Ayers

I want to start this post by saying I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about reading a graphic novel textbook, however, I was pleasantly surprised.  Ayers did very well in portraying his point with both words and pictures and was able to keep me engaged throughout. While there are many points that Ayers talks about that I strongly agree with, there were a few moments that stuck out to me while reading.  The first of which is how students are labeled in classrooms. Being a math teacher, I am constantly looking at student data and creating ways to move students out of ‘intervention’ levels based on some high-stakes test that tells me nothing about the student taking the test.  These labels “lower our sights, misdirects our vision, suppresses possibility,” (Ayers 18) while also potentially affecting the students view of themselves as Ayers showed with the boy's change of his self-portrait after he got a note sent home (Ayers 30). On page 20, Ayers says “focusing on what I can’t do diminishes hope and limits possibilities.  It pays no attention to what I can do.” This statement really hit home with me, because within the classroom we are constantly looking at how we can improve our students, without taking the time for celebrating what they have already done.

Leading to my next point of creating an environment for learning.  I know I spend a lot of time preparing my classroom for not only my students but for myself too.  When students walk in, I want them to feel welcomed and safe in my classroom. This is achieved by having students consistently working collaboratively, offering flexible seating options and by giving students a voice within the classroom, “I want to build spaces where the insistently social nature of learning is honored, where knowledge and power are shared and not hoarded,” (Ayers 44).  Ayers makes a few powerful “I want to” statements but this particular one stood out to me because of the social aspect of it. If you were to walk into my room, it is rarely ever quiet because I am always encouraging my students to collaborate and ask questions to enhance their learning which Ayers encourages throughout the comic.

In chapter four, Ayers brings up a conversation that happened involving racial tension. Ayers talks about how these conversations will happen, but we need to embrace them and allow them to happen. Teachers are creating safe spaces for students and in doing so we are encouraging students to discuss and acknowledge these uncomfortable topics. As we have read in Johnson, in order for change to happen we need to first talk about it.