III.+Equity+Principle


 * // 3. EQUITY PRINCIPLE //**
 * //3.1 //** **//Candidates understand equity and social justice principles, including everyone’s right to have an opportunity to learn and what constitutes equitable and socially just behavior and treatment for themselves and others. //**

 Social justice is the nature of establishing equal human rights and freedoms for all social communities. In many societies dominant cultures mold ideologies and hegemonies that mask the injustices present in prejudiced and oppressed communities. Social justice advocates aim to break this cycle of knowledge and offer a contending vision for practice that works towards providing opportunities and freedoms to all. In our society the economic nature of capitalism inherently creates a divide among these opportunities and future achievements and success. Innately in the practice of capitalism is an uneven privilege and unfair advantage by those who have the lowest amounts of prejudice, biases, and oppression in society. The dominant culture makes the norm to what is valued and believed. This power conflicts with the ideals of social justice, and fuels the separations that make judgments of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.

 Stereotypes are often the precursors to these types of prejudice cases. Kumashiro (2000) says “the power of a stereotype to harm derives from a particular history of how that stereotype has been used and a particular community of people who have used that stereotype and who constitute that history (Butler, 1997).” These stereotypes can be unfounded speculations and assumptions of ignorance and misunderstanding, or they could be reinforced, accurate statements of identity representation. Identity is often constructed in asymmetrical power relationships that mark the dominant characteristics of societal control (Giroux, 1992). Identities thus become cultural misinterpretations that are promoted by and masked behind ideological constructs of reality. There are contradictions that these identity representations structure, holding within them meanings of inequity in relation to differences (Britzman, Santiago-Valles, Jimenez-Munoz, & Lamash, 1993). The conflict of multiculturalism involves the fact that group identities are often competing for power to combat dominant society perceptions of their culture. In Takaki (1993), Schlesinger is quoted as saying, “belief in one’s own culture does not require disdain for other cultures. But one step at a time: no culture can hope to ingest other cultures all at once, certainly not before it ingests its own (p.115).”

 Groups can either identify themselves as different or similar along lines of culture and subcultures. The identities of these groups are constructed both by location and the context of the social community of that day. Perceptions drive the notions of prejudice. In fact, Britzman, Santiago-Valles, Jimenez-Munoz, and Lamash’s (1993) say, “all categories are unstable, all experiences are constructed, all reality is imagined, all identities are produced, and all knowledge is approximate (p.199).” What we view thus becomes something that has been socially constructed to build hierarchical privilege to a class structure that is in positions to control attitudes, conceptions, and beliefs.

 Students in our education system feel the hard effects of this system of privilege that is established in our society. Instead of an education students are indoctrinated into learning the frameworks and living the identities that society has characterized for their communities. The praxis of education needs to move towards providing all students with the freedoms and opportunities to make autonomous decisions, voice their thoughts, and build the capabilities to contribute to democratic inventions in society (3.1a). Students need to be empowered and valued for their skills and challenges.

 McLaren (2009) describes empowerment as “not only helping students understand and engage the world around them, but also enabling them to exercise the kind of courage needed to change the social order where necessary” (74). Therefore, empowering leads to the promotion of positive valuation, and thus having autonomy develops children’s evaluation of education and knowledge and the agency to exercise that knowledge. Darder, Baltodano, and Torres (2009) claim that, “no political struggle in a school or society can be waged by one lone voice in the wilderness, nor are democratic principles of education ever guaranteed” (19). This means collective discussion and collective activism are needed to ensure all students can secure their freedoms. This level of engagement requires students value their education, which is a challenge we must battle. Societal misconceptions, including parents of these students, fueled through the hegemony and ideologies of dominant culture may create strong opposition to change, but it is our job to be critical educators and empower students to be individual and social agents of their future. The focus should be on allowing students to develop capabilities, which will allow them to have greater power. This counters the current issue that power improves capabilities, thus continually establishing inequities.


 * //3.2 //** **//Candidates are committed to high moral and ethical standards and respect and value their students’ differences in contexts and approaches to learning. //**

 I have developed strong relationships with all my students as is evidenced by my field experience and student teaching final evaluations from my supervisor and cooperative teacher (3.2a). This is due in part to the moral and ethical ways in which I treat and support each student. These moral and ethical standards move across relationships into the larger classroom expectations. Differentiation inside of my lessons incorporates opportunities for all students to have their learning styles respected and met. A specific example of a lesson that includes differentiation is my series of three lesson on inertia and Newton’s 1st law of motion. In this lesson I provide students with demonstrations that represent real visual experience, also providing opportunities for each student to participate in touching the materials and exploring the phenomena they produce. Students were assessed through the completion of a predict, observe, explain (POE) that included a space to make a prediction, observation, and explanation for each demonstration (3.2b). Students had the opportunities to write, touch, talk, and draw in this lesson.


 * // 3.3 //** **//Candidates are familiar with some of the cultural, linguistic and learning differences and/or disabilities their students may present and their implications for the classroom. //**

 Most groups believe in educating about cultural stories that provide perspectives and wisdom of knowledge. “It is through culturally specific ways of teaching and learning that ancestors and elders share the knowledge of conquest, segregation, patriarchy, homophobia, assimilation, and resistance (Bernal, 2002, p.113).” However, this approach to cultural knowledge seems like it could be a hindrance to the goals of critical race theory. If communities are focusing on teaching the traditions and knowledge of their ancestry in order to prevent assimilation and combat the dominant cultural education of society without educating on other cultures as well, then in part their interests are hindering other racialized groups’ cultures from reaching the large part of society and making it difficult to unite each other’s differences (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). In reality, cultural, linguistic, and learning differences are beneficial to a classroom and should be introduced as often as possible.

 Through a community of learners, classrooms can be designed to establish collective knowledge and learning that builds critical life skills and social practices students and teachers will use everyday of their lives. Each child offers something new to any situation that enhances the experience and understandings of that very learning moment. "In a community of learners, both mature members of the community and less mature members are conceived as active; no role has all the responsibility for knowing or directing, and no role is by definition passive. Children and adults together are active in structuring shared endeavors, with adults responsible for guiding the overall process and children learning to participate in the management of their own learning and involvement. Children coordinate with other children and with adults, contributing to the direction of the endeavor, with overall orientation and leadership provided by adults but with some leadership provided at times by children (Rogoff, 1994, 213)." Literacies play into the education of this collective both through the familiarity and comfort found in the literacies used for the group and each individual child, and through the critical thinking of how each literacy can relate differently to each individual or how it helps to build or shape the class as a community. Thus, everything is connected, valued, and impacts the learning of the class. It is important to motivate each child to be active participants and collaborative individuals during every lesson.

 Science education is a particularly important field for inclusion practices because of the intrinsic nature of its learning and how this learning can enhance the skills of students with disabilities. Cawley, Hayden, Cade, and Baker-Kroczynski (2002) state, “the science class is potentially one of the most promising classes in which to provide appropriate education in the LRE because it has the capability (a) to allow students to interact, share, and collaborate during the learning experiences; (b) for teachers and students to assist one another during instructional activities; and (c) to offer a variety of multimedia opportunities for learning and performance (426).” Mastropieri and Scruggs (1992) make claims that science can be beneficial to a number of disabilities, offering a means of improving function. Students with sensory and physical impairments can develop observing, manipulating, and classifying skills. Those students having emotional or behavioral difficulties could benefit from studying “systematic, cause-and-effect relationships and the scientific method of finding order in the observed universe (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1992, 378).” The students possessing cognitive or intellectual disabilities can benefit from the development and application of scientific processing skills and a general increase of world knowledge (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1992).


 * //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">3.4 //** **//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Candidates are able to provide learning experiences that are culturally relevant and address the strengths and needs of all students. //**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Over the summer of 2009 I co-taught alongside four other cohort peers a group of five middle school students about beach ecology at Lake Ontario in Rochester, NY. This was called the GetReal! Science camp and incorporated a week-long science investigation where students were provided the opportunity to explore conditions, develop a scientific question, design an investigation, draw conclusions, and construct an argument based in evidence. Being a local issue the students found a deeper interest and greater empowerment in the science investigation (3.4a). The strengths and needs of each student were developed throughout the week. Specifically, our female student was given the opportunity to use technology, such as the Vernier LabQuest, which she said she didn’t really get a chance to do before (3.4b). Another student loved to use the iFlip and was given the task of recording video of our investigation and analysis (3.4c). Math skills were addressed in lesson 4 through the introduction to graphing using USA Today graphs and relating the story of our graphs to our research question. Along with this we used Google Earth to find the sites we sampled from to include another technological and literacy tool in our lessons. The students were allowed to explore the functions of Google Earth by visiting their home, friends home, other landmarks, etc., before building this map (3.4d).

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Additionally, STARS provided a culturally relevant science investigation to the girls in our group. Our girls investigated household chemicals and how they impact the environment, specifically plants. During STARS planning we assigned leadership roles to students as their strengths and needs were assessed. Specifically, one girl presented a shy demeanor with little confidence in her ability. We planned to provide her with a role that she requested and felt comfortable with, which was notetaker or recorder (3.4e). As she participated in this role she became more vocal and excited to return each week. Other girls were given roles such as video conference leader or observer and measurement taker (3.4f). All these helped to establish a community of learners that collectively developed each others’ strengths and needs in relation to the investigation.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">EVIDENCE //**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"> ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">ED 404 Capability Approach || <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Lesson Plans || //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> [|2009.11_-_Inertia_POE_KD2_-_Turkett.JPG] // ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Inertia POE Student Work || //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> [|Picture_9.png] // ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">STARS Pictures - Video Conferencing and Data Collection || //**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">References **//
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">EVIDENCE # ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">EMBEDDED OR LINKED OBJECT ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">DESCRIPTION ||
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> 3.1a ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">[[file:20090807-ED404CapabilityApproach-BTurkett.doc]]
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> 3.2a ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[[file:20091125-SeriesOfThreeLessonPlan-Newton-Turkett.doc]] ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Series of three - Newton's laws of Motion
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> 3.2b ||= //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[|2009.11_-_Inertia_POE_KD1_-_Turkett.JPG] //
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> 3.4a ||= //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">2009 Camp Exit Interviews // ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Get Real! Science Camp Exit Interviews ||
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> 3.4b ||= //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[|P7270029.JPG] // ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Get Real! Science Camp Picture - Data Collection ||
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> 3.4c ||= [|20090729-EDU486Raeshawn] ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Get Real! Science Camp Video - Raeshawn's Video ||
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> 3.4d ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[[file:20090803-EDU486UnitPlan-BTurkett.doc]] ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Get Real! Science Camp Unit Plan ||
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> 3.4e ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[[file:20091129-EDU434StarsAppendixALessonPlans-BTurkett.doc]] ||= <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> STARS Lesson Plans ||
 * = <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> 3.4f ||= //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[|DSC07459.JPG] //

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Bernal, D. (2002). Critical race theory, latino critical theory, and critical raced-gendered epistemologies: Recognizing students of color as holders and creators of knowledge. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Quantitative Inquiry //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">8 //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, 105-126.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Britzman, D., Santiago-Valles, K., Jimenez-Munoz, G., & Lamash, L. (1993). Slips that show and tell: Fashioning multiculture as a problem of representation. In C. McCarthy & W. Crichlow (Eds.), //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Race, identity, and representation in education //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, pp. 188-200. New York: Routledge Farmer.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Butler, J. (1997). Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. New York: Routledge.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Cawley, J., Hayden, S., Cade, E., & Baker-Kroczynski, S. (2002). Including students with disabilities into the general education science classroom. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Exceptional Children //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">68 //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">(4), 423-435.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Darder, A., Baltodano, M., & Torres, M. (2009). Critical pedagogy: An introduction. In A. Darder, M. Baltodano, & R. Torres (Eds). //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The critical pedagogy reader // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">second edition // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, pp. 1-20. New York: Routledge.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Giroux, H. (1992). Border crossings: Cultural workers and the politics of education, pp. 230-250. New York: Routledge.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Kumashiro, K. (2000). Toward a theory of anti-oppressive education. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Review of Educational Research // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">70 // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">(1), 25-53.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Teachers College Record //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">97 //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">(1), 47-68.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Mastropieri, M., &, Scruggs, T. (1992). Science for students with disabilities. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Review of Educational Research //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">62 //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">(4), 377-411.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">McLaren, P. (2009). Critical pedagogy: A look at the major concepts. In A. Darder, M. Baltodano, & R. Torres (Eds.) //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The critical pedagogy reader, second edition // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, pp. 61-83. New York: Routledge.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Rogoff, B. (1994). Developing understanding of the idea of communities of learners. //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Mind, Culture, and Activity //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">, //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">1 //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">(4), 209-229. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Takaki, R. (1993). Multiculturalism: Battleground or meeting ground? //Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science//, //530//, 109-121.

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