Week One - 15 May 2015
Why is That Child so Rude? talks about funds of knowledge and how, if you come from a certain background or socioeconomic status, you may find yourself thinking a certain type of way that aligns with your upbringing, often leading to a misunderstanding of your students who are not a part of that same lifestyle. It encourages teachers to delve deeper when they see issues like a child who constantly yells for attention or falls asleep in class because, more often than not, the reasoning is justified by these students’ home life. The article urges teachers to take these situations and learn how to adapt in order to help the students in a way that extinguishes the bad behaviors but does not put them on the spot for circumstances beyond their control.
THE RED SHOE is from the first person perspective of an administrator, retelling her experience as a Kindergarten student where she was called a “nasty girl” by her teacher for tying her shoe with her teeth. What her teacher did not know because she was so quick to pass judgment was that the author’s mother was born without hands, which is why she learned to tie shoes in this way. As a teacher, the author made sure to be much more understanding of her individual students’ needs, allowing them freedom in her classroom to do things like eat, sit how they pleased, etc. Later on, the author took on an administrative role, knowing how important it is to have that philosophy about meeting students’ needs.
Why is That Child so Rude? talks about funds of knowledge and how, if you come from a certain background or socioeconomic status, you may find yourself thinking a certain type of way that aligns with your upbringing, often leading to a misunderstanding of your students who are not a part of that same lifestyle. It encourages teachers to delve deeper when they see issues like a child who constantly yells for attention or falls asleep in class because, more often than not, the reasoning is justified by these students’ home life. The article urges teachers to take these situations and learn how to adapt in order to help the students in a way that extinguishes the bad behaviors but does not put them on the spot for circumstances beyond their control.
THE RED SHOE is from the first person perspective of an administrator, retelling her experience as a Kindergarten student where she was called a “nasty girl” by her teacher for tying her shoe with her teeth. What her teacher did not know because she was so quick to pass judgment was that the author’s mother was born without hands, which is why she learned to tie shoes in this way. As a teacher, the author made sure to be much more understanding of her individual students’ needs, allowing them freedom in her classroom to do things like eat, sit how they pleased, etc. Later on, the author took on an administrative role, knowing how important it is to have that philosophy about meeting students’ needs.
This week, my students picked a topic for their newspaper and created these “reporter notebooks” to take notes about the articles they would be writing.
I have to say that I feel pretty connected, already, to the readings this week. I am not saint, and I often forget to look at things from an unbiased perspective, but my personal upbringing is to blame somewhat. It is not uncommon for people to live with blinders or see what they want to see simply because they expect that the scenario will just be how it would play out for them or people all know the same things. I am constantly learning how incredibly diverse we are, even sitting in the same room as two other people; odds are, those people had immensely different upbringings than me and will not see things exactly as I do. Because of the growing I am doing each and every day in this department, I make sure to give the benefit of the doubt as often as possible. I have only been with my students a couple of hours, so I have not built true connections with them to see what may be different about them, but I am more than confident that instances will arise where it may be easy to blame them for an action that is a direct result of something going on at home. One of my students seems eager for attention and it is more than likely that she does not receive this attention at home. These are things I may never learn about these kids since it is not a regular classroom and I have no way of interacting with their guardians.
I have to say that I feel pretty connected, already, to the readings this week. I am not saint, and I often forget to look at things from an unbiased perspective, but my personal upbringing is to blame somewhat. It is not uncommon for people to live with blinders or see what they want to see simply because they expect that the scenario will just be how it would play out for them or people all know the same things. I am constantly learning how incredibly diverse we are, even sitting in the same room as two other people; odds are, those people had immensely different upbringings than me and will not see things exactly as I do. Because of the growing I am doing each and every day in this department, I make sure to give the benefit of the doubt as often as possible. I have only been with my students a couple of hours, so I have not built true connections with them to see what may be different about them, but I am more than confident that instances will arise where it may be easy to blame them for an action that is a direct result of something going on at home. One of my students seems eager for attention and it is more than likely that she does not receive this attention at home. These are things I may never learn about these kids since it is not a regular classroom and I have no way of interacting with their guardians.
Week Two - 22 May 2015
This week’s readings were another set of articles with topics that definitely are not new to me but are always great to have as refreshers and reminders. They talked a lot about poverty, working with students who are impoverished, and understanding the myths about impoverished families versus the truth, which I feel like, as teachers, we generally understand, but outside people who are well-off often do not. As teachers, we do have to truly understand our students based on their socioeconomic status. Because, while that in no way defines them, it often sheds light on things that may be going on at home, which actually directly relates back to last week’s readings.
I feel like I do not know my students’ socioeconomic background and have not really had the opportunity to look into it, especially because we will only be spending a total of 24 hours with them, which is not that much time. However, the things that I learn about my students’ home lives during my normal internship, like that they live in a tiny, cramped trailer with eight other people and have to babysit their siblings and come to school hungry because they do not have food at home are all things that I have to take into consideration on the daily in order to ensure I understand my students’ needs.
This week’s readings were another set of articles with topics that definitely are not new to me but are always great to have as refreshers and reminders. They talked a lot about poverty, working with students who are impoverished, and understanding the myths about impoverished families versus the truth, which I feel like, as teachers, we generally understand, but outside people who are well-off often do not. As teachers, we do have to truly understand our students based on their socioeconomic status. Because, while that in no way defines them, it often sheds light on things that may be going on at home, which actually directly relates back to last week’s readings.
I feel like I do not know my students’ socioeconomic background and have not really had the opportunity to look into it, especially because we will only be spending a total of 24 hours with them, which is not that much time. However, the things that I learn about my students’ home lives during my normal internship, like that they live in a tiny, cramped trailer with eight other people and have to babysit their siblings and come to school hungry because they do not have food at home are all things that I have to take into consideration on the daily in order to ensure I understand my students’ needs.
Week Three - 29 May 2015
Inviting All Students to Learn talks about cultural blindness, which is essentially misinterpreting students’ actions and behaviors because their cultures do not parallel the teacher’s own and he/she misunderstands. The author of the article offers up four interesting suggestions to help teachers stomp out that cultural blindness and ensure a quality understanding of students’ actions based on culture. The four are: recognize and appreciate cultural variance, which highlights the importance of white students actually becoming the minority in the classroom with teachers being primarily white and that gap needing to be bridged through teacher actions; learn about and look for culturally-influenced learning patterns, which means basically learning about how your students learn to better accommodate them based on their cultural values; look beyond cultural patterns to see individuals, which tells us that, no matter what we think we know, each student is an individual and if we try to label or place these students into groups based on culture, we are stereotyping and that is far from a gain in their educational strides; finally, plan inviting curriculum and instruction, which is exactly how it sounds and is crucial in reaching diverse students in many forms.
The Culturally Responsive Teacher is yet another tool to help teachers understand the role they take when they walk into a classroom with diversity being the norm. Right off the bat, this quote stood out to me, “A central role of the culturally and linguistically responsive teacher is to support students’ learning by helping them build bridges between what they already know about a topic and what they need to learn about it. Most students do not show up in a school with no knowledge of anything education-related whatsoever. It can often be a daunting task to understand what this knowledge is with a high language barrier, but the teacher has the job of doing so and going from there. Allowing students to pull from their own experiences related to a topic in school is one of the best ways to teach for relevance and
understanding.
Inviting All Students to Learn talks about cultural blindness, which is essentially misinterpreting students’ actions and behaviors because their cultures do not parallel the teacher’s own and he/she misunderstands. The author of the article offers up four interesting suggestions to help teachers stomp out that cultural blindness and ensure a quality understanding of students’ actions based on culture. The four are: recognize and appreciate cultural variance, which highlights the importance of white students actually becoming the minority in the classroom with teachers being primarily white and that gap needing to be bridged through teacher actions; learn about and look for culturally-influenced learning patterns, which means basically learning about how your students learn to better accommodate them based on their cultural values; look beyond cultural patterns to see individuals, which tells us that, no matter what we think we know, each student is an individual and if we try to label or place these students into groups based on culture, we are stereotyping and that is far from a gain in their educational strides; finally, plan inviting curriculum and instruction, which is exactly how it sounds and is crucial in reaching diverse students in many forms.
The Culturally Responsive Teacher is yet another tool to help teachers understand the role they take when they walk into a classroom with diversity being the norm. Right off the bat, this quote stood out to me, “A central role of the culturally and linguistically responsive teacher is to support students’ learning by helping them build bridges between what they already know about a topic and what they need to learn about it. Most students do not show up in a school with no knowledge of anything education-related whatsoever. It can often be a daunting task to understand what this knowledge is with a high language barrier, but the teacher has the job of doing so and going from there. Allowing students to pull from their own experiences related to a topic in school is one of the best ways to teach for relevance and
understanding.
I was only with my students one day this week and they are pretty much done with their writing already, but here is the final student’s writing (unfinished) and the one student who refuses to write but loves skateboarding complied to contributing to the paper by using the safety topic we chose and drawing skateboarding safety.
I think, given more time and better planning, we would be much better equipped to incorporate elements such as cultural relevance and other ways of diversifying this newspaper project to better relate to the students. It is such a good idea, in theory, and has a lot of potential, but the execution is poor, which is holding us back. It is really no one’s fault, just a side note. The readings are, again, nothing new to us as pre-service teachers who work each and every day with these culturally diverse students. During my regular internship, I have gotten so used to working with primarily ESOL students that it has become a natural factor. It takes a conscious effort to implement these tactics above, like making sure the students are aware of their own cultures along with others, just as you, as the teacher, must also educate yourself in order to fully understand what works for your students as people, and what will help them succeed.
I think, given more time and better planning, we would be much better equipped to incorporate elements such as cultural relevance and other ways of diversifying this newspaper project to better relate to the students. It is such a good idea, in theory, and has a lot of potential, but the execution is poor, which is holding us back. It is really no one’s fault, just a side note. The readings are, again, nothing new to us as pre-service teachers who work each and every day with these culturally diverse students. During my regular internship, I have gotten so used to working with primarily ESOL students that it has become a natural factor. It takes a conscious effort to implement these tactics above, like making sure the students are aware of their own cultures along with others, just as you, as the teacher, must also educate yourself in order to fully understand what works for your students as people, and what will help them succeed.