Janie Ward's research paper on racial identity was a very interesting read for me. Coming from small town Iowa I have not really been faced with too many schools in which race could be a dividing factor. This article did a great job of showing me how young black people, specificially females identify themselves and how this affects their behavior at school. Some schools try to focus on the individual, this makes sense to me. Sure alot of people may be a minority, but each students individual experience with the world is how they will contect to the material and ultimately learn. Now this is not to say that it isnt important to respect and understand minority cultures, a teacher needs this knowledge about their students, but ultimately the biggest gains will come when you connect with the individual, not their group. This article also showed me how people with multiple "other" characteristics handle their unique situation. Being a female and a black person did not inhibit these girls from anything, it gave them a sense of uniqueness and the desire to show people a "positive racial identity." This article will help me as a teacher when I encounter unique students like the girls in this study.

I was wondering....

How can we make sure that we know all of the cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities that are students are?
Is it our responsiblity to get this out of students, or should the school provide us with this information?

So far I feel pretty good about our group project. The question that we were given was -

What physical, sexual, emotional, and mental developmental challenges, according to educational researchers, will middle school students face and how can the middle school English and/or Social Studies teacher best support these students, during this time?

This question works very well with our group because we were able to split it up 5 ways. I am handling the the last part of the question. This is having me think of ways to deal and support kids in regards to the challenges they are facing. So far its going well. We met as a group on Tuesday to work out the order and are independently working on our parts. I'm pretty sure that our group will do a fine job.