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.