RITELL Conference Reflection

The 2014 theme of RITELL’s annual conference was “Culturally Responsive Curricula in STEM” which, admittedly, I thought was not going to be all that an exciting a topic for a history teacher. Cultural diversity was something I could apply to my classroom—after all, history is often accused of being a parade of dead Christian white men—but STEM fields are the areas of math and science, areas that I struggled with in high school and had no interest in revisiting. I thought I would be hopelessly out of my depth amid science and math experts.

Fortunately, that didn’t prove to be case. I attended two seminars—one on encouraging girls to go into STEM fields, and one on Extended Learning Opportunities in Central Falls High School. Of the two, I found the latter the most interesting, and the one I could potentially use in my time as a teacher. Extended Learning Opportunities allow students and teachers to come together to create an individual curriculum for the student based around their strengths. For example, if a student enjoyed gardening, they could join up with a teacher to create a school garden (as a group of students did). Others worked in robotics, safety, music, and theater. The ELO counts for a class credit, and allows the student to explore their interests in a school environment. Personally, I think this program is a fantastic idea, and I would like to see more school implement it—imagine, as a student, coming to school and working with an individual, trusted teacher on a project you designed and implemented. It helps students retain interest in school and makes that all-important “real life” connection that students are always asking about. Playing to the strengths of students is definitely something I want to take back into my classroom.

One thing I disliked about the presentation was a comment from the keynote speaker, Dr. Christopher Emdin. In his diatribe against traditional learning, he mentioned that those who failed at traditional learning—those who failed in high school classrooms and didn’t make it to college—were stronger than those who had. “We are the weaker ones!” He exclaimed, so loud that even I, sitting at the back of the crowd, could hear him clear. “We are weak because we fit into the system! Because we cannot break out of the mold!”

That’s not true, I found myself thinking, that’s not true. I didn’t make it through the educational system because I enjoyed it—there were plenty of times I considered just not doing an assignment, just failing a course I didn’t like, thinking “well what’s the worst that could happen?” if I failed. But I wouldn’t let myself. I couldn’t let myself. Anyone who says that those who succeed in school are weaker than those who fail is generalizing a whole group of people who succeeded for different reasons. Students who do well in the current system are not just a bunch of yes-men: they succeed for a variety of reasons, some personal, some external. It’s not right to dismiss a whole cavalcade of students as sheep any more than it is to dismiss a group of students as failures. As I said beforehand, I want to be able to play to the strengths of all my students—those who work well in a traditional environment, and those that do not.