Statement of Informed Beliefs 1

Statement of Informed Beliefs

Chali Minto

EDUC 220: Diversity in the Schools

Professor Bevin Etheridge

December 15, 2020

Statement of Informed Beliefs 2

Statement of Informed Beliefs

Being a teacher lets someone help teach the new generation who will take over the

businesses after the previous generation. It is a constant important cycle for these future and past

students. They learn based on where they are in the world and how they were raised in their

families and communities. Their social ecologies help them learn and make connections in the

classroom. Their social ecologies can help them meet the important teacher expectations. Culture

is a part of what the student is and their social ecology. These are some of the things that help

students in the classroom, and these are important things that I want to include in my classroom.

I always wanted to become a teacher to help the world, I want to change the world. I thought

teaching was the way.

All Students Can Learn

The student’s ability to learn all depends on their environment. A student’s home-life,

social-life, community, and even the classroom. The classroom should be a space where the

students could be themselves and have that safe space to rely on. I want that to be my classroom.

I think it is dependent on these factors; if a student does not have a good life then they will not

perform well in school. Students could be so distracted by the divorce that they are not doing

well in school. When parents are involved in the schooling of their child, it encourages the

student to want to have better grades and attitude than when the parents are not there.

According to Berns (2016), parenting styles and the type of community the students live

in affect how a student will learn in school. Parenting styles can encourage or discourage a

student from wanting to do well in school. A permissive and uninvolved parent lead to lower
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grades in school (Berns, 2016). The community style can affect the student whether it is a

positive environment or a negative one

As a teacher, there should be a way to help these students. A teacher should push aside

what parenting style a student has or where they come from to make sure they succeed. As a

teacher, I want to make sure my students succeed no matter the difficulty. A classroom can let a

student flourish or fail. I think it is up to the teacher whether the student truly flourishes or fails.

The teacher truly does influence whether a student will learn the information. If teachers do not

help students by making sure their classroom is an open space for their students or if the teacher

does not communicate then the students might not do as well as they should (Barile, n.d.).

I want to make my classroom a safe space. A safe space would be a place that the

students could just sit and calm down or be somewhere to let them feel the safety they need

(Kirsten, 2019). I believe every student has it in them to learn; it just depends on whether or not a

teacher can access it. I want to work with my students to help them understand what I am trying

to teach them. Just telling them the information and making sure they can memorize it does not

help a student. I would create activities to test what the students have learned and what they can

apply the knowledge to.

My classroom would be an open space for the students. I want them to be able to come

into my class judgement free and willing to learn. I think students learn better in an open

environment based on what I have researched and read. I would lead the classroom peacefully. I

do not want to be that strict teacher or that laid-back teacher. I want to be able to lead the

classroom with restrictiveness, but also ease.

Teacher’s Expectations
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Teacher expectations influence how the students learn because students reflect how their

teacher feels. Students trust the teacher to teach them useful information and when the teacher

has high expectations then the students will want to achieve those expectations. I want my

students to have that trusting bond with me and be able to know what my expectations are and

meet them. The Pygmalion effect is what is thought to be the reason behind students wanting to

achieve their teachers’ expectation. The Pygmalion effect is when higher expectations lead to

higher performance (Oppong, 2018). It is shown by science that high expectations lead to high

performance.

I think sometimes teachers may let their biases in education to keep them from teaching

students well. It has been shown that if teachers have negative expectations then the students will

not do as well (Gershenson, 2016). If a teacher cannot teach well then, the students will not learn

as well as they should have learned the information. Teachers are relied on to be able to teach the

students the information; teachers should have high expectations for all students in the

classroom.

The most popular study with this idea is the one by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore

Jacobson (1968); they gave students a random exam and told teachers which students would

excel in that school year. This study is interesting because the students they chose, at random,

had gained IQ points after that school year. (Chang, 2011). I can see that if the teachers had high

expectations for those students then they would do better in school. I do believe that the students

that were held to those expectations excelled because of the Pygmalion idea.

Goals are important all the way around; they help keep track of what you are doing and

encourage you to do more. Making goals help students break down their long-term achievements

and make them into smaller challenges to overcome. Creating goals will help students keep up
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with high expectations set for them. When they are trying to achieve teachers’ high expectations,

they could use goal setting to help meet these expectations and do the best they possibly could in

school. Goals would help make students more accountable for their educational endeavors.

Students would use these goals to achieve what they want when it comes to their education.

Teacher expectations help students progress their education because of the Pygmalion

idea; this theory was tested with a study to see how teachers would hold certain students to a

higher standard. Teachers can easily help a student or not based on these high expectations.

Teacher expectations can help students build goals and achieve these goals. Producing goals can

help students in educational life and after that in their personal lives.

Students’ Social Ecology

Connecting learning to a student’s social ecology will benefit them in the long run.

Making that connection would help the student with their life and it would benefit them in their

future. Families can easily affect the student’s learning based on their home life. Socialization

begins with the family, culture, and communities. What the student learns from these groups can

easily affect how they want to learn. As a teacher, I can use a student’s social ecology to help me

make the classroom a welcoming environment.

A student’s social ecology all begins with how they were raised and how it began for

them. They would learn social cues from their parents and peers; this is how a student starts

their social ecology. They begin by learning how to talk and how to act in a particular way from

being at home with their families. The student learns how to speak because of how their parents

may have talked to them when they were a baby to early childhood. The social ecology would

still be developing through that time. Then the students would learn how to act around their peers
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from being in their communities; the students’ culture would also influence how they would

build their social ecology. The family would raise the student to be who they are and what they

would do certain situations (Berns, 2016).

In the community, the student would be spending time with other people, possibly

outside of their family, and developing their social ecology more. The student could be learning

good or bad things from their community depending on where they are from. If they are from a

“bad” neighborhood, they could be changing their social ecology to adapt that situation and it

would be the same if they lived in a “good” neighborhood. The community would further change

the student’s social ecology, so they could adapt to that situation. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979)

bioecological theory of development is what inspired the Bioecological Model of Human

Development brings up how communities and parents affect a student’s learning (Berns, 2016).

This theory and model show how different things in a child’s life can affect them.

The teacher can use a student’s social ecology in the classroom. Basing curriculum

around the community could help them make connections in the class and help them excel.

These connections can help grow into meeting expectations of the teacher. Starting with the

students’ social ecology can lead to broaden understandings and let the students be more open to

ideas. Showing the students more than what they are used to can expand their social ecology.

Learning is something that a student needs to apply themselves to, but it may happen

without them realizing. A student can truly try their hardest or they can just look at the

information and still remember it. There are several different ways to facilitate learning, but it all

requires a student’s motivation (OECD, n.d.). Motivation is key for students to learn because it

requires them to apply themselves to the situation. Learning can be aided by different things like
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Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Gardner’s Theory can help create these lesson plans

to help the students learn the information given to them (Cerruti, 2013).

Social ecology is dependent on how the student was raised and what they were exposed

to. Their families, communities, and cultures all would influence the student’s social ecology.

Dependent on how the student’s social ecology is, it can help them in the learning process. In

conclusion, if the connection between learning and the student’s social ecology is made then they

can use the adaptability in life to all situations they may encounter with learning.

Cultural Diversity Instruction

I want to recognize the culture in the classroom I go into; I want to make sure all my

students have everything they need to succeed. A student’s success is extremely important to me

and I want them to succeed in life past my class. I plan to do research about my students’

background, and their history, to make sure my class is the best it can be. Culture-pluralism is

when a smaller culture keeps their key values when they are put into a larger population; this

could play into effect when students are in a larger school. Culture assimilation is when a person

or group starts to take attributes of cultures around them and they lose their own culture.

I plan on moving to Nevada and hopefully earning a position as an English teacher there,

and they have a diverse set of students. I want to investigate the kind of students I would be

looking at in Nevada, so I can tailor my lesson plans to those students. There are Hispanic,

White, African American, Multiracial, Asian, and a low percentage of Native Indian in Clark

County, Nevada (Niche). I would want to have a personalized learning plan for these students.

This is a diverse set of students in this area and I believe I could tailor a lesson plan to help each

of these students. It would be hard to tailor a lesson plan to an area I do not know yet; I could be
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changing my lesson plans the day after I meet the students and see who they are. I will not know

who these students are until I am there and able to teach them and hopefully help them. Clark

County Schools have experienced drops in attendance, and I do want to be that teacher that

makes the students want to come to school because of how I teach (Appleton, 2020).

My entire goal as a teacher is to help my students and help them succeed in life. I have

wanted to be a teacher because students can be so different, and I want to be a part of seeing how

students change and react to different things. I want my lesson plans to help these students in

their future and understand what information they need to know. I would still want to make sure

that my students are meeting the grade level benchmarks throughout the year. I want my

classroom to be a space these students can go to and know they are free of judgement. With how

the world is now, it is important for these students to feel welcomed and free of judgement, and I

want that for my students.

Culture-pluralism keeps people recognizing their original culture and who they

essentially are as a person. This is what a person identifies with and how they live their lives.

Culture assimilation is people believing they need to fit in and lose themselves in the process.

We could potentially lose cultures when culture assimilation happens because those people

within one culture are imitating another or becoming it (Skerry, 2000). With culture-pluralism, a

larger group is accepting a smaller group and includes them, and it potentially can create a new

culture because the larger group is expanding in diversity.

Culture-pluralism is good because a culture is being accepted as they are instead of

culture assimilation. Culture assimilation is potentially getting rid of another culture because one

is becoming so much like the other. As a teacher, I want to welcome culture pluralism in my

classroom. I plan to create a safe environment for all my students, and I want to keep it that way.
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In Nevada, there is a diverse student population and I want to recognize that diversity and

welcome it. In conclusion, I will change my lesson plans or do anything I can to make students

feel welcomed and help their education.

Curriculum for All Learners

I plan on adjusting my planning, delivery, and assessment depending on the class I am

teaching. I want to make sure my students are learning, so I would change whatever I needed to

for my students to learn the material needed. Assessment done by the teacher can inform them

how the students are understanding the information and if planning and delivery need an

adjustment done. I would want to give my students a base assessment to see where they are once,

they enter my classroom and then at the end of the year or at the end of the semester, I would

give them the same test to see where they scored. I would want to use Gardner’s Theory of

Multiple Intelligences in my planning and delivery method because it is recommended for

classrooms (Cerruti, 2013)

I want to set up planning, delivery, and assessment methods before I enter the classroom.

I am willing to change up my plan or delivery method for the students. I would work on

changing one thing at a time to see what the issue is; I would most likely start with the planning

of the assignment to see if it made sense. I would then want to adjust my delivery and see if I

was confusing something for the students or if I did not deliver the information in the correct

way. If I were showing information in a PowerPoint and the students were not understanding it, I

would try to switch to physical copies or match up activity depending on what we were doing. If

it was a grammar activity, then I would set up an assignment that involved songs or phrases they

say and have them correct them. At the beginning of the year, I would want to give the students

an assessment that would cover the year and some type of past materials to see what they know
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and what they could potentially learn. I would want to give them the same test throughout the

year along with exit tickets that would cover past information that has been taught to them. I

would want to be interactive with my students to make sure that they did understand the

information in the end (Cox, 2015).

The planning and delivery are the most important for a teacher. This is what teaches the

students the information and it shows if they understood the information given. There has not

been total discovery of whether there is a connection between the two, but they are still

important to the teacher (Dorovolomo, 2010). The assessment a teacher gives informs the

planning and delivery because that is the way to tell if students truly understood the information

or not. Students should do well on an assessment if they were paying attention and understood

the information. Any type of assessment from an exit ticket to quizzes would tell a teacher

whether their students understood the information or not.

My goal as a teacher is to help my students gain knowledge and aide them to be better

people and look to their future. That is why I would change my planning, delivery, and

assessment methods to match the students’ needs in my classroom. I would want to give a base

assessment to see what the students know before and after the year. These assessments, as a

teacher, will help me understand if my planning and delivery method need adjusted to help the

students. I want to create learners in my classroom from my planning, delivery, and assessment

methods.

All of these subjects mentioned are important in the classroom. These are what make up a

classroom full of students and this is what is needed. All the components mentioned are what I

want in my future classroom. In conclusion, I want to implement these ideas in my classroom

and help change the world through my classroom.

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References

Appleton, A. (2020, October 8). Clark County Schools' White Students Left in Greatest

Numbers. In Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved from

https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/education/clark-county-schools-white-students-left-

in-greatest-numbers-2143600/

Barile, N. (n.d.). 8 Classroom Management Mistakes Teachers Make at the Beginning of the

Year. In Hey Teach!. Retrieved from https://www.wgu.edu/heyteach/article/8-classroom-

management-mistakes-teachers-make-beginning-year1808.html

Berns, R. M. (2016). Child, Family, School, Community Socialization and Support (10th ed., pp.

254-255). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Cerruti, C. (2013, December). In Building a Functional Multiple Intelligences to Advance

Educational Neuroscience. Retrieved from

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00950/full%E2%80%8B

Cox, J. (2015, September 22). 5 Essential Teaching Strategies to Deliver an Effective Lesson. In

Teach Hub.com. Retrieved from https://www.teachhub.com/teaching-

strategies/2015/09/5-essential-teaching-strategies-to-deliver-an-effective-lesson/

Dorovolomo, J., Phan, H. P., & Maebuta, J. (2010, January). The International Journal of

Learning. In Research Gate. Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287061517_Quality_lesson_planning_and_qual

ity_delivery_Do_they_relate
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Kirsten. (2019, June 9). Why Every Classroom Needs a Safe Space for Students. In Kirsten's

Kaboodle. Retrieved from https://www.kirstenskaboodle.com/why-every-classroom-

needs-a-safe-space-for-students/#:~:text=Having%20a%20safe%20space%20allows,and

%20teach%20healthy%20life%20skills.

Niche. (n.d.). In Clark County School District. Retrieved from

https://www.niche.com/k12/d/clark-county-school-district-nv/students/

OECD. (n.d.). The Nature of Learning Using Research to Inspire Practice. Retrieved from

http://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/50300814.pdf

Oppong, T. (2018, August 1). Pygmalion Effect: How Expectation Shape Behavior for Better or

Worse. Retrieved from https://thomas-oppong.medium.com/pygmalion-effect-how-

expectation-shape-behaviour-for-better-or-worse-11e7e8fa7f4b

Papageorge, N., & Gershenson, S. (2016, September 16). Do teacher expectations matter?. In

Brookings. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-

chalkboard/2016/09/16/do-teacher-expectations-matter/

Skerry, P. (2000, March 1). Do We Really Want Immigrants to Assimilate?. In Brookings.

Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/articles/do-we-really-want-immigrants-to-

assimilate/