Start Seeing Diversity: Creating Art

 Being an Educator

A Poem 

Heather Beard Rand

Being an educator means many things

It means seeing yourself

It means seeing your students

Learning is never done

For your students or yourself

It means seeing trauma and approaching it

Coming to terms with differences

Knowing that your students depend on you

Knowing that you can make a difference

Differences do not make you 

Differences do not make your students

Differences make us different

Being an educator is conquering your fears

Being an educator is being you so your students can be them

I chose to write a poem this week because it is a simple form of art that gets the point across.  I love that art has the opportunity to be diverse.  We are all of one world, but we all can continue learning.  The wonderful part about being an educator in a diverse society is having the opportunity to learn each and every day.  

6357 Week 6 Blog: We don't say those words in class!

 There are a couple of times that I can think of where a child was reprimanded by an adult when they said something about someone else.

The first that I immediately think of is when I was interning in a kindergarten class.  We went on a field trip to a local high school to see a children's play.  As we were leaving "characters" greeted students at the door and answered questions about the show.  There was one young girl who had severe acne.  One of my students pointed and said very loudly "why is her face so red and bumpy!"  My mentor teacher immediately scolded him saying that we should not point or yell things at people even though they look different.  However, the young lady was not embarrassed at all.  She stopped and said "It's okay, this is acne, it's something that causes bumps on my face.  It happened when I became a teenager, but it doesn't bother me."   I appreciated that she didn't get upset and even answered my student's question.

Another thing I can think of is about my friend Nathan.  A few years ago he lost his arm from the elbow down, in an accident at his job.  When my husband and I were face timing him our godson asked why his arm looked like that.  My husband was telling my godson that we don't ask things like that.  Nathan was more than willing to tell my godson about his "nub" as he lovingly calls it.  If something like this were to happen again I would like my godson to have the opportunity to talk to Nathan about it.  It happened because of an accident, and even though he looks a little different because of it, he still does everything that we do with two arms, just in a different way.