Design Forward
An emergent exploration of critical instructional design.
Design Forward
Portfolio Part: My name is D…
Student Biography
My name is D…
In this exercise you will explore the stories and lives of your current students. You may choose to write a biography (incorporating the elements identified below) or you may choose to draw or otherwise represent a student (again, finding some way to incorporate the identified elements). Be as specific as possible, but think of your imagined biography as an amalgamation of students, rather than the actual biography of an individual student you know:
Elements to include:
- Name
- Hometown(s)
- Childhood education experience: type of school attended, typical grades, relationship with teachers, overall impression of what school is for z Family background: How may parents, siblings, etc. Who do they live with? Who do they have close relationships with?
- Interests & hobbies
- Declared major(s) or minor(s)
- Future life goals
- Stressors and obstacles
- Opportunities and comforts
Hi, my name is D and I am a composite representation of social work students. I use they/them pronouns. I’m from southern NH, you might as well call it MA; it seems like half our lives growing up we were in MA and half we were in NH. My family is what we might call financially or economically vulnerable, though things are ok right now. That’s such a gentle way of saying it – vulnerable – it’s true and it’s the right word, but it sort of smooths out how rocky this road is sometimes. There are weekends when I have to go home and pick up some shifts at my old job so I can help contribute to my family’s bills. And it’s not like I don’t work up here. I work about 30 hours/week to afford to be able to stay in school. I’m paying for my rent, my food, etc. It’s hard but I’m really determined. I want to be able to help people so they don’t have to experience things I’ve experienced growing up.
Where I grew up, we all went to public school and we all knew each other from like kindergarten. That’s good and bad. It became kind of hell for me when I began to realize and accept myself for who I am. No one really understands, or at least it feels that way. My grandma is who raised me and she tries, but my dad, who I live with, isn’t someone I can talk to about this stuff. My mom is unreliable. I have an off and on relationship with her. When she’s doing ok, she’s great and she’s someone I can talk to, but … yeah … sometimes not so much.
School was ok, like academically I’m no rock star but I like school ok. I think there’s some disconnect in my brain where I can hear something and remember it, but like to read things and remember, it’s like the words just fall back out of my head. I don’t understand why and it does make college hard sometimes because I read slowly and writing is hard for me. At least here though, I can kinda be who I am.
I think I’m transgender but maybe I’m gender fluid. I feel more comfortable not having to assign a specific gender to myself. But that kind of makes me question my sexuality because I’m not sure if I’m straight or gay or maybe bi-. I can’t talk about this at home. It was like my big secret that I carried around in middle and high school. At least in college I can be more open about it and being in social work is like the best for being able to accept everyone, but even in social work there are students who don’t get it, which makes class awkward sometimes. Gotta admit, campus doesn’t always feel safe.
I’m working hard to get through. I want to succeed. It’s really hard sometimes and I feel alone. Covid cut down on some of the things I love to do to destress, like art and theater and even just being able to hang out with other students like me in campus clubs and stuff, because everything shut down and now it’s like rebuilding everything.
When you’re done, write 1-2 paragraph reflecting upon the student you have created. Where did you get your inspiration? How is this student like/different than you were as a student? As a teacher, what do you think are the 3 most important things you can do for this student?
My inspirations for D are the many social work students with whom I have interacted and who I am meeting as I move through my first year on campus. I am impressed by how much these students are carrying and how hard they are working, but I also see how the outside burdens interfere with their abilities to engage deeply in the education they are seeking. It’s a huge conundrum. I’m used to working with vulnerable and marginalized populations and identities, both in educational and real-world settings; these populations are the bread and butter of social work. Here, though, the needs from the students are higher and more persistent, which makes the delivery and assessment of the educational part a little more complicated. Think, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: how can students focus on a higher-level task like learning if they aren’t sure of lower-level needs being met, like food or shelter? Or if they aren’t sure of their own safety on campus or in the greater community?
These are very different students from who I was at that age, and I recognize my privileges. Yet at the same time, there are many similarities that may go unrecognized at first (by me as well as in the ways others may perceive me). The biggest difference that I am going to have to grapple with for a while is the information processing differences that I am seeing in so many social work students. That is not my experience at all; I read and write easily and retain information easily. I know sometimes I’m not the best at anticipating how to deliver or modify content seamlessly (like, UDL principles). I’m also human; my energy is finite.
Thing 1 that I can do for all the “D’s” in my classrooms is to continue to push myself to evolve how I deliver classroom content and by extension, also the assessments that accompany the content.
Things 2 is to continue my own growth and evolution in self-care. I teach the concepts but don’t always practice them. I’m going to have to value myself above the demands of the job because the demands are always going to be there and there will never be enough time to do everything. I, on the other hand, will not always be here if I don’t prioritize my own health and well-being. I can only be a good support to the D’s in my classrooms if I am a good support to ME first.
Thing 3 is to figure out the right places of advocacy on campus, to be able to advocate for a caring & equitable environment on the campus-system level. I am coming to realize that if the campus, via upper admin recruiting and positioning, is courting the sorts of students I describe through “D,” we will need more people-power and more funding-power to augment the supports that already exist. I think there are good structures, but they are wildly understaffed and in some cases my experience has been also under-trained to be able to meet the demands we are seeing.
To create an equitable educational experience will require those external system supports, as well as my own internal areas of continued growth. To continue to care and be able to advocate for that equity, I will have to learn to reorient back toward my own self-care. I am realizing through this cohort that THE way I can personally promote caring & equitable learning environments is through prioritizing my own self-care.
There. That’s my big ah-ha moment, and that’s the end of what I would have written above.
I’m sorry it’s long. I have to “think out loud” sometimes. If anyone read this, first, I’m sorry it’s long, and second, thank you.
