Connections + Sources

One major connection I can make from class to my schooling is definitely testing. The school district I grew up in, Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, is a very high ranked school for test scores and academics overall. As I stated in my high school overview, it seemed like a lot of my high school was spent preparing for tests or learning how to take tests, instead of actually learning the material. GCISD is very diverse, racially and economically. Some say that the lines are drawn weird (the lines that determine which school you'll go to) to prevent there from being a "rich school" and a "poor school". One thing I do find interesting is that in elementary school, most of the students at Cannon were white or hispanic. In middle school, it was mostly white, hispanic, and African-American, with a few Asian students, but once I got to high school, there were many more Asian students than I had ever seen in elementary or middle. The area I grew up in is very interesting, because most would consider Grapevine and Colleyville to be very wealthy cities, but there are actually a lot of lower income housing areas in Grapevine, especially in the part that I grew up in. There are several apartment complexes and mobile home parks that house mostly hispanic families. I can't think of any times where racial segregation was a problem. I do remember, especially in middle school, that students segregated themselves at lunch and in class, etc. I remember a few times in high school where I felt like I didn't "fit in" because my family did not have as much money as others. I am one of five children, so a lot of times our budget was tight. The people I hung out with in high school had their parent's credit card and that's how they paid for everything: eating out, shopping for clothes, going to the movies, gas, etc. I had to use all of my own money for those things, which I earned from babysitting. There were times that I couldn't afford to eat out, or my friends would all go shopping and I wouldn't be able to buy anything. I don't think it affected me that much, but it is definitely something I noticed. A lot of our class discussion about students with disabilities was very close to my heart, because not only did I work first-hand with a lot of those students as a member of Best Buddies in high school, but my brother who is 2 years younger than me has Fragile X and Autism Spectrum Disorder. I remember talking about ways to approach situations with special needs children in classes, especially for those of us who are going to be teaching electives. In high school, the Best Buddies class was called "partners in art" and it was art class for the special needs students and their buddies, and we helped them do their art projects. This is something I am very interested in teaching, and in fact, Mrs. Byam, the teacher who taught partners in art and who was over Best Buddies is who inspired me to become a teacher. She was extremely passionate about art and students with disabilities.

Here is a photo of me, Mrs. Byam, and my brother, Cal. Goldstein, Dana. The Teacher Wars: a History of America's Most Embattled Profession. Anchor Books a Division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2015.