Sara's Balfour GALACTIC Blog

Students were given the following options to choose from for their visual art project. Option 1: Rethinking and Remodeling Gender Take an issue or stereotype that you find important, and illustrate how you would like this problem to be changed. Option 2: Raising Awareness Bring attention to an issue or group of individuals that you feel are overlooked.  General Thoughts: I am proud of my students for putting a lot of thought and effort into these projects. They did a great job of showing what they've learned and what gender liberation means to them. Change   The description of this drawing is to show the stigma that women have of always being "stuck" and not having the opportunity to succeed. Then the bottom part is to show that women also have the opportunity to lead our country in many different ways. Music Cannot Define Gender!   Stereotypes are not noticeable to many people until they actually go through one. Moms tend to have a sta...

The students I worked with were so inspiring. As a pre-service teacher, I am glad to say that they reminded and strengthened my reasons for becoming a teacher. On the second day, I could feel their energy and excitement when they shared poems expressing their gender. Students were eager to raise their hands, and their classmates were just as enthusiastic as they laughed and clapped along. And from the days following, students were always engaged in discussions, sharing ideas I would never had thought of. It was great that they had so many questions as well. And although I didn't have an exact answer for everything they asked, I was encouraged enough by the fact that they wanted to learn. That, I believe, is what I would like to strive for as a teacher, to make students interested in learning. I hope that I'll be able to make math students as excited as they were about learning some day!

Hello everyone. My name is Sara Zhang. I'm currently an undergraduate student at Indiana University, and I'm majoring in mathematics education. I am also a member of IU's education program Community of Teachers, a program which allows pre-service educators to have more hands-on experience working in the classroom. And as part of this hands-on experience, I work along with students and a mentor at Bloomington High School North. As a pre-service educator, I love having the opportunity to work with students and to gain experience in any way I can. That's way I became interested in becoming a facilitator for GALACTIC's Global Arts Infusion Workshop. The concept of using art to discuss global issues intrigues, and I'm excited to work with all the students as they come up with creative ideas! Personally, my interests in the global arts is with foreign languages and visual art. At IU, I am minoring in Mandarin Chinese. And although I'm not the most active in ...