Who? Me?

 In creating my word cloud I wanted to pick words that I feel could stand on their own, or serve as a jump-off point for someone's further research. For example, I think that most of the module can be summed up with the ideas of community and empathy, as these serve as the basis of culturally-responsive teaching. Other words and phrases such as decolonize teaching practices can serve as a starting point to lead to more research. A simple google search of the term reveals a wealth of information in the form of articles, videos, books, and presentations. I think this shows something I think is really important when it comes to teaching and teaching practices, while it is nice to have resources given to us, we have to take it upon ourselves to continually search out this information. In past assignments, I have advocated for following teachers on social media who discuss these issues regularly, I would like to do that again today. Finding even one person on one social media who advoca...

 We've all faced that dreaded moment: your week has just sucked, you've worked way more than usual, you have 2 tests and a paper due, and it's 11 pm. You're opening up canvas to send your professor a plea for an extension, and you have to decide just how much detail you want to include, do you simply ask for the extra time, or do you tell them about just how overwhelmed you are? We all live busy, complicated lives in which school is only a part. While many of our students won't be dealing with the 'adult problems' we do, we have to remember that they live entire lives outside of our classrooms.  The truth is we will never know the full picture of what's going on in our students' lives, and that's ok. Students could be experiencing mental illness, abuse, divorce, or food insecurity. The student who's falling asleep in your class could be trying to get through the day after helping their parents with their siblings so the parents can work, or t...

 How do we talk about the issues that matter?  I used to work for an organization that placed a very high level of importance on diversity, equity, and inclusion. One of the most helpful things I learned while employed there was the importance of vocabulary and having a common understanding when discussing topics such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, etc.  Here's a quiz: what's the difference between nationality, race, and ethnicity?  You might use some of these words interchangeably or not at all.  Here's the answer:  Race: the definition of race is tricky, and not truly agreed upon. We can say that it's based on where your ancestors originated or based on the color of your skin.   Nationality: nationality is what is on your theoretical passport, think about where you were born or where you have citizenship.  Ethnicity: more so than anything else ethnicity is a cultural identity, your ethnicity can overlap with your race, language, r...

      I once spent a semester tracing my family's history of schooling to make a zine, at the risk of self-plagiarism I'll attach a copy for you to peruse. My family has a complicated (but rather short) history with school, my great-grandfather dropped out of the second grade, his son finished high school and eventually college, and my dad now has a bachelor's and master's degree. Despite what were likely learning difficulties my grandfather was able to attend school and go and radically change the course of his children and grandchildren's lives. Thanks to the public school system in Eastern Kentucky (and him faking being drafted but that's not what's important here), my grandfather was able to send his son to school eventually culminating in my dad obtaining a degree in engineering. In only a generation the level of education in my family increased from my great-grandfather not being able to read and write to my dad designing bridges and other public infra...

  Why?           I receive more pushback than I anticipate sometimes when I tell people I want to teach science, I expect to get the typical ‘oh my aunt taught history’ or ‘I hated my high school science teacher' (if you know how to respond to those let me know because I don't), but every once and a while I’ll get someone asking why . Why science? To me, it's obvious. I’ve lived my entire life in a world that not only likes to ignore scientific facts but actively pushes disinformation to the spotlight. I think living through a pandemic has made me realize this even more, the amount of wrong information passed around without so much as a google search to double-check its accuracy is the most frustrating thing I've ever witnessed.      I think this distrust and ignorance of science starts at an early age and can be influenced by having people in your life that appreciate and understand science and scientific thinking. I had my life fundam...

 About Me      Hi, I'm Mallory, I use she series pronouns, and it's my second semester at Texas State! If you ask me what year I am in school I will reply with a long groan, basically, I'm 23 and I'm doing my best. Before being at Texas State I attended Colorado State University transferring here in the Fall of 2021, I am currently a dual major in biology and education, with the hopes of becoming a high school science teacher. While I claim San Antonio as my hometown I could also claim a small town in Indiana or a medium (in all senses of the word) city in Ohio.       Currently, I live with my roommate/cat/best friend Orla, we pass our days watching movies, playing, and sunning ourselves on the small balcony I converted to a catio.      Outside of my cat (who you will hear plenty about), I am a mediocre rollerskater, a lover of audiobooks, and a half-decent seamstress who can also quilt.  (Orla modeling) (Orla upset that I have...