After starting my Master's program at Michigan State, I traveled to India in December. I was originally specializing in Autism Spectrum Disorder, after connecting very well with students who had ASD. I had a natural connection with them and I liked learning how to live in their world so they didn't constantly have to spend energy learning to live in mine. When I traveled to India for a family wedding, I met a cousin of my husband who had a son on the spectrum and who was non-verbal. They are amazing parents and had him in speech therapy, physical therapy, and more. They asked me if their son had ASD because they chose not to live with their parents and so he wasn't socialized as much as other kids might be. I was horrified that they had been worried that they had somehow caused their son's ASD for the last six years.
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My first year of teaching I had one Indian student in the class. I was secretly hoping that his family was from the same region as my husband so that we could speak Telugu together. I asked my student what language his parents spoke. He looked at me and told me that his parents spoke "Indian". I told him, Indian is not a language, go ask your parents what they speak. The next day, he comes in very proud and tells me his parents speak "Hindu". I told him that's a religion not a language, go ask your parents what they speak. Finally, he learns that his parents speak Punjabi. By the end of the year, he was giving full presentations about his culture and he came to me and said he is so proud to be Indian and he learned a lot because I gave him the opportunity to learn about his family.
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I don't have a profound "lightbulb moment" for this goal, but I really love inquiry-based teaching. I recently took part in the C3 Collaborative, a group of teachers and administrators from across many districts, and we spent the year meeting in important monuments around Michigan to learn how to build social studies around the Inquiry Design Model. I know that I have so much more to learn from this. If I can, I would love to take part in more professional development that teaches about inquiry-based teaching. For now, I have several books that I plan to dissect and expand my thinking. The first that I recommend is the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History. The C3 Collaborative is also taking Michigan teachers to build several units around this method of teaching. I would love to be on the team that creates units on cultural awareness.
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