Lessons from a Teacher's First Active Shooter Drill By Irene Sanchez (Xicana Ph.D.) 5 years agoYear 1 Public schoolI became a high school teacher My son entered kindergartenWe had our first active shooter drillsHigh school teacherThree schools a day, everydayThat morning Continuation schoolFollow the instruction on the paper Most importantLock the doorLock the door LOCK … Continue reading Lessons From a Teacher’s First Active Shooter Drill
Tag: teaching
What’s Really Sad
By Irene M. Sanchez Xicana Ph.D. What’s really sad. Representation is important. I see that as a Chicano/Latino Studies teacher everyday. Representation is important, but it is not enough if all our idea of representation does is reinforce tired stereotypes that mock the most powerless within a certain culture/community. I get satire and its importance … Continue reading What’s Really Sad
Learning Loss for Generations: Segregated Mexican Schools and the 1918 Flu Pandemic
“With so many Mexicans in the grammar schools this would greatly interfere with class work, as the excluded students, who are always the slowest in the classes, would fall still farther behind, making the present task of completing a year’s work before next summer nearly impossible”. This denial of education for Mexican students during the 1918 flu pandemic, which was the same “logic” that established separate Mexican schools, was rooted in white supremacy and racism in the ideas that Mexican students were dirty, unclean, inferior in intelligence, and likely wouldn’t catch up with school work anyway.
75 Years After the Mendez Case: Our Children Still Need Us to Fight for Equal Education
By Irene Sanchez Today marks the 75th anniversary of the ruling that desegregated schools in the state of California. While Mendez is talked about a little more now than when I was a younger person, it is not talked about enough. The Mendez case was the precursor to the landmark supreme court case of Brown … Continue reading 75 Years After the Mendez Case: Our Children Still Need Us to Fight for Equal Education
Building Back More Inequality: No Free Community College While Enrollment Dips In The Pandemic
By Irene Sanchez This is hardly a surprise, but the pandemic has impacted many students at all levels of education, particularly those who are underserved and over represented in a system like the community college. It’s no surprise that as a result community college enrollment has dropped in a global pandemic. Then there was a … Continue reading Building Back More Inequality: No Free Community College While Enrollment Dips In The Pandemic
Schools: No More Dehumanizing and Disrespecting Our Kids and Communities
By Irene Sanchez No one wants to talk about it, but in order to work towards the inclusion and equity and all these nice things, all these “nice folks” in charge making decisions in education claim to want for marginalized students, we must do no harm. More than doing no harm though, one must truly … Continue reading Schools: No More Dehumanizing and Disrespecting Our Kids and Communities
Most New Teachers Leave Within 5 Years
This is my 5th year of teaching high school. Although I’ve also taught and currently teach college, teaching high school students students and teaching the subject I teach has been one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life, but at the same time this path has been extremely difficult due to the often hostile … Continue reading Most New Teachers Leave Within 5 Years
Bobby Verdugo: The Legacy is Now Ours
Bobby Verdugo: The Legacy is Now Ours By Irene SanchezXicana Ph.D. Before I write anything else I need to tell you about one of the most important lessons I learned from Robert “Bobby” Lee Verdugo. Over the years I had learned Bobby was many things, but above everything he was proud of his family. He was … Continue reading Bobby Verdugo: The Legacy is Now Ours