Where I am and Where I Want to Go

Appropriating others works and words in the classroom is vital. It allows to keep ideas fresh and for the curriculum to feel new and not complacent. At the front of these classrooms are white instructors, about 90 percent of my teachers up to this point have been so far. There is always a desire to engage their students, to feel relatable in some kind of way. But there has always been a hesitancy to academically use diverse voices in order to keep their students engaged and inspired. There is a true disconnect with white peoples acceptance of using nonwhite cultures as a way to seem "cool" or trendy, but their abject refusal to use those cultures and voices inside the classroom academically. The inability or refusal to having difficult conversation because it is "not their place to say" unfortunately that excuse isn't good enough anymore. Teachers are doing their students a disservice by not including them or their voices to better represent the full experience, and not doing everything they can by not engaging their classrooms to the full extent that they could. As I continue to learn about different types of culturally responsive teaching, and understand how ignorant to these approaches that most of my classes have been, it is unsettling and disappointing. Knowing that if my past teachers only immersed themselves and us as students into a couple of other stories that maybe there wouldn't be such a massive gap in understanding and acceptance that some people feel. Moving forward in my classrooms it is a main point of emphasis to include many diverse voices and stories. Incorporating hip hop pedagogies and other various types of literature to engage my students, so they see themselves on the pages in the stories we are reading is vital to their success. There was a supreme lack of these types of stories that I was presented, so as I have been getting older, especially after high school, my reading has been very intentional. I have been reading many stories, poetry, nonfiction, and fiction mainly by nonwhite authors to do everything I can to gain a better understanding and appreciation of cultures I will never truly be able to experience. My students are never going to have to feel that, because my classroom library is going to be bountiful and inclusive, because that's what my student's deserve, every opportunity to engage and succeed.

 https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/opinion-the-importance-of-diverse-perspectives-and-how-to-foster-them/2018/11

https://education.brown.edu/academics/graduate/master-arts-teaching/elevating-diverse-voices-classroom

https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/infographics/pdf/REL_PA_Including_Voice_in_Education_Addressing_Equity_Through_Student_and_Family_Voice_in_Classroom_Learning.pdf

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/sparking-engagement-hip-hop-joquetta-johnson