CARE

I would define the word care as nurturing, someone or even yourself showing interest and fulfilling your needs. In the Nice is Not Enough: Defining Caring for Students  of Color by Sonia Nieto https://drive.google.com/file/d/14eHdQuRFpyp7NcOuXNMVhPare1ACnY9E/view speaks about the term caring in an education setting. 

    Neito states that caring, "Caring within a structure plagued by inequality takes multiple forms, and at some moments when we think we are caring for students of color we actually are harming them because we are failing to counter a social structure that treats them unequally." (P.1) I never really viewed caring in this perspective. 

    

Nieto uses different strategies with teachers to understand the definition of care. The first is "teachers to consider and debate how, despite their best intentions, they might actually participate in various institutional practices of not caring for students. To ensure that their institutions are caring for students, educators can begin to ask one another, in so many words, what it means to care for their student body." (P.2,Nieto) This exercise is for participants to really challenge themselves into defining the meaning of caring. The author then helps teachers to explore their students in the classroom, choose an individual group remove stereotypes about the needs from particular backgrounds. This gives teachers a "understanding of how group membership affects the contexts in which students live." (P.2,Neito)

     This is then followed by demonstrating care in the classroom. Teachers may think that praising a student, adding cultural components into the curriculum and lowering stands for a student is showing care. Which this isn't really caring claims the author. Nieto mentions "ethic of care" "means a combination of respect, admiration, and rigorous standards." (P.3, Nieto) 

    To define what Nieto means about care, there are different component to caring. The author shares the "ethic of care" following that speaks about researcher Rosalie Rolon-Dow describes this as critical care. the students actual personal lives and the unequal system they encounter as members of racialized groups. "Teachers must understand individual students within their concrete sociopolitical contexts and devise specific pedagogical and curricular strategies to help them navigate those contexts successfully." (P.3,Nieto) 

    The author shares a journal entry from a white teacher, Mary Ginley and the interactions with students of color. This journal entry stood out to me because "We have plenty of warm friendly teachers who tell the kids nicely to forget their Spanish and ask mommy and daddy to speak to them in English at home" (P.1, Nieto)  This quote literally took me back to my elementary days. I am a student that comes from an English Second Language household. I struggled with speaking English and my parents did not understand much English. I remember my teacher handed out instructions for a big project in English. I kindly asked her if there was a way if she can find a way to translate it in Spanish for my parents to read or make it easier for me to read for my parents. And she had the audacity to respond "this is perfect practice for you and your parents to speak English." I remember I did the project wrong and she commented that in front of the class. I was so embarrassed. She was a "nice" teacher but just like the article speaks about nice is not enough.

    

After reading this article I learned that CARING bigger than that! A student should be understood, heard and empathized with. An educator shouldn't give them the easiest task or even just ignore the student. There shouldn't be an easy way out to teach students of color.