week one: my insights

 

A Light Experience this week…

I experienced an unusual week at school this past week. I had the pleasure (sarcastic pun intended) of combing through more than 300 student yearbook quotes in addition to taking care of a few personal matters. I am pleased that by the end of the week, I was able to construct a loose connection between my students' experiences and the narrative of the young Black man from South Central Los Angeles whose admission to the institution was revoked. As Boyd highlights, “The intended audience matters, regardless of the actual audience” (Danah Boyd, 2014, p. 30). I was able to relate this to the fourteen yearbook quotes I had to FLAG and further have meetings with each of these students about their redacted comments. Some of these comments were unintentionally insensitive and unfortunately, some were intentional. Some of the unintentional offensive comments were, “Made in China, but no Math.” Although this student was of Asian descent, I had to explain to the student how the quote could be offensive to other Asian students as it perpetuates Asian negative stereotypes. The student understood and was able to update their quote. 

Turned to…

A Dark Experience… but educational and meaningful…

There was another incident where it was unfortunately a previous student of mine. It was disappointing, to say the least, because I thought the student knew better. This particular experience that I experienced this week reminded me of Boyd’s ideas on how “teens often imagine their audience to be those that they’ve chosen to “friend” or “follow,” regardless of who might actually see their profile” (Danah Boyd, 2014, p.32). In this incident, this student wrote “BAHOS,” and I flagged the comment because I interpreted that as "bye hoes." The student was embarrassed when she found out that I was running the yearbook committee and then confirmed that the comment was indeed, "bye hoes." They asked me to let it slide. I engaged in a conversation about how that was inappropriate, and to think about their digital footprint and what they want to be remembered for. They tried to argue it was a comment for their friends and that it was their intended audience. I had to reinstate to the student that their audience was indeed the entire school body, Citadel High, and more importantly, it was reflective of their character. We worked on something appropriate together. 

More to share…

As I tried to cram in a lot of this week’s readings and discussions - I wanted to consider how these readings and modules can connect and benefit my students in my courses. It was a bit hard to find engaging content for my grade 11 and 12 students online that would be practical and yield success. I then stumbled upon The Achievery and let me tell you, it is everything and a bag of chips! First of all, it is free and easy to sign up for and navigate, even for someone who is not as tech-savvy as moi. I spent some time, finding some practical lessons for my students that would be educational. What I found especially useful were how short the video clips are and the serious topics they tackle with a hint of comedy for educational purposes. It is not only easy to use in your classroom but no planning is needed whatsoever. I will be sure to share this website in our class’ online forum. So far, I am learning some useful information in this course, and I hope to reconnect it to my teaching practices soon.

Hope to blog again very soon. Goodnight, for now. 

References:

The Achievery. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.theachievery.com/en

Boyd, d. (2014). It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. Yale University Press.