Chapter 12 Reflection

Religion plays an enormous role in my life. I'm Catholic, along with the rest of my family. We would go to church every sunday, along with the rest of the town I lived in. There is not much diversity in my hometown, and this is why i find reading material, like what's in this chapter, so interesting. At Geneseo, we didn't encounter any problems in the classroom because of religious diversity because everyone was christian. It was neat looking at the chart of religious distribution in the United States. I can only imagine in more diverse schools the problems that occur. (Like religions that require disrupting the normal school day.)

Chapter 11 Reflection

I've commented on my liking for the bluntness of this book before, and I'll comment on it again. I like how this chapter covered very touchy subjects regarding sexual orientation in the workplace. Many times subjects that are in this chapter aren't covered, or they're overlooked to avoid conflicts. An example of this are gay teachers, and the problems faced by them everyday. (This is also shown in a case study of the chapter). I also appreciated learning about the history behind the unfair speculation about teachers who are single.

Chapter 10 Reflection

I've heard stories and information about the disparity between genders in certain subjects in academics. I loved the case study in this chapter about Cassie Brown. Everyone loves a good "Rudy" story. Where the person defies all odds and achieves his or her goal. However, it isn't realistic to expect that "feel good" story with everyone, and I realize how difficult it is for teachers to tell students the harsh reality sometimes. Lastly, I knew there was a gap between men and women in the field of math/science, but I had no idea the gap was as large as it was.

Chapter 9 Reflection

I liked how this chapter showed both sides of exceptionality. When you think of exceptionality as it relates to students, you think of the super smart kids, or children who excell in certain categories of school, like Selena in the case studies. The thing I had never thought about before is that exceptionality goes the other way as well. Like students with behavioral issues, who, without special attention, can greatly disrupt a classroom. I'm sure that everyone has been in a class with student that needs special attention, and witnessed how much the equallibrium of the room can be disrupted if that student is not tended to.

Chapter 8 Reflection

This chapter covers the problems that lie within the relationship between education and poverty/socioeconomic class. As I was reading the chapter, I caught myself forming a mental laundry-list of the problems faced by the lower class. I found the section about migrant families specificaly intruiging. I had many friends growing up who fell under that category. It was interesting because I had never taken the time before to really think about the obstacles that they were faced with, like poor housing and home conditions.

Reflective essay

My hometown is Geneseo, IL. In Geneseo, simply put, there isn’t much diversity. It’s a white dominated environment where, in fact, many people are very racist. I like to think of myself as a nice, caring, and empathetic person. So I thought I knew about diversity. Everyone who watched the movie, “The Freedom Writers” knows the ins and outs about diversity right? As weird as it sounds, this was my mentality in highschool.

I’ve come a long way in my experiences with diversity since those years. I started working as an engineering intern/student aide at the Rock Island Arsenal. This was the first real diversity I had encountered in my life. I was going to work with people from all different backrounds. I will return to my experiences with this job later, but first I want to talk about how basketball has helped me adapt and understand diversity as a whole.

I am a walk-on on the basketball team here at Bradley, One thing about being a first year walk on is that I’m trying to be accepted. I feel like I’m on the team but not really at the same time. Like I have the title, but I’m on the outside of the close nit group of scholarship players. So I seized the opportunity to mess around after practice with Walter Lemon. Walt is a freshmen on the team from inner city southside Chicago. His backround and mine are complete polar opposites. There was definite tension between us because of the disparity in our backrounds, but again, that’s why I was so excited to just mess around. We ended up playing 1 on 1, and needless to say, I got it handed to me. However, the more and more we played, our passion and love for the game became apparent to each other. He would continuously score on me, but every time I would get the ball, throw it back at him, and say, “lets go!”. I think I surprised him with my persistence, and proved to him how motivated and passionate I was about the game.

It was those aforementioned characteristics that ignited our friendship. It is those characteristics that ignited many people’s friendships on the team. This experience of being on the basketball team has showed me how people can be from very diverse backrounds, come together on shared goals and character traits, and form a team.

I will take this experience back with me to the Rock Island Arsenal, along with the many other influential experiences I’ve had, like this class, and use it to better my production as a member of an engineering team at the RIA by understanding that each person has his or her strengths and weaknesses. Being a diverse team helps if the team is able to utilize the individual’s strengths while limiting the impact of the weaknesses. Through the experiences I’ve had, and will have, I’ll have a better understanding of how to handle diversity in the workplace.

Basketball