Wednesday, April 5 & Thursday, April 6

Reading Ch. 5 “But Good Intentions are not Enough: Doing What’s Necessary to Teach for Diversity by Richard Milner

The group discussed many of the question the chapter raises about teachers self-reflecting upon their teaching practice and relationships with students. We need to think of ways to validate the contexts of the students’ lives. We also need to understand and think about what are the good intentions of our students.

Comments and Questions included:

• Do we speak in terms of deficit or difference with regard to our students?
• Self examination is critical. We wish there was a script to follow to teach, but there isn’t.
• Recognizing our own expectation and ask what should the skill look like.
• When it comes to students with disabilities we also have to recognize that many of them do not want to see them as fragile.