Kaitlyn Cole

EDUC 275
Dr. Vincent Basile
30 September 2015
Educational Autobiography
Racism and sexual inequality were never things that were made obvious to me
throughout my primary educational career. However looking back on my experiences and
reflecting on them with new knowledge brings to light some unpleasant instances of racism and
inequality. My early years were littered with the separation of the sexes. Middle school brought
with it some observations of other students being treated differently based on their abilities or
genders. High school followed a similar pattern in which I was constantly taught and expected to
be different from my male peers and treated as such. Inequality in education is still prevalent, but
as a future teacher I would like to be a part of the solution and not the problem.
Part A: Impact of Personal Cultural Background and Reflection
I am a white, middle class, Methodist, multicultural female. I have great-grandparents
from Ireland, England, and Finland. These cultures from my familys past were very present
throughout my life, from the foods I ate during seasonal celebrations, to the rites of passage
traditions my family carried out for me and my brothers.
Childhood
I was born and raised in Coral Springs, Florida. It is a city with the majority race being
white, but it was still a very culturally and ethnically diverse community with strong populations

of Jewish, Cubans, Hispanics, Haitians, and African-American peoples as well. We had such a
strong Jewish population in my school district that school was closed on Jewish holidays that fell
within the year. Due to the strong Hispanic, Cuban, and Puerto-Rican cultures we were also
taught Spanish as a second language that was a daily part of our curriculum, some of which I
remember to this day. It was necessary to learn Spanish because such a large population spoke it
in our community, and it would be very difficult to make personal relationships and daily
interactions without it.
I always had a lot of multicultural friends when I was little, which was normal to me. One
of the girls in my Girl Scout troop was Jewish and every holiday season everyone in our troop
would all celebrated Hanukkah with her, as her and her family taught us the traditions. My
family also had really good friends who were Jewish and we celebrated along with them as well
as celebrating our Christian Christmas celebrations. Despite living in a multicultural community,
these were the only exposures and instances where I remember learning about another persons
culture and being encouraged to do so.

Adolescence
I moved to Fountain, Colorado when I was eight years old during the summer before
third grade. The ethnic community was different from Florida being more white and AfricanAmerican and less Hispanic and Jewish people. The classroom environment was much different
there. We no longer learned Spanish and did not even have it as an option in our school. We had
to sit boy-girl in the classrooms because the girls were too chatty to sit next to each other.
The lessons that were taught in school never totally covered all of the ethnic cultures that
were involved throughout history. I remember doing a project in fifth grade about the Native-

American named Black Hawk who fought in the War of 1812. Everyone in the class was given
someone famous from history who were all multicultural individuals. This was the first time I
can remember being taught about people of other ethnic backgrounds, despite my school being
very diverse.
Adulthood
As I developed and matured along with my peers, I grew more aware at how
subconscious segregation was in my community. Very rarely did I see black and white kids
sitting together at the lunch tables or hanging out in between classes. As I walked down the halls
of my high school I began to notice how the groups of students who hung out together were
always the same gender and the same race. Of course there were a few groups who were not
segregated and people were hanging out as they pleased, but the majority of the groups were
separated this way. Even the black teachers would go to the groups of black males to interact
with the students before class, and the same with some of the white teachers as well.
When February rolled around and the lessons shifted to include African American
history, it was the white administrators who came up with the overall lessons and themes that
would be discussed in the classroom. The students of color never got to express what they
wanted to know about the cultures, and neither did any other student for that matter. We were
always taught about the same things and the same people that but a rose-colored shade on black
history in America. It was not really until my junior and senior years when I was enrolled in the
upper division history classes that we as students dove deeper into the good and the bad parts of
black history. We talked about genocide and the internment camps throughout the west, as well
as the inventors and social activists. We talked about the peaceful as well as the violent protests
of the Civil Rights Movement. The students in my classes shared my enthusiasm with the more

diverse lessons and that impacted our teachers to continue with it. This was something that I
wish had happened sooner in my educational career.
Part B: Critical Analysis Involving Diversity
The summer between third and fourth grade I spent at the local park playing football with
all the boys in my neighborhood. Once school started I continued with this activity and would
play with the boys on the field outside during recess. One day, I decided I did not want to play
football but instead chase my friend around the field. One of his other friends got annoyed with
me and scratched my arm, which landed us both in the principals office. I was then told by the
principal that I should no longer play with the boys and that I should hang out with the other girls
on the playground instead. At the time, I was just glad I was not in huge trouble or sent home,
but I was really upset that I was told not to do something I enjoyed doing just because I was a
girl.
In fifth grade we all received the sex talk. We were separated into a classroom with all
the girls and a separate classroom with all the boys. We were shown videos about the upcoming
changes with our bodies, how the girls will begin menstruating soon and how babies were made.
It also featured an outdated and very heterosexual segment on attraction of the opposite sex, and
how we should never follow these urges due to the social repercussions of being labeled bad
names or becoming pregnant at a young age, and without a husband. We received puberty kits
afterwards which had deodorant for the boys and some pads for the girls. The rest of the girls and
I rushed to put these items in our backpacks so that we would not be embarrassed in front of the
boys when they came back in. From the very beginning, we were being taught to be ashamed of
our bodies and what was happening to them, and that it was up to us to hide it away from the
boys so they would not be grossed out or distracted at what was happening. It was embarrassing.

Middle school was when I was first introduced to a dress code where I, as a female, had a
responsibility to keep my body covered. In elementary school I could wear tank tops and shorts
on the days that were particularly hot, but in middle school I now had standards on what kinds of
tank tops and shorts I could wear. Their reasoning, much like the reasoning schools have today,
is that my body would be a distraction from learning to the boys around me. I was pretty upset
that I could no longer wear clothes that were appropriate for the weather and now had to measure
how clothes fit my body based on the width of my fingers and the length of my arms. My body
was practically being used against me.
I had my eight grade English class with a boy, named Michael, who had a physical
disability that made it difficult to walk and speak. He was an extremely smart boy and functioned
properly, as far as I could tell, besides his physical disability. One of our first writing
assignments for that class was a two to three page paper. Our teacher explained in detail the
assignment to the class, and then sat down with Michael and explained it much more slowly and
in more detail. I was watching from across the classroom and noticed how uncomfortable he
was, and almost embarrassed that she was giving him this extended attention. Our teacher then
told him he could type his essay, which was needed because he had problems with writing due to
his motor control, and that his assignment could be shorter and not as in depth as the rest of ours.
I knew at that moment that it did not seem not fair for him to write such a shorter essay when he
was one of the smartest people in our class. I do not know if he ever got a chance to talk to his
teachers about what he wanted to do and not what they told him he could.
Middle school was when I was first exposed to any sort of LGBT culture. One of my
closest friends told me she was a lesbian, and I did not know what that meant. She explained it to
me and I thought it was really weird, and kind of gross, but she continued to be one of my close

friends. Later as she gained more introspection on herself she identified as pansexual, which
means her attraction is not limited to gender. I was the first person she ever told, and she
confided in me how hard it was going to be to tell her mother; her family was Catholic. This was
something I could not empathize with her about, but it opened my eyes to the struggles other
people have to go through.
Segregation based on gender was at its peak during high school. The dress code issue has
been around for years, and was a constant trend in my educational career. As I got older, the
dress code that applied to me got stricter. I was no longer allowed to wear tank tops because any
shirt I wore had to have sleeves that covered my shoulders. Shorts had to go down to mid-thigh
or lower, and the fingertip rule no longer applied. To get dress coded, a teacher had to look at
my legs and deem whether or not they thought the length of my clothes was appropriate, which
was embarrassing.
At the same time, the cheerleaders were expected to wear their uniforms on game days
and their skirts were certainly not the school-deemed appropriate length. I went to the deans
office, where I worked as a student aid, and asked why the cheerleaders were allowed to wear
such short skirts but I was penalized for wearing workout shorts to class. They told me it was
because it was a school uniform. This took me off guard. I was a student athlete and participated
on our swim and track team, which had their own unique (and not school appropriate) uniforms.
I asked them why the cheerleaders could wear their uniforms, and I could not wear my swimsuit,
even though they were both school sanctioned uniforms; they could not give me a solid answer.
This frustrated me even further.
The teachers who taught gym were all males except for one, who taught a womens only
weight lifting class. The rest of the gym classes were all intermixed with all genders. During gym

class the coaches would laugh and joke around with all the male students in their classes, and
would rarely interact with the female ones. The teachers would specifically give more attention
to the male students because society tells us that boys are better at sports so we should encourage
them more than their female counterparts. It is also stereotypical of girls to not want to
participate in sports and our coaches never tried to branch out and reach these individuals.
The after school buses became segregated by gender after a questionable interaction
between a male and female student. I was forced to sit on the opposite side as the boys on the
bus. My brothers also rode the bus with me and we would always sit next to each other so that
we would not have to deal with the rowdier kids around us. The bus drivers would still insist on
the gender separation, even after we explained that we were siblings. This made me furious that I
could not sit with my own family members just because we were different genders.
Part C: Impact of Past Teachers
My mother has been an elementary school teacher for the majority of my life. She was
always close friends with my teachers who became close family friends. One of these family
friends was my third grade teacher, Mrs. Kimball. She retired while I was in high school and
then worked on the school board, where she was able to give me my diploma at graduation. Her
class was the first I had when I moved to Colorado. She was one of the reasons my transition
went so well because she made learning so interactive and fun. I still remember learning cursive,
working out my multiplication problems, and listening to her read our class Because of WinnDixie by Kate DiCamillo every day after recess. Mrs. Kimball truly made learning fun and
focused on social learning. I made more friends inside that classroom than I did the rest of
elementary school.

I first started to think about teaching as a career in high school, where I had one of my
most influential teachers. Mr. Hazelett was my history teacher my junior and senior year. He
opened the doors to how amazing, in depth, and scary history can be. His class was my favorite
to go to everyday and I learned more than I thought possible. I believe my passion for history is a
direct product of his class. We always had great class discussions where we talked about the past
and how everything was connected. It was never just about the timeline of events or memorizing
people and places, but how they related to one another and how they affect how events of today
are played out. It was a totally new experience in my education and I loved it.
Of course, my mother has always been a large influence on my decision to pursue the
career of teaching. She taught first grade for the past four years and I would visit her in her
classroom and help out with her students. I loved playing with and interacting with the kids, as
well as helping to guide their learning and development. I would help my mom at home with
creating lessons and grading papers. The fact that I looked forward to helping my mom with all
the aspects of her job, even the dull ones, really solidified my feeling that I wanted to pursue a
career as a teacher.
As a future educator, I want to impact my students in the most positive way possible. I
want to make learning as fun as my teachers did and help them find their own passions in life
and for them to be comfortable pursuing them. I want to be a preschool teacher, and I know the
kids Ill be teaching are too young to be thinking about careers, but I still want them to follow
their passions and give them the tools to be creative the rest of their lives.