Education Course Reflection Partnering w/the Adolescent Learner

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"Consider this a manual for how to begin that brilliantly messy work "  

Cornelius Minor
 We Got This

Messy is an amazing word to describe middle schoolers. Messy conjures up images of stress and discontinuity, but it's so much more. Mess is what happens after 2 toddlers get into the costume bin and burst with creativity. Mess is what happens when I make my Aunt Mary Ellen's apple- custard pie. Mess is what happens when dogs and kids come inside after splashing in mud puddles, taking delight in something that adults find a nuisance. I came into this course stressed out by the mess, but now I've learned to love it.


My philosophy for teaching adolescents centers around making an inclusive environment that has specific functions that are tailored to each individual student. When we did the focus student part of our lesson plan I learned how much you can impact a student just by altering one tiny thing that may have been relevant to the rest of the class. Being asked to sit down with a list of equity concerns was extremely helpful to me after I had written the procedure for my first lesson plan. I will bring the lessons in constant self critique and revision with me to my future classes. 


 With universal design, we can fly in the face of tradition and ask why not? Why couldn't the boy Minor speaks about do his assignment in a location that better suited him? Why can't all students have access to deadline extensions, and brain and body breaks? It's hard to stand up for students all the time with how politicized teaching has become. Just recently Vermont has been passing legislation that negatively impacts teacher's requirements. The easy, and in all reality safe thing to do would be to keep our heads down and do as we are told and complain to each other in the coffee room but go silent when admin walks in.  


Furthermore, our students deserve an environment that is asset based. They deserve to have a teacher, and a willingness on whomever job it is to set the curriculum, that listens to their concerns. An amazing example of this is a conversation that Life (I forget his last name) had with the staff I work with wherein he pressured them on why couldn't "redneck" culture have a space in school. What is so inheritantly wrong with this culture that we have been programmed to think that we need to program it out of schools. Why can't science do a fun unit that somehow incorporates learning about how to track different animals, or why can't math do more with real world infrastructure related problems. 


The role of a teacher in a secondary learner centered classroom is to be willing to stand up for the students, and advocate for their needs as learners and as people. Inclusivity will not come passively, change is made by those who put in the work. As Cornelius Minor's grandmother said, "Pray with your feet". 



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