lara mentorship

This week's entry topic is equity. Equity is when there is a mutual respect between the teacher and the student. The teacher listens to the needs of the students and feel good about lessons taught in classroom. The students must be engaged and participate in class. One way I believe we can promote equity is by having the teacher try to understand their students. When students notice that teacher is truly making an effort to understand and know the students they show respect to to him/her and may lead to lasting friendships after high school. The more the teacher knows about the student and the more the student knows about the teacher the more comfortable they will be in the classroom. Another way to promote equity in the classroom is to make sure the students aren't afraid to fail. If every student has a fear of failure then the classes environment will not be comfortable for them. Teachers must make their students comfortable with participating and answering questions even though they may not always be right. The most important thing that a student needs to know is that we must learn from our mistakes, not hide from them. Another way to promote equity is to have students embrace their culture. In her recent book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, Zaretta Hammond states that: "Culture, it turns out, is the way every brain makes sense of the world." If students embrace their culture they can use it to their advantage in the classroom in order to excel. Another way to promote equity is by making lessons interesting to the students in specific. We are now in the era of technology and that is ultimately what this generation is all about. If teachers continue to teach lessons in ways that bore students, then they will never want to engage themselves in what’s going on in the class. If the teacher finds new ways of teaching and goes out of their way to scope out interesting topics, the students will surely be more excited to learn and will look forward to class time. Finally, I believe that the student should look forward to going to class. The students need to feel comfortable and excited to go to class. This comes from how the teacher treats the students. Teachers should be positive and open to new ways of teaching. Also, the same respect teachers expect from students is expected from teachers. Students are much less likely to show respect to a teacher if the student is not also respected. Miss. DiTullio and I were discussing the topic of equity in the classroom and we both agree that without it, students would have no motivation in the classroom and education would not be a priority for students.