Sarah Kristiansen SED 445

This Nate Bowling article was one of the first articles I came across this semester. It was extremely uncomfortable reading it, uncomfortable with the idea that someone--a teacher no less--would tell me that America doesn't care what happens to black students. OF COURSE I CARE! I felt immediately defensive but kept reading. One of the speakers at a conference I recently attended spoke about striving for equity and social justice in the classroom and started the conversation by saying that we would be discussing things that made us uncomfortable, and she wanted us to lean into that discomfort. Bowling makes his feelings very clear: segregation is alive and well in the U.S. and the white community is totally okay with it. Once more, my immediate internal response was to feel defensive. I reminded myself of something I often tell my own kids, that just because it isn't an issue in YOUR life doesn't mean it isn't the most important issue in someone else's. Lean in. ...

I have spent the last two Saturdays at education conferences, the Blended and Personalized Learning Conference at the Rhode Island Convention Center and the Rhode Island Writing Project Spring Conference at Roger Williams University. Blended Learning Conference The BPLC was huge. Walking into the registration area, surrounded by the vendors who had set up in the hallway, showing the new technologies to make teaching and learning more streamlined and effective, it felt more like a tech conference than a teaching conference! I went to five breakout sessions and sat through an inspiring keynote address at lunch. I learned about personalized learning, about project-based learning, tools to gather data. But for me, the most rewarding session was the first one I attended that day. Hosted by LeeAndra Kahn, it was called "Infusing Equity and Cultural Relevance in our Learning Environments." She told us to "lean into the discomfort" that inevitably comes with convers...