What rights should be protected for students and teachers?

 Students and teachers have rights in schools which is something they might not know! I know that after going through this module, there was a lot of information I learned about the rights I had as a student in school that I was just unaware of. I think that schools try and do lots of controlling of their students and the way things are run. I think many situations get swept under the rug, and young students and even teachers are told that its not a big deal and brainwashed into thinking that they were the ones in the wrong. In some situations students and teachers rise up and take a stand for their rights and we have seen that with the Tinker vs. Des Moines (1969), Bong Hits for Jesus and even Safford vs. Redding. People win and people lose but in the end it was a fight for rights and it has helped shape our education system. 

As I watched the videos from the module and read the readings, I've learned there are many rights that students and teachers have that should be protected. When we take a look at the Amendments, its a great way to lay the foundation for rights and what we have as citizens. 

Some rights that should remain protected for students and teachers are that they cannot be searched without reasonable suspicion and they should maintain religious rights. Freedom of speech was crossed in the case for "Bong Hits for Jesus" even though the student felt that he was just expressing himself. This was an example where the student was on school grounds and promoting drug use, which in the end resulted in losing the court case. 

Students and teachers are the core of the education system and its important that they know their rights. If we can all strive to make the education world a better place for everyone then I think we will be taking steps in the right direction. 

-Kenzie Jones 

How Can Instruction be Differentiated for Diverse Learners?

 As a future teacher and current college student, this question has popped up in my mind many times. I took SPED last semester and it was such an intentionally designed course by the professor. She did an outstanding job of showing us what we as future teachers need to understand when it comes to special education and what we will face on day one. 

All students are learners and they all absorb information in different ways. As a future teacher, I always need to look for the growth and willingness to learn in the students. When it comes to intelligence there multiple intelligences that can help identify strengths and weaknesses. I think once this is identified in a group of students, they can be paired up with students who differ in learning. This could offer the students a chance to learn from students who think differently than them and who have differing viewpoints. This allows the students to come together and share their knowledge but it also creates an environment of allowing others to be heard. 

Diverse learners are in every classroom and it is important for teachers all across the world to recognize this. Teachers should not have a specific and tight nit game plan where every student is the exact same therefore the lesson plan is the same for every student. All students do not absorb information the same so it is crucial that teachers are flexible and aware of their students so that everyone has the chance to reach their full potential! 

--Kenzie Jones

How Does Gender Affect The Teaching Profession?

All teachers, men and women, have the same goal which is to positively affect the lives of their students and help instill knowledge in them to help them grow as learners. 

This unit I have dove into the topic of gender and education and how it affects many lives. Women who have become teachers in the past were dealt some pretty difficult cards as they had set rules they had to follow that seem very wild now a days. The page that Professor Meritt attached about the 1915 rules for women teachers blew my mind. "You may not dress in bright colors." "You may not under no circumstances dye your hair." Some of those rules just seem bizarre and I can definitely see how gender affected women teachers in that sense. 

In the podcast that was provided in this unit, the speakers talk about gender and how their is a sense of control. I see this with these rules. We are telling others what they can and can not do. Who they can and can not be. Teachers work so hard in a classroom for the betterment of their students and then when they finally have some freedom it is stripped from them. This is a way that I see gender affecting the teaching profession back then because I would love to see the rules they have for the men. 

When we talk about teaching today I think of how the teachers in the classrooms today are majority of women. The pay for teachers is not very big, so I see a correlation with how gender might affect the teaching profession. 

All I know is that for me, I want to impact lives and help students grow and become the best versions of themselves. If I have to work hard everyday to do that, then I will. 

-Kenzie Jones