One of the ways I understood "Care" in education and youth development before I began doing the readings was in my Youth Development 350 course: Community, Pedagogy and Inclusion. I learned that care is one of the five anchors in youth development and it is the "Experience, practice, and critically engage the intentional and diverse practices of care that shape youth and community" (Clemons/YDEV 350 Syllabus, 2020, p.2). The way care is showed in youth development is by helping youth meet their challenges, leading them in "Differentiated lesson planning" (Clemons/YDEV 350, 2020, p.2) and showing them that you are willing to be there for them as a supporting friend/member. As with education, care is being shown in ways teachers/educators support their students. During the 2019-2020 school year, I was working at Spaziano-Laurel Hill Elementary School and I showed care to a bilingual class by getting to know the different learning needs they had, listening to their ideas/opinions, and by being a positive role model to them. Supporting them in their academic goals in school was the way I learned to show care in education, but not every student is given care in their schools. As you might know, some students are being oppressed in their schools for being different. People who identify as Black-American are experiencing discrimination and people assume they are bad people just for the way look, which makes them feel as they are not being cared for in their education. Those who work as youth development workers do not just want one race/culture to support in their profession. They should have a diverse group of people of all different backgrounds including Black-American because if they do not get to know them, how will they be able to understand the lives and prejudices of them and others. After reading Dear White Teachers: You Can't Love Your Black Students If You Don't Know Them and Nice Is Not Enough: Defining Caring for Students of Color,, I was able to better understand the meaning of "Care". Care is important to every youth/young person. Every individual in both education and youth development should receive it no matter how different they are from others because we all matter in our society.
People who identify as either Black-American or person of color do not see positive changes or actions happening in their society. In the U.S., many people believe people of color are racist and are a threat to the people they see around them. People who identify as White-American think they are the majority of the population everywhere in the country. They think they are better than Black-Americans, but it is not true. Black-Americans are just as important as those who identify as White-American. People of color who go to school are not here to be negative, they are here to earn an education and find peace. When they go to school, they are experiencing difficulties from their teachers, which makes them feel as their needs are not being met in class. Teachers are also not giving African-American students a chance to speak or express how they feel. A quote from Love's reading that made me think of the negativities they are experiencing was, "For Black and Brown children in the United States, a major part of their schooling experience is associated with White Female teachers who have no understanding of their culture" (2019, p.1), which shows me that teachers are not being supportive or respecting their culture while they are trying to learn. It is also not White Female teachers, White male teachers are like that as well. Both of them say that they will work hard to help their students succeed, they love their students, but they do not show how they care for their students. If they want to help their students learn, they must know both the students and themselves. Something I learned from Mini Lecture #4: Racial Identity was, "If you don't know yourself, you can't know the young people that you work with" (Bogad, Loom). Teachers must be able to see all students and know the strengths between the students and themselves to see how they can make the learning society better because if they don't, they are not showing care and will not be able to lead them in their educational plans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HCqUClUWlc (Video to see how Bettina Love is trying to explain the prejudices on Black girls and how a change must happen, please see when you have a chance).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Xc08anZAE (Video to see End Adultification Bias, you may have seen it already, but please see it again when you have a chance)
As I am learning more about the prejudices of "Black and Brown children in the United States" have been experiencing, this brings me back to one of the videos I saw , End Adultification Bias, which talks about the lives of Black-American girls and how they are being punished more than other girls who have a different race. Black girls would be more likely to face consequences such as getting suspended or arrested. They are not bad people nor do they commit crime, but people believe they do because they saw other people make the same mistake. As it comes to seeing students of different backgrounds making mistakes in school, "A White girl's mistakes might be met with sympathy and understanding, but time after time, black girls are punished instead because they are held o a more adult standard of behavior" (Georgetown Law/EAB Video, 2019), which makes me want to explain how one individual group is not being cared for. Instead of caring, they are oppressing female students who are Black-American. Oppression is a problem that still happens in our country and it should stop now. The next reading I wrote about below, made me think better about our society and care should happen everyday, not just once.
The article, Nice Is Not Enough: Defining Caring for Students of Color, was interesting and important to read. It shows how school can be a difficult setting for students of color. Teachers are not doing enough to support Black-American students to help them feel motivated to succeed. As for teachers who do not focus on the students of color, they are oppressing them and not seeing them as students who belong in their class. Four or five years ago (Back in my junior year of high school), I remember I was working with Black students in a group assignment for physics/science class. The teacher told us we were doing a great job, but when she looked at me, I knew she only told me I was doing a great job, and not letting my peers know they were doing well. She made an assumption that I did most of the work and my peers were not doing as much because of their culture, which made me feel bad for my peers because the teacher only cared about my knowledge and not my whole group because we were all different people. My group was supportive and gave me great ideas to do well on the assignment. One of them (Student identified as student of color) had more knowledge and he helped me more than I supported him in that assignment for physics. Something that stood out to me the most in Nieto's reading was, "Teachers must understand individual students within their concrete sociopolitical contexts and devise specific pedagogical and curricular strategies to help them navigate those contexts successfully" (Nieto, p.3). My physics teacher was not someone who wanted to understand or learn about the contexts or knowledges of people of color including the Black-American peers I worked with a while ago, and it is important that all of us understand the importance of those students and give them space to make them feel comfortable in their educational setting. As a youth development major, I want to show every student I will be able to work with in the future that they matter in this community. The first important thing will to be to show care for all of them and treat them equally. Also, have them get a chance to know their peers in class and have opportunities to work with them in assignments to gain better knowledge and learn about the different aspects they have.
When Nieto says "care", I think she means for all teachers to be open for all their students, especially students who identify as people of color. She is trying to show that students need support from them as they are the ones who are trying to make people better. Something she would ask to her students if she were a teacher would be "What does it mean to 'care'" and then maybe ask why it is also important for all of us as she is someone who would want to be there for them to support their learning needs. As mentioned in the article, "Teachers may think of caring as unconditional praise, or as quickly incorporating cultural components into the curriculum, or even as lowering standards" (Nieto, p.2), as a way to see what skills people may have or how they can be best supported. On the other hand, "care" could be "a combination of respect, admiration, and rigorous standards" (Nieto, p.3), but she is saying that showing care is more than just showing respect and being open, you must also elaborate and think of strengths students may have compared to your own and view everyone as a whole. As said, care is important to all of us in this society, which makes me think about how I must be ready to care for my students in the future as a Youth Development major. I want to do a great job being there to support students and show why they are important in this community. I know who I am as an individual student. Leaving someone aside for being different will not happen. The goal is to be there to lead students to success and to a better life. As Sonia says, "care" is important.
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