Abbye Lopez

SPF 301

Culture and Schooling

Vision Statement Essay

Ever since I was a little girl I have had the same dream, the same answer to the

very poplar question; what do you want to be when your older?. A teacher is what I am

meant to be. Professionally I see myself starting off as a high school history teacher. I

plan to stay at that position for at least 5 years. I eventually would like to progress and

become apart of a school administration team. I do not have a specific job in mind yet but

I do know I would like to be some part of administration. Depending on how good I am

at that career field, my end goal for my professional career is to be on the board of

education for the state of Arizona. I do know that these goals are aimed high but I do

believe they are achievable. Because of where I see myself professionally, it is very

important for me to enter my career with a clear vision of cultural awareness. I say this

because without an understanding of social cultures and cultures of a school, there is no

way for me to improve the school. I think where culture will play the most important role

is when I am teaching in the classroom. Involving the culture of the community and the

students within my classroom will be the reason why my students will succeed. Having

the cultural awareness that this course has given me will make sure that no student gets

miss treaded or ever feels uncomfortable in my room. There is nothing more important

for a school environment then to understand culture and being able to incorporate the

concept into the lesson plans and content.

 There are number of things that I will be able to use in my future to ensure that I

am a culturally responsive educational leader. Although there are over 15 concepts that I

will be applying to my future classroom, there are 3 very important ones. The first and

most important slide of my vision statement is concept 1. This slide states that students

deserve a learning environment where there will be no judgment, they have equal

learning opportunities, and their education/learning is never ending. My vision represents

the ideas that I found most important while reading the course material thus far. In the

beginning of this course I always knew that I would do my best to make sure no child

feels different and throughout the course it has only developed. As a future teacher

having an understanding of the concept that every students is different, is vital in order to

give each child is getting the proper education in order to be successful. In my classroom,

not one student will be judged because of their differences instead they will be valued.

The variety of cultures and learning styles in my classroom will all be acknowledged and

used to better the students education. Not any child's needs will be ignored when it

comes to their learning.

The second statement in my vision that is very important to me is concept 2;

Students will have access to technology and primary materials in order to discover

sources necessary to understand history. While gaining knowledge of not only content

standards, the students will be obtaining a hidden curriculum of norms, values, and

perspectives. In this slide of my vision, I stated the idea of my students having access to

technology materials as well as primary. What I meant by this was that I want my

students to be able to use technology as well as text books in order to discovery history

on their own. With these materials it shows that the culture of the classroom give students
the chance to develop their own knowledge and opinions of the standards. It is very

important that in my future classroom the students are gaining a hidden curriculum as

well. In the book when I read the section learning through activism, it told me that it

develops a sense of justice and fairness. By connecting historical events to the students

current lives I can start to access the Hidden Curriculum. I want my students to feel

comfortable in my classroom so that they can develop their own opinions. It is important

for students to start having their own perspective and thoughts on how things make them

feel. In my classroom the students will be having a large amount of discussions, creating

a culture where they will learn to respect their peers different opinions. With all of that

being said, I cam to the conclusion that the culture in my classroom will maintain

respectful through the hidden curriculum and students based from the materials available.

Before entering this class my professors talked a lot about the concept of Hidden

Curriculum but it wasnt until just recently when I realized that it is apart of my

classroom culture. This course has taught me that Hidden Curriculum is one of the most

important aspects a teacher can portray in their room. Teaching isnt only about content;

it is mainly about inspiring the minds of the future. This course showed me that it is a

major part of my classroom culture.

The third concept that is important to my vision statement is slide 6. This slide

stated that the students would have the ability to make connections between Pop Cultures

and Social Rituals to the content learned in their classrooms. With this statement, I am

saying that as a future teacher I want to create rituals in my classroom that connect to the

students pop culture. It is important for these connections to occur in the classroom in

order for students to remember the content presented to them. Doing something as small
as changing words of a popular song to content facts can do wonders for their memory.

This is kind of shown in the YouTube video in our lectures this week. The teacher used a

song in order for the students to memorize their times tables. He probable makes his

students recite the song in the beginning of every class helping his student with

memorization. Rituals that a class does every day are very beneficial for students of any

ages. I want to become a high school teacher so having knowledge of my students pop

culture and social rituals can have the students respect me and I can create a bond with

them that other teachers may not. I want my students to love coming to my classroom and

I strongly think that with my strategy of incorporation their rituals into the lessons. I can

concur my goal. Connections between students everyday lives and lesson plans can

make huge educational improvements. Before this section of the course, I only thought

about connecting the content to their personal lives. I never had the idea of connecting the

content to the students pop culture. In high school this is a very important age to do this

because pop culture is a HUGE part of their life. Over the course of this class my ideas

developed more and more on this topic. The video we watched with the teacher using a

rap song to do math is what really made it stick into my head. I will make it an important

part of my planning to make these connections for my students.

What it means to be a culturally responsive teacher is perfectly explained in my

vision statement. This would be found in the very last slide; I will recognize the

importance of including students cultural references in all aspect of their learning.

Culturally Responsive Teaching is a pedagogy that recognizes the importance of

including students cultural references in all aspects of learning (Ladson-Billings, 1994).

In my classroom I will make do my best to make sure my students cultures are used in a
positive way. I will base my teachings off the idea that culture is central to a students

learning. From the readings, I have learned that when making connections between the

content and each students personal culture, the student is more likely to obtain the

knowledge. According to a website I found It is an approach that empowers students

intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural references to impart

knowledge, skills, and attitudes. (Ladson-Billings) By recognizing our students cultural

backgrounds we provide them the ability to access more then just content. The most

important and interesting research that I came across was the website by Brown

University. Within this article I learned the characteristics of a culturally responsive

classroom. Among them were positive perspectives on parents and families,

communication of high expectations, learning within the context of culture, student-

centered instruction, culturally mediated instruction, reshaping the curriculum and last

but not least teacher as a facilitator. When the teacher is acting more like a facilitator the

students have more capability to learn from their own perspective, meaning within their

own culture. When the students get to discover the knowledge it creates more of a

connection and is more important to them. I really enjoyed this section of the semester

because I never thought about the cultural differences that will occur in my class. I have

always took into consideration the differences in abilities of my students such as ELL,

IEP and so on but cultural differences never came to mind. That is why this course was

very important to me. This concept showed me that culture is important and it will be my

job to incorporate each childs culture into their learning in order for their success.
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