Local Matters

 Do the concepts explored in the reading resonate with you, from your experience as a student or from  your experience trying to support your students and the classroom community during your practicum? Reflect upon those resonances (or lack of resonances)

I absolutely resonate with the concepts explored in the reading, both as a student and as a teacher. As a student, I experienced and witnessed the prefiguring of students into broad divisions for ease of instruction and attention. Often, students sorted themselves, joining the table or lab station with others whom they felt most comfortable with (and thus typically most resembled as learners). There's a reason that the high school cafeteria clique is a mainstay of popular media. While I think that the best teachers see every student as an individual and work to both understand and incorporate their intersectional identities without reducing them, I have had many teachers who I know slotted me easily into the "eager beavers" sort of category. I don't outwardly reject the classification, I must admit, but any sort of summative categorization is reductive to the individual spirit.

With regards specifically to the paradigm of "Promising Girls/Unpromising Boys" discussed in the reading, I absolutely saw this mirrored in my own educational upbringing. Overwhelmingly, young women interacted more with teachers, asked more questions in class, and more frequently completed their homework. I think it is important to note that this paradigm is the result of a general trend, not just a fiction. Perhaps the terms promising and unpromising are false in their prescriptive nature, but it is certainly the case that young women are quickly socialized to be more agreeable and receptive to instruction than young men within the larger sociohistoric production structure of our schools. I appreciated the fact that the reading directly addressed this within the context of larger gender roles, as well as specific to Wortham's case study.

As a teacher myself, I do strive to avoid categorization of students, but it is undeniable that I have been guilty of it on occasion. Our brains are so wired to make groups, find patterns, and find cognitive shortcuts to interactions that I know I have and will likely continue to make assumptions about my students. However, I find that one useful practice in avoiding this pitfall is the process of mindfulness. Mindfulness is a discipline that I have practiced (if perhaps inconsistently) since I had the good fortune to attend a rather unconventional semi-private elementary school based in a yoga centre on Salt Spring Island. They placed a great focus on mindfulness and self-harmony, and I think that the act of slowing down so encouraged by mindfulness is the best way to avoid assumptions that we might hope to use as a cognitive shortcut.