Insights from My Experiences As an Education Minor

INSIGHTS FROM MY EXPERIENCES AS AN EDUCATION MINOR

Insights FromMy Experiences as an Education Minor

Isabel Bingham

Cornell University

MY JOURNEY AS AN EDUCATION MINOR AT CORNELL

The education minor has become a defining feature of my Cornell experience. Exposureto a range of coursework, pedagogical theory, and fieldwork opportunities has allowed me to reflect on the purpose of education and what it means to be an educator. My specific interests have centered around student disabilities—including special education and mental health. The education minor has provided unique hands-on experiences in schools that have shaped my personal beliefs on how education should support children. The diversity of experiences I have been exposed tohas altered my worldview. Most importantly, the education minor has encouraged me to grow as a person as I have challenged, reflected on, and deconstructed issues of outreach, culture, race, and identity. I am grateful for this transformative experience and hope to apply the understanding it has afforded me to a future career in clinical child psychology.

Through my experiences, I have developed three key areas of insight that I will explore in this capstone. The first is that teachers are learners themselves and are constantly gaining insight from their students to inform their practices. The second isthat education extends beyond academics to support student development. Finally, I believe that school is not an isolated environment as the students are shaped by the experiences of many different contexts which influence their ability to learn.

TEACHERS AS LEARNERS

Teaching is an active process of learning. To evolve as educators, teachers must recognize their role as students. Students bring a vast amount of their own knowledge in to the classroom that can challenge teachers’ preconceptions. Through my experienceas a tutor in EDUC 1140 Education Beyond the Ivory Tower, I have come to believe that knowledge in the classroom is co-constructed as teachers should constantly assess and adjust their practices to support their students’ learning.

One of the missions of Education Beyond the Ivory Tower is to explore the purpose of education through service learning as a tutor in an afterschool writing program at Boynton Middle School. Writing Class is an an afterschool program developed by Evelyn Brazeau, a special educator at Boynton, that aims to provide extra help to middle school students who are struggling with reading and writing in school. As a tutor in Writing Class, I have learned not only how to help students develop reading and writing skills, but how to make education more accessible, and most importantly, how to teach.

During the semester, I worked with Kylee—a 6th grade girl who struggles on measures of grade-level literacy. To inform my pedagogy, IaskedKylee to create a list of goals that she hoped to achieve through Writing Class. Identifying Kylee’s goals allowed me to better understand how I could support her learning byfocusing on the development of specific skills.By observing Kylee, I saw that reading and writing were difficult—even stressful—for her. Moreover, her struggles with language caused anxiety and avoidance around reading and writing at school. Specifically, Kylee’slack of confidence in her abilities to read and write and anxiety over presenting to audiences caused her to perform poorly in Language Arts which contributed to a sense of failure.

I entered my work with Kylee believing that my instruction would focus on building competency in literacy skills such as sounding out words, spelling, structuring sentences, and constructing paragraphs. However, my pedagogy adapted to foster a positive self-concept to increase motivation, engagement with material, and confidence in presenting. Specifically, I emphasized positive reinforcement and building rapport in my interactions with Kylee. Through weekly journal reflections I was able to reflect on how I could alter my instruction to develop a close, trusting relationship with Kylee so that she felt comfortable confronting her problems during Writing Class. In turn, Kylee taught me that teaching constantly evolves to support students’ unique challenges. Importantly, I learned that the knowledge in the classroom extends beyond academic skills and teachers should reflect on how to support learning throughevaluation of their effectiveness, adjustment of their practices, and recognition of all areas of student development. Ultimately, I was encouraged to challenge my preconceptions about instruction and embrace teaching as an evolving process informed by student interactions.

However, Kylee’s greatest obstacle to learning was not her academic difficulties but her home life. In the middle of the semester, Kylee’s family was evicted from their home and was forced to move between shelters and staying with friends. Her unstable household took Kylee away from school and preoccupied her thoughts. As she was absent from Writing Class for many weeks, she could not get as much support from the program as she needed and fell behind on our project. This transformed my role to become a mentor to Kylee who began to see me like a big sister to her. Before beginning our work, I would allow Kylee to express her emotions about her personal life. My experience with Kylee proved the importance of emotional skills in learning and school success and conveyed my next key insight: that education should extend beyond academics to support the development of all students.

EDUCATION EXTENDS BEYOND ACADEMICS

My coursework in Education Beyond the Ivory Tower explored the purpose of the American public education system. One question that particularly resonated with me was: if education is to “give each student an equal chance in life” as Horace Mann proposed, then how can schooling become reachable to children who do not reflect the academic norms? I believe that special education rests at the center of this debate. My participation in inclusive classrooms has sought to help students with disabilities access education in their schools. Instead of dismissing these students as incapable due to learning, social, or behavioral deficits, inclusive education aims to help all children, regardless of abilities and challenges, learn together in the same classrooms and schools.

In the 2016 fall semester, I had the opportunity to work as a teacher’s assistant in Sharon Cieferri’s pre-K classroom at Enfield Elementary School through the Art of Teaching. On my first day of fieldwork, Sharonspoke of the adversity her students faced in school as children from poverty-line families. As her students often received insufficient care or little nurturance at home, the teachers’ work in the classroom was critical for developing skills to support future school success.

During our introduction, Sharon described her classroom as one of the toughest she has taught in her twenty-seven years in elementary school education as her students demonstrated large deficits in academic and socioemotional learning (SEL) skills necessary for kindergarten readiness. Additionally,she relayed that this year’s class was remarkably challenging as over half of her students had Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) requiring specialized assistance in school.As I learned, an IEP allows parents and professionals to provide children with additional resources in school to build their skills in critical areas in which they are behind the developmental curve. Specialized professional instruction may be in speech, interpersonal skills, listening, social, or academic areas. Notably, Sharon emphasized that at the pre-K level, the development of non-cognitive and SEL skills is especially pertinent in school.

In a This American Life podcast assigned in the Art of Teaching, economist James Heckmandefines the non-cognitive skills in child development as qualities such as self-regulation, ability to delay gratification, impulse control, temper maintenance, and resilience which predict later school success (Glass, 2012). His research proposes that adverse childhood experiences that cause stress, such as poverty, prevent children from developing non-cognitive skills. As Sharon echoed, the lack of nurturance the children in her class receive at home acts as an early life stressor that inhibits their development of these foundational non-cognitive skills. However, Heckman importantly asserts that non-cognitive skills can be taught to students in classrooms through instruction and intervention programs. As a teacher’s assistant, my role in the classroom focused on supporting students’ development of age appropriate behavioral and emotional regulation skills necessary for successful classroom participation. Specifically, I provided students who required greater assistance to behave, listen, and follow directions in the classroom.

At the beginning of the school year, Lily struggled with self-regulation. Her ability to participate in classroom activities was disrupted as could not sit still or follow instructions. Additionally, Lily’s disruptive behaviors impacted her social relationships as she struggled with emotional regulation. During the semester, I worked individually with Lily to shape her classroom behaviors through positive reinforcement. Specifically, during recess and class activities, I would reward her productive behaviors with praise while intentionally ignoring her disruptions. As Lily responded to praise, she began to adopt more age-appropriate classroom behaviors and began to flourish socially and academically. It was evident how much more Lily enjoyed school as she could participate more in activities and formed close relationships to peers. It was through the development of non-cognitive skills, such as self-regulation, that Lily transformed as a student.

My greatest lesson from this experience was that education extends beyond academics. Sharon’s classroom was a unique learning environment as many children came from families that lacked the additional resources to supplement their learning or address their learning disabilities. As she explained, “many of these children do not get a lot of nurturance at home and their only way to learn skills is in school.” Thus, I came to appreciate firsthand how critical early education is for closing future learning gaps and how IEPs can influence the developmental trajectory in a child’s life. Specifically, I gained insight in to the importance of non-cognitive skills, such as SEL,development for at-risk and low-income students to support later school success.Beyond school success, Heckman claimed that non-cognitive skills equipped children with the tools they need to break the cycle of poverty (Glass, 2012). As I witnessed in Sharon’s pre-K class, dedicated educators acknowledge the importance of and are dedicated to fostering non-cognitive skills in school to support student’s academic trajectory.

SCHOOL IS NOT AN ISOLATED ENVIRONMENT

My experiences in teaching have demonstrated how students’ contexts are deeply intertwined. Each student is shaped by their experiences across their unique set contexts such as economic, cultural, racial, personal, academic, social, religious, etc. Importantly, students’ contexts cannot be distinguished from school and thus, pervade their interactions with teachers, peers, and curriculum to mold their learning.The curriculum in EDUC 3405 Multicultural Issues in Education has encouraged me to re-conceptualize school as a context embedded within our social framework rather than an isolated environment.

Therefore, I have come to believe that education should aim to reflect a diversity of experiences to recognize all students. In A Talk to Teachers, James Baldwin (1968) asserts, “the whole process of education occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society” (p. 4). Multicultural Issues in Education has allowed me to reflect on the social framework that encompasses American public education. In particular, I have been encouraged to challenge social norms that privilege some students while marginalizing the experiences of others. In examining the history of American public education, I have learned that the social framework has been built around an upper-class, white standard. As my experiences have shown me, important early educational opportunities and resources are disproportionately afforded to students of higher socio-economic families, which places students from lower income families at a disadvantage in school. Still many teachers are blind to the extent that learning reflects a social framework and ignore the complexity students’ experiences at school.

Often, the failure to recognize the complexity of the social framework that education is embedded in leads teachers to blame students for their school failure. Teacher-educator Gloria Ladson-Billings (2006) asserts:

We lack complex understandings of how individual, family, community, school, and societal factors interact to create school failure for some students. It is much easier to explain students’ failure by looking at something internal to the students than endemic in this thing we call school culture” (106).

Her claim proposes that disregarding the socio-cultural interactions of students’ experiences with their educational environment causes educators to be blind to the structures that can encourage or hinder their ability to achieve in school.

As a tutor at Boynton Middle School, I witnessed the importance of incorporating student contexts in pedagogy. My middle school partner Kylee experienced many personal obstacles throughout this year that impacted her ability to learn in school. Many days Kylee was distracted, hungry, tired, feeling misunderstood, faced with the idea of moving, grappling with the loss of her cousin, or bullied by peers which prevented her from engaging with school projects. As her family shuffled between houses, friends, and shelters, the turbulence at home caused her to miss classes which made it harder to access educational opportunities in her environment. However, the greatest barrier Kylee experienced in accessing education during this period was the feeling of being misunderstood by her teachers. Many of Kylee’s teachers misinterpreted her demeanor as rejecting their instruction, which resulted in unfair and critical treatment. As a result, Kylee felt misunderstood and victimized for aspects of her life outside school which fostered a sense that she could not participate in class as she could not identify with the material.

My relationship with Kylee conveyed the power students’ backgrounds can have on their ability to accesseducation in school. As Kylee’s teachers failed to recognize the interaction of her experiences in other contexts with school, they blamed her for her academic failures rather than considering how the school environment could better support her ability to learn.Acknowledging this, over the course of the semester I was able to encourage Kylee to embrace writing after developing rapport.

IMPLICATIONS

As I hope to pursue a career working closely with children as a child psychologist, the knowledge that I have gained from these three key areas of insight will support my development as a clinician. My experiences in the education minor have conveyed the importance of acknowledging my position as a learner which I hope to continue practicing in child psychology. The recognition that teachers are also learners can be applied in clinical work as I will continuously aim to learn from my patients and adjust my therapeutic practice to meet their unique needs. My experience as a Child Mind Institute Clinical Summer Intern echoed the conviction that educators should continuously reflect on their practice to support children’s development by evaluating their effectiveness, adjusting their practices, and recognizing the importance of all areas of a child’s development. As each child I worked with presented different problems, I sought to adapt my approach to fit their unique needs. This required continuous evaluation of, reflection on, and adaption of my skills to match the progress of my patients. As a therapist, I will adopt the exercise of writing weekly reflection journals to inform my practice. Recording journals allowed me to reflect on my relationship with Kylee and identify areas for development. Similarly, I will record observations and notes for each patient so that I can better learn from them and personalize my clinical approach.

Additionally, my experience as Writing Class tutor for Kylee at Boynton Middle School taught me demonstrating a willingness to learn from students fosters mutual respect between teachers and students for each other’s knowledge whichhelps to promote children’s positive self-concepts about their ability to achieve in school. I hope to apply this in clinical practice as therapy is grounded in mutual respect between therapist and patient. By demonstrating that I value my patient’s knowledge and am willing to learn from them to meet their needs, I hope to create mutual trust in our relationships that will give them the confidence to work through their problems with me.

The belief that education extends beyond academicsplaces value on children’s development of non-cognitive skills. My experience in Sharon Cieferri’s pre-K classroom at Enfield Elementary introduced me to the idea that social-emotional learning is equally as pertinent to school success as mastering academic material. I hope to similarly support the development of non-cognitive skills in therapeutic practice. As I learned that fostering non-cognitive skills such as self-regulation, ability to delay gratification, impulse control, temper maintenance, and resilience as well as supporting social-emotional learning skills such as age appropriate behaviors and emotional regulation through teacher instruction can help children’s ability to succeed in life, I will aim to utilize these practices in my relationships with patients. As Heckman’s research found that teaching students these non-cognitive skills can provide them with the tools to overcome adversities such as poverty, I hope to support the development of my patient’s non-cognitive skills so that they can face difficulties in their own experiences.

Finally, the perception that school is not an isolated environment has enabled me to recognize the interconnectedness of children’s different life contexts. The appreciation of the sociocultural framework that contributes to a child’s ability to succeed in their environment has been informed through my experiences working alongside Kylee this year as challenges in her personal life impacted her capacity to perform at school. As each child that I work with will have a unique set of experiences shaped by their different social contexts, recognizing their combined influences on functioning will inform how I engage them in therapy. As I learned this year, each student arrives at school shaped by the unique experiences they have across the different contexts of their life such as cultural, racial, economic, personal, social, religious, and many more. The awareness of social norms and structural inequalities that may hinder a child’s ability to succeed in their environment will help me to better understand their life experiences. I hope to integrate this knowledge into my practice in order to build strong therapeutic relationships with children.