (as well as the teachers’) can play a role in empowerment. In light of studying various practices of mindfulness, I think it would be interesting to explore how religion and other personal attributes of one’s culture can be both empowering and disempowering…and how we can work toward making one’s personal culture and experience empowering instead of disempowering. I think in doing this, we could do more to engage with language, religion, conversations about race and ethnicity, and sexual orientation, gender and sexuality. I believe that exploring some of these things would expand upon Tuck’s work on Suspending Damage. Further, a lot of these questions I have arise from my experiences in my placement where I am engaging with students of various cultural backgrounds and who come from a wide range of personal experiences.

On a completely different note (and because I could not quite decide into which area I would really like to delve deeper), I think exploring mental health in a more general state would be interesting. I think it’s incredibly interesting (and disempowering) that a lot of students come into college bright-eyed and bushy tailed, and develop or uncover serious mental health problems in their time learning. I personally have lived this experience, and I wonder how we can understand this and potentially avoid it. On the other hand, how exactly should teachers work with students struggling with mental health issues? How does it impact a student’s ability to learn (both positive ways and negative ways)?

How can an educator facilitate and encourage a positive environment in their class? How can trusting partnerships between teacher and student be motivated? 
Although it is not a very exciting or glamorous topic, I would like to learn more about is Conflict/Resolution and how to handle tough situations. Although class management is something that is normally taught by doing, I think it would have a very practical use outside of the classroom. I had amazing teachers and they had the best intentions, but they did not know how to handle conflicts when they arose in the class. Many students felt a disconnect from the teacher because they saw them as this authority figure that did not understand them.  As a result, many teachers lost complete control and left our school very shortly after. I think it is very empowering for an educator to have the confidence to manage and lead their classroom and also have the trust and respect from their students. 
It would also be very interesting to see how educators are leading their classrooms and what methods they are using to create these partnerships with their students.