Project ideas

 

Something I want to change: 

Education was supposed to turn to more of a social model for students with disabilities after the IDEA and FAPE went into effect. The current administration is making moves to return to a medical model. This history of disabilities is that of isolation and hidden suffering, and disability activists have fought to bring disabilities out of the shadows. This has been great in theory, but not in practice- in part due to funding, staffing, and training, but also due to the deep-seated ableism that is so common that it seems normal. In schools and polite society, disability is rarely discussed, and when it is, it is either in a dismissive or benevolently ablist way. That won't change until we start freely talking and learning about disability. For actual change to take place, and for non-disabled people to realize that they are not the standard, discussing disability has to become normalized. In schools, more students with IEPs and 504s should be leading not only their meetings, but also their education.

A belief about how students learn:

I believe that all students benefit from learning about disabilities. Children are generally more open to changing their perspective, and the best way to help them do that is to expose them to information and allow them to question that information and come to their own conclusions. I also believe that when students are given the chance to learn about people in a way that allows them to understand their own similarities and differences, they will form a compassionate and open understanding. 

Media and tech tools:

In 2027, I'll be helping to found the Lower School special education program at The Greene School. I want to plan ahead for how to empower students so that they are well prepared to participate in their IEP meetings as soon as possible and lead their own meetings by age 14. Beyond that, I want students to understand and feel empowered to learn how they learn throughout the year.

I also want students who don't receive special education services to understand their classmates and realize that they are typical, but not the norm, and their classmates may think and access things differently from them, but they're not any less important to the classroom. 

I want to start this by having students work on projects where they research a disability starting in 6th grade and do a project about what they learn. I'm thinking that I would like to start with a podcast. When students get older, the project can expand to other mediums as well. I was thinking about also narrowing it down to one disability for the class to research for the first year. At The Greene School, they have classes called Crew, which are similar to advisories. If I understand their model correctly, I'd be with the same students for all of their lower school years. This project can exapand each year

Tech Terror

I watched two very important movies when I was 11 years old that would shape my relationship with technology for the rest of my life: Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Lawnmower Man (the special effects are terrible, but this movie gave me 90s nightmares). Both films were about the personal and apocalyptic horrors that would befall mankind if we continued down the path of technological discovery. 

This is from Terminator 2: Judgement Day, which was a tech terror and gay awakening for many elder millennials

They painted a picture of tech as something overwhelming and all-powerful.  Looking back on these films now, I see them the way I see Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, not in terms of artistry, of course, but in their reflections of the anxieties that cultures experience when making technological leaps. How will this change us? Will we be punished for playing god? What is the cost of altering what it means to be alive, whether it is through expanding medical exploration to create a new form of human or expanding technological experimentation to create the human mind in a new form? In both cases, what happens to the human soul?  Will this enhance life or destroy it?

Gueillermo del Toro’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

I worry about the impact of AI on the environment, artistic expression, education, and my own growth as a teacher and person. While I found myself agreeing with a lot of what Ferlazzo said, especially in relation to the benefits of planning for MLL and special education instruction, I don’t think I should use AI until I have a stronger foundation as a teacher so that I can catch mistakes and so that I can make the mistakes I need to make to learn. In my academic studies, I can’t see myself using AI too much because I am the person that Gallant & Rettinger described when they mentioned the student who would rather get a lower grade than cheat (or cut corners). I’m also just not someone who learns from cutting corners. I need immersion to learn. I love learning, and I have never seen the point of cheating in academics. I have always refused to compromise and play the game, but I also have ADHD. It's 1:00 am, and I've been doing homework for hours, and I'm not nearly done yet due to my learning needs and how I process information. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be able to freeze time just so that I could catch up in all areas of life- especially in school. There is just no way that the academic pace can slow down to what I need, so sometimes I think I should take up cheating… or I could experiment to see if AI can be a tool that can help my neurodivergent brain make friends with time.

This is from an 80’s show called Out of This World. The main character could stop time by touching her pointer fingers. Goals.

Prensky is Dangerous

Prensky is Dangerous   

About Me

 

My name is Nikki (they/them). I have a dog and a cat who are both 6 years old. I have lived in California, Oregon, Boston, and Providence. I love R&B music and women's basketball. I love supporting my students, especially in the performing arts. I worked at Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts, but I'm moving to The Greene School this fall.