Project #4 C4T #3

Hello Mr. Vilson! My name is Santana Mullins, and I'm a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I will be summarizing my visits to your blog with a post to my blog on April 9, 2015. My blog URL is http://www.mullinssantanaedm310.blogspot.com and our class blog is http://www.edm310.blogspot.com if you would like to check them out. I want to start off by saying compelling post. I loved when you said "we shouldn't be preparing to teach content or the students we imagine might be there, but rather the students in front of us". That's good! I know that will definitely stick with me as a future educator. I concur that building a relationship with students, as a teacher, is key. We can be friendly with students, but building a relationship that is caring and has patience and understanding is much more important. We have to create an environment where there is balance and boundaries to the teacher/student relationship.

The teacher's blog post I read and commented on was Jose Vilson. In his blog post Empowering Educator Through Cultural Competence. He talks about how we all come from different backgrounds, and how we need to be more open to learning about different students and their backgrounds. In order to be able to understand different aspects of different cultures, we must build a relationship with students. Jose then begins to talk about the teacher/student relationship and how it can be testy. Testy as far as trying to determine how to be "friendly" to students, but not necessarily their friends. Teachers need to build relationships with students as their TEACHER first. Teachers need to have an environment that is fair, so students can see they are all equal. Because they see enough of inequality outside of the classroom. In order to have this type of environment, teachers must build great relationship with their students both individually and collectively.

This a very well written post. In a way, I am kind of torn. I know cheating is wrong, and I do not condone it at all, but on the other hand I understand why some teachers, like these teachers in Atlanta, would think they had to cheat. I agree policy makers have set somewhat impossible goals when it comes to these standardized tests. And when some teachers know there is no way their students can reach those goals and the consequences of not reaching those goals, things like this scandal happen. Yes, teachers have accountability when it comes to their students and making sure they learn the state's common cores, but let's not raise goals so high that we set them up to fail or in this case cheat. I read a quote in the New York Times from one of the indicted teachers that said "I truly believed that I was helping these children stay in school just one more year." While I do not know this specific teacher's heart, I can understand why she would feel this way.

I once again commented on a post form Jose Vilson. The post is entitled Recruiting Educators Color in the Time of Race to the Top. It is a very well written article that will have you really think about where education is and where it's heading. It talks about the 11 educators from Atlanta who were found guilty of cheating by changing their student's test scores. Their reasoning for this is because they were instructed by the principal and because they wanted to keep their school afloat. I don't condone cheating and neither does Jose, but he writes things within the article that makes you look at both sides. I personally do not look at it as a race thing because things like this happen everywhere, but I understand why Jose wrote it. I agree with him that teachers do have some accountability for students and their results, but lets not make goals so unattainable that we set them both to fail.