Blog 7: Mis-Marketing Committee

We have a new principal at my school and one of the first things he did was start something he’s calling the re-branding of our campus.  We now have a marketing team comprised of a group of five teachers, led by two teachers and we are supposed to meet regularly to re-brand our campus.  So far, we haven’t really accomplished anything, and I think I may have some ideas why.   It’s really interesting that most of the talking points in the article we read last week, “School/ Family/ Community Partnerships:  Caring for the Children We Share” by Joyce Epstein seems to share many of the same goals our marketing committee has (2001).  We want to improve school improve the community involvement, improve the way the community views our school, and ultimately improve student achievement.  I think the main think we have missed when we formed this committee is parent involvement.

In her article Epstein stresses the importance of involvement of the community at multiple levels:  parenting; communicating; volunteering; learning at home; decision making; and collaborating within the community (p. 193).  These are the top six tenets she mentions in her plan for “caring” for students in an effort to make a school more cooperative.  Once schools learn how to effectively combine all these practices, a framework will start to come together. 

In my school, when we began to form our committees for our marketing team, if we had used Epstein’s framework we could have mapped out a simple plan:  we could have chosen a group around parent involvement or parent volunteers; student communication; teacher communication; and community outreach.  Currently, we are missing one of the most important components:  the parents.  Without these people we are missing a link to the students’ home.  How can we expect to communicate effectively with the community if we choose not to communicate with one of our largest customers?

Epstein suggests we include parents and students in the decision making processes for improvements and changes we are working to make, and these are exactly the types of decisions parents should be included in (2001, p. 193).  If they are included they are more likely to pay attention to putting time and energy into a cause they feel they are having a voice or a say to make a difference- the future of their child.  Parents should be given a chance to be heard and should be informed about things like curriculum changes, new programs, new opportunities, future opportunities.  If they have a say in these things, then they will begin to take owner ship in our school and care about the future of their child and the future of our school.  This will also start to build a sense of community within our school district.  Families can see familiar faces at meetings and talk with each other.  Brothers and sisters of younger siblings will eventually participate in new activities together and these familiar faces will become more familiar as parents see each other at football games, band concerts and other school events.  By inviting parents to become involved, they become more involved in the school community and by extension the larger community.

Hopefully I can take this idea back to our marketing committee and we can work to include some parents in our group.  I think this is what we are missing right now.  I’m not sure I can convince all the members this is the right direction, but I think with the evidence from Epstein, it’s a good start.  In the past year I have had fewer than five parent volunteers- total volunteers- for the entire year.  I need at least five volunteers per week, per month for my student council events.  Epstein explains that involving parents helps them understand that they are welcome at the school and valued (2001, p. 195).  By including them in the decision making process I would be showing them their opinion matters, and then physically bringing them into the school so I have the opportunity to beg them to help.  This could theoretically solve the problems for the marketing group and get me the volunteers I need.  The whole idea Epstein outlines is a give-and take creating partnerships that will last; this is exactly what the marketing committee should be working towards.

Epstein, J. (2001). School/family/community partnerships: Caring for the children we share.  In J. Noel (Ed.),Multicultural Education (pp. 192-198). Sacramento: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.

Parent Volunteers: Things that Make you Go Hmmm...

I think it will always be a challenge to recruit volunteers in a public school, but it seems like this year has been particularly difficult.  In class tonight we discussed the differences between parent involvement in the lower grades and the higher grades.  I don’t think I had necessarily thought about this before, but when it was mentioned in class tonight, it made perfect sense.  Trying to get parents to volunteer suddenly becomes a whole new game.    

What I started to wonder is, how much of this is related to how involved the students are?  When I think about how involved my students are I think about my student leadership class (Student Council.)   My Student Council consists of 85 students.  In my Student Council most of these kids are involved in at least one, if not two or three or more other activities on campus.  These things aren't really an issue for elementary school kids...right?  So these are the kids in my school that are highly involved, and participate in everything.  I need parents to volunteer to work at least one event every two weeks.  When I need to call a parent these are the parents I reach out to because these are the parents I know and have access to.  Once I started to think about, I realized most of the other organizations on campus are probably utilizing the same bank of parents I’m trying to pull from.  This causes a problem.

In elementary school, all the kids are in the same class and rotate through the parents asking each parent to rotate sharing the responsibility of volunteering or bringing an item.  All parents are asked to participate and all parents are asked to be involved.  Without having all the extracurricular activities, a parent is not spread so thin trying to spread all their time between every activity a child is involved in.  Not only that, but many of the kids are proud to have their parents involved and happy their parents are at school helping (Blaney, 2005).  By the time students reach high school, lots of them are embarrassed to see a parent at the school, or sometimes even want to keep school completely separate from home.  This creates a serious problem for teachers like me who desperately need parent help.  

In Joyce Epstein’s article, School/Family/ Community Partnerships:  Caring for the Children We Share (2001), she outlines some of the challenges for teachers, parents, and students.  When I read these, I thought about making schedules for the parents, but more specifically for the teachers and other sponsors that I might share volunteers with.  For example, my STUCO president is also involved in golf, cheerleading, National Honor Society, and Spanish Club.  Her mom is one of my most frequent volunteer’s, but also one of the busiest on campus.  If I were to utilize Epstein’s method and make a schedule at the beginning of the year of all the most important dates to share with the parents, especially the frequent volunteers, and the other sponsors, this might help some of my volunteers “become more available.”  Epstein also discusses the importance of informing the students of the importance of contributions of parent volunteers.  If the kids understand that without the parents they wouldn’t be able to have senior handprints, Homecoming Coronations, Renaissance Validations, any elections, or many of the other things parent volunteers help Student Council complete, they might be more willing to help recruit their parents (like they were in elementary school.)

Ultimately, I think these are ideas I will work to incorporate and I’m flabbergasted it never occurred to me before that some of the lack of parental involvement is such a simple problem.  I also think if I explain to my kids that the parents needing to be there is less about them and more about the school…?  Who knows?  Being a little more organized and opening the lines of communication between organizations is never a bad idea (Epstein basically says this too.)   I think of at least 1,000 other students on campus who aren't involved in any activities on campus, so they aren't being asked to volunteer at all.  I'm not sure how to reach any of these parents, but this could be a post for another blog.   For now, I'm going to work on making better use of the few I do have.

                                                           References

Blaney, S. (2005, Feb 10). Finding your way in middle school and high school.  Retrieved from http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Finding_Your_Middle/

Joyce, E. (2001). School/ family/ community partnerships: caring for the children we share. In J. Noel (Ed.),Multicultural Education (pp. 192-198). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Blog 5- A Learning Haven

A Place to Learn

I never planned on being a teacher.  I went to four years of architecture school before I realized I had to do lots and lots of physics.  I really hate physics.  Once I decided I had to find a new life plan I started spending a lot of time with my friend *Casey.  Although the first true reason I became an English teacher was William Faulkner, the second was Casey.  Casey was able to convince students to stay in school, be successful in academics, be more self-assured, and be the kind of students they never dreamed they could be.  Casey teaches an amazing class in my high school (although at the time it wasn’t my high school.)


When I read the article, “Educational Issues and Effective Practices for Hispanic Students,” I realized she had created a climate where the students in my school were able to bond, learn, and grow in exactly the way the authors described (Orozco, Pimentel & Martin, 2009).  The class she teaches is a special class designated just for ESL students.  Our school has a large English as a second language population and a large low socio-economic population.  A large portion of these students come from a Hispanic background.  Casey’s room provides a place for these students to go and find an “emotional sense of belonging and acceptance, as well as tangible help with homework” (Orozco, Pimentel & Martin, 2009).  In this room these students work in partners, in small groups, or individually on all sorts of classwork.  Casey monitors the class.  There is never down time for Casey.  She may be giving small group instruction on algebra or chemistry; she may be providing a group of student’s tutorials on Mr. Black’s French vocabulary.  In another corner a group could be working quietly on my English assignment.  Students find a way to gather and belong in addition to finding academic support.


This classroom also provides a way to join the school community.  Casey has decorated the room with jersey’s from previous students who have been successful (or at least been members) of clubs or sports.  She does this to encourage the students to join organizations on campus- everyone knows that if a student is involved, the more likely they are to graduate. 


The students who visit Casey’s room benefit from other opportunities also.  These students get to go on team building activities like a trip to a ropes course (she wrote a grant to get the money.)  She took the kids to tour UNT to get excited about college (see photo at the bottom-from years ago).  She visits places in the community where they frequent, meets parents, and makes every effort to become part of their life.  She provides the “closeness” the students in the article long for (Orozco, Pimentel & Martin, 2009).


I asked her what makes her classroom such a benefit for the students, because last year she had to scramble to justify her job when they started making cuts.  I specifically wanted to know the difference between Content Mastery Center and the English Language Learning Center (we call it the ELLC).  Here are the answers to the questions I asked:

Q:What is the difference between CMC and the ELLC and you perceive it?

A:  CMC reads out loud, shortens assignments, eliminates answer choices, etc.  Both of us re-teach often.

 Most of my students do not have a problem reading, but they struggle with vocabulary.  I reword  English phrases, instructions, questions, etc into simpler English, using less complex vocabulary words.  I have conversations with the kids where they must use academic vocabulary from the lesson.

Q:  How often do you have to speak Spanish?

A:  I am not fully bilingual in any language, but I have learned a TON of Spanish.  Although I do not teach in Spanish, I have quite a few students right now who have moved here in the past 2-4 months and come to ELLC every day from math class.  I work a lot on vocabulary and also translations of words (mostly English to Spanish) that are frequently seen on math word problems.  This is especially seen in geometry class.  It is rare, but at times, I will teach math concepts in Spanish and then work on translating Spanish to English.  I have other students from other countries, but most of the student population is Hispanic. For some students, I provide novels in Spanish or simpler English texts, such as Shakespeare Made Easy.  I often help students edit papers for grammar.”

Q:  Anything else you think helps your students by coming here?  I know that some of the students I send are especially successful, and they believe it is because they come to the ELLC.  Why do you believe that is?

A:  I think that sometimes, just as important as the instruction, is the culture in the classroom.  The students feel like they can be themselves and ask any questions without feeling shy in front of their peers.

I don’t think she could have summed up the articles better if she had read them herself!

Hersh C. Waxman, Yolanda N. Padron, and Andres Garcia.  Educational issues and effective practices for Hispanic students. (2009).  In J. Noel (Ed.), Multicultural education (pp. 121-125). Sacramento: McGraw-Hill.

Blog 4- Building Relationships

This week’s readings kept me thinking that in order to build a more unified classroom it is most important to build relationships with students.  I talked about that in my last blog and I think it is important to voice my opinions again.  Without a mutual sense of respect or a student’s respect, the people you hope to teach will be lost. 

In Curriculum leadership, strategies for development and implementation (2009), the authors Glatthorn, Boschee, and Whitehead state that a “relationship is what keeps the students engaged in learning.  Students who have developed a connection with the teacher are more engaged in school…by providing more social and academic support, teachers can motivate students” (p. 165).   I think this is the type of motivation students need in order to work together to form a culturally responsible classroom, community, and world.  These are exactly the relationships the Bridging Cultures promote in the Helping and Sharing chapter of Managing Diverse Classrooms in Rothstein-Fisch & Trumbull’s book.

The Bridging Cultures teachers go so far as to put the as the first rule in the class:  “Help others” (p. 84).  This shows students can be the most important item of the day.  Building these relationships works between the students and the teachers and promotes sharing, helping, and responsibility.  These habits are natural to learn and build in order to teach students values needed to move forward in a competitive world.  These are all simple ways to raise students’ self-esteem when some of the other authors we have read this week question the state of our education system and ability to efficiently produce well-rounded students.

In my own classroom, we utilize many of the methods mentioned in the Rothstein-Fisch & Trumbull chapter.  

One of the most effective has been the “Older Buddy” system.  Currently our Student Council sends about 25 “student buddies” to various elementary schools throughout the community.  Like the chapter states, this provides an opportunity to help the teachers, to help the older students feel like they have a “special place” and job, and to help the younger students benefit from one-on-one attention (p. 91-92).  These older students were even told they could stop traveling to the elementary schools, in order to save gas money, and they chose to continue helping.  Most of them read and even have created individual curriculum to match the stories they are working with.  These opportunities have provided the older students and the younger students an opportunity to talk about experiences and build relationships.  They were able to create a situation very similar to the one explained in the chapter where the Bridging Cultures teachers helped the students “relate topics to their own experiences” (p. 92).  These experiences become the bridge. 

By creating situations for our students to build relationships, to take responsibility, to care for another we are allowing our students values.  These are exactly what Bennett, Chester, and Cribb (1999) claim are some of most important things in a good education:  civic virtues (p. 83).  In addition they claim that these virtues will lead to students become more productive members of society who will be able to offer this country “the great honor it deserves” (p. 83).  I just hope they will be more open-minded and responsible.

* I do agree with the authors of Managing Diverse Classroom that another reason these are important strategies to promote is because all students (from all cultural backgrounds) are familiar with the concept of helping others, and many students are willing to engage in these activites.

Bennett, W., Finn, C., & Cribb, J. (1999). The educated child: a parent's guide from preschool through eighth grade. In J. Noel (Ed.), Multicultural education(pp. 81-86). Sacramento: McGraw-Hill.

Glatthorn, A. A., Boschee, F., & Whitehead, B. M. (2009).Curriculum leadership, strategies for development and implementation. (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications, Inc.

Rothstein-Fisch, C., & Trumbull, E. (2008). Managing diverse classrooms, how to build on students\' cultural strengths. Alexandria: ASCD.

Three

This is a little scary to post because it is about racism and that’s always a little scary- right?  Is that because I am white?  But more so, because I am a part of the system that has systematically oppressed and been at the top of the hierarchy.   In my classroom this year I have heard kids make jokes about race and ethnicity.  A teacher across the hall from me has been called to the principal’s office for trying to teach the students about how painful it was to pick cotton.  A few years ago my school introduced a program titled called the “Black Scholars” initiative.  We provided rewards for any black student in the school that received high grades and good attendance.  One of my Asian students came to me and asked why there was no “Asian Scholar” program.  I felt so incredibly disheartened to be a part of a system that had created this exclusionary program.   

I think whether or not I was “taught not recognize privilege,” (McIntosh, 1988) once I entered the public school system there was no way for me to ignore white privilege.  It surrounds me on a daily basis.  The only way to address it is to talk about it.  I have found my kids are willing and need to talk about it. 

I teach seniors.  These students are applying for college.  I think this is one time when being white and male may no longer be an advantage.  There is so much scholarship money for any other race or ethnicity- any minority.  I encourage my students to work hard and apply for any scholarships they can.   

Lately in my leadership classroom we have been talking about Jeremy Lin, the NBA overnight superstar.  For the most part, we have talked about some the things the media has reported and the new Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream flavor that was released.  One day we discussed whether or not the flavor was offensive, if the company was doing this as an honor to the basketball player, and whether or not the students would want an ice cream flavor released with tid-bits of their ethnic/ racial ties.  The overwhelming response was that the ice cream was something cool (no pun intended.)  Even though Jeremy Lin is from the United States and the ice cream contained fortune cookies, the kids thought it was more a pop-culture issue.  (I know these are high school kids, but I still think it’s an interesting study- I polled almost 85 kids.)  They also felt the name of the ice cream was not offensive. 

 

Ok, so I know the ice cream involves stereotypes that are not ideal, but my kids didn’t find them offensive.  Obviously enough people out there did, and Ben & Jerry’s issued an apology and changed the ingredients of the ice cream (that was only offered at the Harvard location.)  But I still think we are moving to a better place.  Maybe some of the issues that I’ve tried to work through in my blog today are slowly moving to a place where I feel more comfortable dealing with privilege.  Peggy McIntosh says we need to use “arbitrarily awarded power to try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.”  So, I think I will continue to try to do this.

At my school, we no longer have the “Black Scholar” program.  We have a rewards program for all students that earn good grades, and the teacher that  was in trouble told me a joke yesterday about…ask me if you want to know!

McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. In J. Noel (Ed.),Multicultural Education (pp. 53-55). Sacramento: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.

Two:  Labels

This past week I attended a Multicultural and Diversity Conference at the University of North Texas.  I was fortunate enough to be able to escort twenty students from my leadership class.  The keynote speaker talked about something very similar to the article we read this week by Penelope Eckert from her ethnographic study, Jocks and Burnouts:  Social Categories and Identity in the High School (1989).  The keynote speaker’s name was Dan Savage.  Mr. Savage is an American author who started a project for LGBT youth suicide prevention.  He is extremely humorous and a little edgy.  I was a little nervous about letting my younger students listen, and even more nervous when most of them choose to attend his “students only” break-out session.  During the opening session he spoke about things like bullying, choosing your friends, and navigating a high school.  He addressed some of the issues I have begun to realize my students have become more accustomed to, like the labeling addressed in the Eckert (1989) chapter, and other issues like the role parents and teachers play with more diverse students.

In class the other night, I honestly can’t remember which class; someone said that sometimes students that are different are alienated by parents and teachers.  I guess it had occurred to me that this happened, but I never really thought about how often until the conference and reading this article.  What Savage told us that morning is that it is typically the parents of LGBT that make them feel most outside and separate.  School is where they feel they have a community, and all the students who feel a lack of community are able to form something like a family.  He went on to point out that today’s students are more accepting of differences and it’s often the parents and teachers that have a harder time accepting someone they perceive as different.  

Sometimes these students need to form a community in order to be more successful.  If they don’t have that opportunity, they won’t have an opportunity to succeed in school.  I think some of this shows up in the chart on page 35 of the Eckert article if you make some pretty serious leaps.  I think you have to assume that these students are missing something and sometimes they are attempting to fill this void with social interaction.  Eckert takes a great deal of time to discuss the daily routines of these “Jocks” and “Burnouts,” but I’m not sure if these names and labels are necessary.  Sure, kids have cliques at school- always have, always will.  They have a purpose.  But do they have a greater purpose?

Here’s where I’m wondering if there is a correlation:  When I read the article by Eckert I couldn’t help but think these were simply names placed on any group of students she describes as those groups of students she feels are “accepting of the school and its institutions” versus those who are “this generations most frightening form of rebellion, and as such they are taken as a symbol by and for the school’s alienated category” (Eckert, 1989).  I can’t help but wonder if the names she gave the two groups are arbitrary and the comments Savage made are more relevant today than ever.  There will always be students that rebel against school.  This article seems to be more about that than the actual students.  I’m more concerned with a way to address the needs of these students that are left out, and I want to know who is best suited for this task.  As I teacher I should always be aware of my students needs and I want to continue to work on helping them do this to the best of my ability.

I know the students I took to the conference felt everything they heard was true and they do not feel isolated by their peers.  They do not feel like they are called names or stereotyped by the students they are surrounded by.  They do however feel different and they are very comfortable with this.  Some of the language used to express how different they were and to point this out made me feel very uncomfortable. 

Eckert, P. (1989). Jocks and burnouts: social categories and identity in the high school. In J. Noel (Ed.),Multicultural Education (pp. 34-38). Sacramento: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.

One: Multicultural Literature

I teach in a school where every class is supposed to teach from a multicultural perspective.  Sometimes I wonder if we should have spent more time from the beginning talking about what we mean by multicultural and what we hope to gain from this type of education.  I have noticed things like “Multicultural Night” at my school, where students bring different types of food from various countries they have studied, but this seems to be the extent of how many teachers address learning about other cultures.  Since I teach English, it seems a little more natural for me to teach about foreign places, and other subjects like history and languages other than English also have that advantage.  I’m sure other teachers have other projects they teach and present in the classroom, but for some reason all I ever get to see are the same things again and again.  There has to be a better way than food and flags…

I know that most of my literature classes taught the classic cannon which is predominantly white, male, and most of them are dead.  Most of my seniors have a hard time relating to this literature, but this is still what we teach in high school.  Although I understand the importance of teaching British literature, and understanding the history of the English language, we spend so much time on the first section of British history, we rarely get to the portion of British history that deals with England as a conquering nation.  The students do not deal with the post-colonial side, so if they are from one of the conquered nations this is problematic. 

For years, as English teachers we have taught most texts from the New-Criticism style of reading a text and this is doing a disservice to our students.  Authors like Deborah Appleman, in the book Critical Encounters in High School English, suggests teaching high school students to use multiple ways of reading a text.  Her presentations on the web includes multiple ideas about using “lenses”  to teach students multiple theories to view a text in order to shape ideology.  Tim Gillespie also has a similar book titled Doing Literary Criticism:  Helping Students Engage with Challenging Texts. Both of these books are easy to use and have helped me and my students understand multicultural texts.  The books I mentioned have provided new ways of teaching students to view a text in order to see the subject matter.  In this way the students have felt empowered by the literature- exactly in the way the text describes.

Although sometimes teachers, especially English teachers are resistant to change, the ideas presented in these books help students see there are new ways of looking at a text.  It is important, as Hytten points out in “The Promise of Cultural Studies of Cultural Education” that these texts are not limited to the novels I was taught and they are not limited to novels.  Students need to be exposed to different types of media and given the opportunities to respond critically to them. 

Last semester I took a class about post-colonial literature and I’m hoping that over the next few semesters I will feel more comfortable incorporating some of these texts into my curriculum.  I currently teach works from all over the world, all written in translation.  This semester my students are working on orals presentations about setting and the impact of setting on the characters in the works we’ve read.  We’re looking at all aspects of setting:  religion, economics, geography…

Any ideas anyone else has for teaching world literature would be welcomed!

Appleman, D. (2009). Critical encounters in high school English. New York: National Council of Teachers of English.

Gillespie, T. (2010). Doing literary criticism: helping students engage with challenging texts. United States: Stenhouse Publishers.

Hytten, K. (1998). The promise of cultural studies of education. Educational Studies, 29(3), 247-65.

Noel, J. (2012). Classic edition sources: Multicultural education. (Third ed.). Sacramento: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.

Blog is up and running...more to come!