Prompt 6: Kliewer

The teacher in the class I volunteered at never stopped to explain to the others in the class what it means to have a parent unemployed, when SHE brought it up. Maybe she thought they all knew what it meant, but that would be an assumption and the kids had no way of knowing if others in their class were going through the same home problems they were. It could be that she covered sensitive topics like employment and religion before I came or while I was out tutoring students. She was always pushing to keep on schedule and little outside of academics was discussed unless she had questions for the students.

My personal experience with a touchy subject was told in a previous post. The child I was tutoring asked me a question that I could not answer and she said that it was ok because she and her dad were going to prey for answers. This was early on in my service learning and I just replied with an ok. Thinking about it now I should have asked how she felt about people who didn’t prey or preyed to different things. Recently two students were telling me how I should get a car so I could visit them when I was done with college. I told them I had no money and one said to just have my parents get it for me. I proceeded to tell them that my parent s had no money too. One stated that they knew what I was talking about, but the other said that their parents always had money. I didn’t push the issue past saying that he was lucky. In response he lowered his head and continued playing the game. This made me think that it might be all a front and he was saying things to make himself seem better or cooler than the others.

Author of Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome Christopher Kliewer talked about something called Human Reciprocity. This is the idea of a society where everyone works together and each member is valued for what he/she brings to the group. It could be their culture or their ideas but everyone helps each other to better everyone’s lives. At the time these events at my school happened I did not know how to explain this concept to elementary students so I let them just continue with the felling that the student with money was better than the one without. I know they felt that way because that is how I felt.

Another theorist that helped me prepare for another encounter like those above is Lev Semenovich Vygotsky. His thoughts on higher ordered thinking (the thing that makes us all unique), was that: first, it happens between children and society through communication. And then once those children learn to make concepts and think logically on their own, those ideas the child learned through their culture contributes to their individuality. To me he is saying that what we teach and say to children help develop them into the adults they will become. In that statement a lot of pressure is put on the backs of the older generation the children interact with. We can teach them to value all their peers or how to hate them. In this thinking a quote from Spiderman comes to my mind that best describes the responsibility teachers have. “With great power, comes great responsibility.” We have the power to plant seeds that shape the future of the world.

Thinking about it now, in all the situations that the children put me through I would have asked them questions. Questions dealing with things they may have never been ask before. Like other religions and what is so great about having money? And in the end ask them, do those things/differences change how you view others? Knowing that what I say will impact them for the rest of their lives.

WE ALL MUST CHOOSE WHAT WE WILL TEACH,THE GOOD OR THE BAD?

Prompt 5: Goldenberg

The teacher in my classroom did something awesome. She was asking the class to come up with sentences that include the words on the board. One child told her that her mom was home all the time now and they were able to spend a lot more time together. The teacher proceeded to ask if she lost her job. The child said no she just retired. This was good to see because it showed that the teacher had knowing of what was going on in her student’s life.

As a teacher you have to be aware of how the student’s homes lives are. It is at home were the children will learn to read and study for tests. It is where a lot, if not most of schooling actually happens. If the student is having family trouble they could lose focus and start failing. It is up to the teacher to make open communication with all the parents of their students so that they feel comfortable enough to inform the teacher of changes that could affect the child’s performance in school.

When collaborating with parents, especially in an intercity setting one big problem that I can see is lack of communication. These parents not only have to work one or more jobs but a lot are from different countries that speak different languages, including the two students I tutor. Education theorist Claude Goldenberg, author of Teaching English Language Learners, talked mostly about educating children that use English as a second language, but I do not see why the same facts would not work for adult English language learners. He says that a child being educated in English, who does not have English as a first language, do not learn what is being taught because they are too focused on trying to figure out what was actually being said and miss concepts. My thinking is that this same concept can be applied for non English speaking parents. They would be too focused on trying to understand individual words and miss the issue their child is having or the fact that they need to do something to better the child’s education.

Goldenberg also makes it a point to say that because these students cannot understand the language the subjects are being taught in, does not make them learning challenged. They fall behind in their class, grade wise because they do not know what is being said, not because they do not hold the capacity to understand the academic concept. Non-English parents have an extra hurtle to overcome. If you ask them in English to sit and do math homework with their child and they don’t, it’s not because they do not care, it is because you failed as a teacher to identify a barrier that limits communication. Having a transltor is one way to combat this but also trying to speak their language, even if its just one word would show them that you care about them and their children, by learning some of their culture.

Even if the child is doing well it is still good to open communication between both teacher to parents and parents to parents and that way if one has a problem they can talk to each other if they do not want to go straight to the teacher and help each other as a community.

Prompt 4: Delpit

I come from a small town in the woods with a graduating class of 104 students, all of which were white. I bring a lot of inexperience when it comes to living in a diverse society. This is a huge disadvantage because I have no idea what a black or Hispanic child has to go through because I am not one and never had any friends that told me stories of what it was like for them growing up. I don’t know if I exactly have a bias. It’s hard because I can only see what I want to see. If I see a Hispanic child acting rude I do not label all Hispanic children rude. My life was me working hard on my school work while my parents worked hard at their jobs to keep a roof over me, my sister and cousins heads. That is something I can relate a lot about with the class I am in now. They are of low income homes. I know what it is like to have a parent out of work and to live apartment to apartment. I know what it is like to have to take in other family members because their parents have gotten in trouble and now have to go to jail or drug programs. This is just part of my history. I cannot understand what it is like to grow up a certain race but I know and remember what it was like to just grow up. This is where I feel I will connect with my students in a socio-cultural classroom.

I only can refer to how I was taught which according to the author of The Silenced Dialogue Lisa Delpit is called veiled authority. I even do it now with my eight year old cousins. If they are doing something I think is wrong I ask, “Is that what you are suppose to be doing?” I am giving them a chose to say yes or no, but they know that if they say yes there will be consequences. However, in the classroom I tutor with my teacher uses a blend of veiled and non veiled authority depending on the student. If the student in question is one that rarely gets in trouble she will use veiled, but if the student is constantly being reprimanded she takes no chances and tells them to put something away or stop what they are doing.

Lisa Delpit the author of “Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children” described what she called “the culture of power.” Even though there are five points all of which are important and interesting, one stands out when dealing with my history and bias. It says that “if you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier.” To me this says that if you follow the roles you will get by, and that is exactly what I have done my entire life. Even in second grade when I moved to a new school I quickly adopted and just accepted the new rules. I do not know what it is like to not understand the rules like a non English speaker. I did not come from a totally different culture when I switched schools, just a different area. Some children are going to come from different places with different rules and instead of labeling them as someone with “behavioral problems” it would be up to me as the teacher to simply understand the problem and work with the child. Part of that working might be to see with what method that student best takes instruction and discipline. I might have to ask directly for a student to do something and not just assume that they know it already. We all know what assume does, makes and a** out of you and me.

Prompt 3: Shor

My class is extremely culturally diverse. For a teacher to plan a lesson to fit everyone would be extremely difficult. To be relatable to the students the teacher should know how it feels to learn in a classroom such like their own. They should be problem-posers as said by educational theorist Ira Shor in his book called “Empowering Education.” He also says that teachers should empower their students and that lays the foundation for their interactions in the classroom. Teachers should help the kids come up with problems and then encourage them to find their own solutions. The key is to allow participation between everyone in the classroom to be free flowing and non judgmental. Children will not remember anything in the classroom if what they are learning is not related to something in their own lives. Standing at a head of a classroom just saying things means nothing without reference.

Sadly, in the classroom I observe I do not see participation of students or encouragement to do so. Children are told to be quiet. If they try to help their friend sitting next to them they are shhed and personal stories on subjects being presented by the teacher are not accepted. The teacher makes assessments based on what the student writes or does in the time given to them. It is so bad that I feel like I to should keep my mouth shut so that the kids will not get in trouble. I try not to blame the teacher because I am not in their shoes and do not know what pressures they are under to teach the children.

However, they are not learning. They are going through the paces in order to get a passing grade. In dealing with multicultural classrooms relationships between students and teachers must be free flowing in order for the kids to feel safe enough to discuss problems that could then be used by the class to find a solution. Instead the teacher is constantly distracted by the others in the room with little focus on the individual. The teacher will read the paper and make corrections with little to no explanation of why it is wrong. I do not like picking out only the bad I see in the classroom but it is difficult to see any positive. If it was calmer the students and the teacher could collaborate in a way that not only teaches the material but allows real personal time between everyone. How to do that is a question that is still troubling me. Everyone is at different levels not only intellectually but maturity. Maybe instead of separating the trouble makers from the rest of the class, integrate them with peers who will help them focus, which could take some the stress off of the teacher because they would not have to constantly look up to see what someone has done.

I have not seen the ideas of Ira Shor put into practice personally, but know that one day I will try my hardest to make learning relatable for my students in order for them to learn the material that will last a life time. There will be a lot of apposition because Ira is not focusing on test scores or grades but what students should experience while in the classroom and that is not what the adults in power of the schools want to hear. This is just one of the things that will need to change so that children of America can see learning as fun and not just adults talking nonsense.

Prompt 2: Dewey

My class is diverse. It has little more girls than boys. There are whites, Asians, African Americans, Hispanics. If I had to put the groups in order from greatest to least in would be Hispanics, whites, African Americans, and then Asians. This is completely different from my school experience where there were only whites and one African American throughout my entire education. Infoworks shows that the entire school is just as diverse as the classroom, with 35% white, 33% Hispanic and 26% African American. As far as poverty I cannot tell. They all seem somewhere between middle to lower-middle class but this is by looks alone. Infoworks says that 68% of the entire school meet the requirements for free or reduced lunch which tells me to never judge a book by its cover. As far as special education goes, there is a special needs child in the class who has his own aid. The aid not only helps him but takes over looking after the class when the teacher has to leave. One of the children I tutor has opened my eyes to even more sociocultural diversity. The first day I met her she told me that she asked her dad a question and because he didn’t know the answer he promised her that they would look in the bible. I was taken back because religion is such a touchy subject with adults, that I was not use to it being an answer but for this girl it was, along with other students because if she felt comfortable talking to me about it she probably told her friends. She also informed me that she is bilingual and can speak Spanish better than any of her cousins which she was extremely proud of. Her mother is from a different country and her grandmother is trying to gain citizenship to America. The other student I tutor I have only seen once since I started volunteering over a month ago. This is unusual considering the attendance percent is 94. These students have the ability to be raised in a diverse environment which can help make them more understanding of other peoples’ cultures and traditions. The educational theorist John Dewey would agree that even though these students come from a multitude of different backgrounds a shared interest can bring them together in the learning processes. By them being together they will take everything that is good about their own individual groups and create a new group in the classroom that will harbor the good of each other based on the common interest that each group share. The problem is that the school environment is not interested in their individual lives, enough to try and integrate them. The teacher teaches. She does not have the time to hear stories about big brothers and silly cousins.

Students are on a tight schedule to complete as many academic activities as possible. There is a sense that if the class does not finish everything that day it was a failure. Talking even to help each other is forbidden and students are yelled at to the point that it becomes background noise. Its no one persons fault, the teacher is told what to teach by higher authorities. The curriculum does not take into account the diversity of the classroom and therefore the students do not know that there are differences between them and that those differences are important. However, the school’s test scores are higher than other schools like them so what would be the point of changing?

This is a Youtube clip of a dance crew that is a prime example of what a diverse group of people can do if they share just one common intrest. Enjoy!!
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Prompt 1: First Impressions

I have the unique pleasure of actually walking to my school. It is a short mile but this gives me the ability to see the neighborhood around the school. Its quiet and the houses are closely spaced. Then as you come up to the building you could hear children talking behind the fenced in windows. No playground or grass, just signs that say hello in array of different languages. This told me that the school at least has some knowledge of the diversity of their students. The entrance is a nondescript door that has an intercom system so you can name yourself and gain entrance. Just from the outside the school was at least twice the size of my own elementary school in the rural part of the state. It’s dark in the building and has a yellow ting due to the lights. There are narrow pathways leading to rooms, if you walk by to fast you’d miss them completely. The classroom itself is cluttered. That was the only word I know that describes the room as a whole. There are two old blackboards covered in spelling words, numbers along with dozens of other items that I could not focus on because of the sheer sensory overload. There is little color, it is just old looking. The kids sat in groups with minimal space between chairs.
The pure chaos of the students talking, student teacher and teacher shouting to shut up the kids and the children just getting louder, was enough to make me yell stop in my head. It is not working. I would want to reorganize the room. It is a tiny space for the twenty something students, one teacher, one aid and one student teacher and then me. If the information needs to be on the wall maybe having some art either printouts or student work to help cut through all the plainness would gather student’s attention to the important information on the walls. The school values obedience. Even in the hall the teachers are yelling while the students laugh at them and continue what they are doing. It is so obvious that what they are doing now is not working but yet they continue. I realize that it is easy for me to pass judgment on the teachers for shouting at little kids but I don’t have to deal with them on a daily basis. My suggestion would be to try different things, maybe talk to them to come to some sort of agreement that will better both lives. Actually ask the children what they expect to learn in the class and how would they would like to taught. The do not have to put into action what the students are telling them but to try and make things relatable I think would make a world of difference. Over all it seems that they are trying to deal with what they have. What they have is a cramped space with energetic children. It is not an excuse but I know that it adds to the stress. Talk is the best thing the entire school could do. Talk to the students so that learning can be a cooperative event not a singular voice yelling. The two kids I tutor are lovely, understanding and appreciate the help. Only time will tell if what exactly will translate to the children’s success.

About Me

Hi, I am Ashley. I am a Freshmen at Rhode Island College. My goal is not only to be the first in my family to graduate from a four year college but to become an elementary school teacher. So far it is going well. There is a lot of work and stress but I love it. In my free time I enjoy talking and laughing until my ribs hurt with my friends and family. I don't take myself to seriously and I am a master of sarcasm. I hope to enjoy my time here and meet a lot of new and awesome people.

Thanks,
Ashley :)