Concluding Post: A Journey of a Thousand Miles

          Looking back at my initial reaction and response to The Wire clips I know I looked at them from the perspective of my upbringing in a middle-class family and the students I teach, which are primarily white students who come from lower/middle-class families.  When I watched the clips from Mr. Prezbo’s first day with the students I initially judged him a little for not being more stern and tougher on the students.  Although I do feel he could have been better prepared, I don’t know that my initial thought of being stern is the best solution just because these students are tough.  I actually have more of an appreciation for the way Mr. Prezbo treated these students.  He was respectful and compassionate, which is something they might not get enough of in their life.

It is difficult for me to choose just one of the readings as a favorite from this course.  The Rosin article, Hey! Parents, Leave Those Kids Alone and Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez were my two favorite readings this semester. When I think about the Rosin article in relation to The Wire clips I feel that the kids from The Wire were probably given a lot of freedom from their parents, most likely too much freedom, but in a different way than I interpreted it. The Rosin article suggests “that kids should face what to them seem like ‘really dangerous risks’ and then conquer them alone.  That, she said, is what builds self-confidence and courage” (Rosin 4).  When I think about the kids from The Wire they actually do have a lot of courage and self-confidence.  They are able to go against adult-direction and stand their ground against adults (the detention clip), which, to me, seems would require some courage and self-confidence. The Rosin article also states that, “Adults have come to the mistaken view that children must somehow be sheltered from all risks of injury.  In the real world life is full of risks and reasonable risks are essential for children’s healthy development” (Rosin 6).  I think the reasonable risks part of this sentence is very important.  The risks that the children on The Wire are facing are not developmentally appropriate, yet these children are learning very important survival skills for their livelihood.  Many of these children probably do miss out on the unstructured play opportunities that the article discusses. When I read the Rosin article I mainly applied it to my life, the middle-class families and students I teach, and how I would use the ideas from the article when I have children of my own.  In my cycle one post I wrote, “I have often thought about my upbringing compared to how I see children raised today, and it seems that children now spend a great deal of time in front of a screen or if they are playing with friends it is on a pre-arranged ‘play-date.’” Clearly I wrote my response based on the culture and upbringing in a middle-class family, but this is not the case for all children, such as the children in Mr. Prezbo’s classroom.  I am now left wondering if there is just as much damage to be had from taking the ideas of this article to the other extreme and giving children too much freedom, exposing them to too many risks and dangers in life.  I would think there is actually a pretty fine line. 

            When I think about the clips and Richard Rodriguez’s educational experience in Hunger of Memory I am even more impressed with the way Mr. Prezbo came to understand his students and their culture and integrated that into his teaching in order to reach his students.  It is a great reminder of all the different life experiences students bring into a classroom, culture being a huge part of it.  Unlike the nuns in Rodriguez’s educational experience, Mr. Prezbo did not try to eliminate any aspects of his student’s culture, but rather embraced them.  For example, he used what he knew about all of his student’s interest in dice to teach probability in math, and the students were instantly engaged in their learning.  I think it becomes most difficult when you have the majority of your classroom coming from one culture and just one or two students that bring diversity into the classroom, like Rodriguez. It is easy to want that one student to change and be like the other children in the classroom because that is the “norm.”  Even though Rodriguez doesn’t seem to have any regrets about what he gave up for his education, I still think it is very important to allow students to be true to who they are and their culture.  I might have a different feeling about Rodriguez's educational experience had the nuns not asked his family to stop speaking Spanish.  I think families put a lot of trust in educators, and the Rodriguez’s family probably trusted that the nuns knew what was best for their child.  Obviously, the nuns really just wanted Rodriguez to succeed academically, which, of course, is important, but at what cost.  All in all, I think culture adds a huge element to teaching and learning, one that I might not have looked so closely at prior to this course. I feel I will be more conscious of what each child brings to the classroom and do my best to embrace their differences.

Goal 1: By August 2, 2014

After reading Hunger of Memory I really started to think about the ESL students in my classroom and best practices for teaching those students.  I must say I was a little saddened by the lack of remorse Rodriguez had for completely abandoning his culture for the sake of academic gains, and I was saddened that the nuns asked his family to basically stop speaking Spanish at home.  It is their native language after all!  By August 2, 2014 I would like to research professional development opportunities I could possibly attend to learn more about teaching ESL students.

Goal 2: September 15, 2014

By September 15, 2014 I will be a couple weeks into a new school year.  At this point in the year I would like to have a really good understanding of my students and their families through interest surveys, learning style surveys, and from get-to-know-you activities.  It is always important for me to get to know my students, and this year I will pay even more attention to different cultural aspects students bring with them.

Goal 3: September 15, 2019

My final goal connects with my first goal.  As I mentioned I was very moved by Hunger of Memory and found a very personal connection to Rodriguez’s educational experience and a student I had in my class last year.  I will likely have many more students similar to her in my years as an elementary teacher.  At each elementary school in the district I teach in there is an ESL assistant who pulls ESL students by grade-level for 40 minutes four times a week.  This past school year the ESL assistants in my building kept quitting and the ESL students in my classroom went through many weeks without this additional support, as well as three different teachers.  I am also a bit frustrated that these ESL assistants are not certified teachers.  I would like to look more closely at the curriculum that is being used when ESL students are pulled to work with ESL assistants, as well as the kind of training and educational requirements necessary for this position.  Basically I would like to advocate for the families of ESL students who I feel are not getting the education they deserve due to lack of necessary training of general education teachers, and especially the lack of education and knowledge ESL assistants are required to have.  I have actually always been very interested in obtaining an ESL endorsement, so as part of my recertification requirement I would like to look into getting one. 

Cycle Three: The Relationship Between Schools and Home Cultures

I found the readings this week to be very interesting, but was having a difficult time finding a connection among the readings.  As I got to the end of the third article what I took out of the three reading was that it is important to teach the whole child and that a common curriculum doesn’t account for the diversity and individuality of all learners.  My first true teaching experience was in 2007 when I student taught in a 4^th grade classroom at a very high-needs, highly at-risk elementary school.  The social worker at the school at the time is now the social worker at the high school in our district.  I always ask her about the students we shared at the elementary school and am often disappointed to hear that many of them are struggling.  I often question how to break this cycle of parents who do not value education who are raising students to not value education.  The traditional ways of teaching we have come to know don’t work for all children. Addams and Montessori, as Kyle pointed out, went to the kids-  “Kids, today, go to school. Montessori and Addams--it is worth pointing out--went to the kids. They came to understand their homes and their neighborhoods in ways that the educators of today would be wise to understand.”  I do feel we miss the boat sometimes when so much pressure is put on us for data, data, data and student achievement that we miss the bigger picture.  Montessori and Addams went to the kids, and also in ways the parents. I think educating parents, especially for students in at-risk environments, is very important to potentially break the cycle of at-risk youth.  The the introduction to cycle three post Kyle also states that in the settlement house people "worked by having middle class professionals live together in the settlement house and put their professional and cultural knowledge to the services of the urban poor around them. They treated the people around them as neighbors, not clients."  I think we need to take these ideals and apply it to many families in our country.  We need to work together for the greater good all of children.  In the Martin article, The schoolhome: Rethinking schools for changing families, he states, “I think it is fair to say that the curriculum of the Schoolhome does not have a common core.  It is equally important to note that that core is composed mainly of attitudes, skills, and values, not bits or bodies of knowledge” (Martin 84).  A new approach to learning that these readings reminded me of is inquiry-based teaching and learning in an International Baccalaureate school.  International Baccalaureate schools use an inquiry-based approach to learning, which includes teaching methods, built on students' individual knowledge and interests.  It also emphasizes learning how to learn and how to find out. In the district I teach in we will have two elementary Baccalaureate schools next year.  I like how this approach allows kids to take their own personal life experiences into their learning.  Traditional education settings do not work for all children, and I believe this inquiry-based approach is similar to what Addams and Montessori did in their teaching approaches. 

References:

Addams, J. (1912). Twenty years at Hull House, with autobiographical notes. New York: The MacMillan Company.

Martin, J. R. (1995). The schoolhome: Rethinking schools for changing families. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 

Montessori, M. (1986). The discovery of the child. New York: Ballantine.

Cycle Two: Cultural Assimilation & Social Mobility

The first thing I thought about when reading this book was a student I had in my second grade classroom this last year.  Jessica, an eight year old student, reminds me very much of Rodriguez.  Jessica’s family is from Mexico and is Spanish speaking, and although Jessica is bilingual, she struggles in school due to English being her second language.  She is a quiet, shy student who is not confident sharing her ideas. Throughout this past year I kept thinking to myself that Jessica would be so much further along if her parents would speak English at home.  I worked very hard with her and gave her extra attention, she received literacy interventions, and received one-on-one support from an English as a Second Language teacher, but without having anyone to help her practice sight words or read books with at home due to her parents solely speaking Spanish, Jessica struggled to close the gap this year. During informal times of the day I would ask Jessica about her family and ask her to speak in Spanish to me.  Jessica was somewhat shy, but become especially shy when I asked her to do this.  Not once during the year would she speak Spanish to me.  I did not understand why, but now wonder if she was in some way embarrassed by being different from the “gringos” in the classroom as Rodriguez was.  I am a bit more perplexed by the predicament that Jessica was in throughout the school year and will continue to face throughout all of her schooling.  Her situation is a double-edged sword like Rodriguez.  If you solely focus on academics, then culture is lost.  If you focus on maintaining your culture, then academics might be more difficult.   When the nuns asked Rodriguez’ parents to speak English at home, this was a turning point in the loss of culture Rodriguez came to know.  “In an instant, they agreed to give up the language (the sounds) that have revealed and accentuated our family’s closeness.  The moment after the visitors left, the change was observed” (Rodriguez 21).  This was the point in Rodriguez’ journey where education became more important than family culture. I am left wondering where he would be today had this conversation with the nuns never occurred?  He might not have found as much academic success, but the relationship with his mother and father would probably not have been strained and the culture of his family would probably not have been lost.  Is there a way to maintain culture and be successful?  Had the nuns not asked the Rodriguez family to stop speaking their native language at home and instead looking for better instructional strategies could Richard still have been a successful learner?  In the district I teach, elementary teachers are slowly getting trained in Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol or SIOP. According to the cal.org website, “SIOP is a research-based instructional model that has been proven effective in addressing the academic need of English learned throughout the United States."  Although I have not been trained yet I think it is really wonderful that more attention is being given to English Language Learners and effective ways to teach them. 

Cycle One: The Culture of Childhood

Before reading the articles I took some time to reflect upon my childhood.  I grew up on the east side of Traverse City, MI in a small neighborhood with many other children. The neighborhood had a shared beach access to East Bay and was surrounded by woods and orchards.  My summers were spent biking around the neighborhood and woods, playing at the beach, staying up late into the night playing flashlight tag with all of the neighbor kids, making tube runs in the snow at the sledding hill, and playing football at the neighbor’s vacant lot. Other than the days spent at the beach I don’t remember having parents in sight while playing around the neighborhood with my friends.  I have often thought about my upbringing compared to how I see children raised today, and it seems that children now spend a great deal of time in front of a screen or if they are playing with friends it is on a pre-arranged “play-date.”  In the Rosin article, I was able to view child-play from a parent viewpoint (although I do not have children of my own, yet).  Rosin discusses how the current generation of parents feels the world is more dangerous and raise their children according to this fear.  Rosin asks an important question about the change in the upbringing of children that has been instilled by fear when he stated, “Maybe a real question is, how did these fears come to have such a hold over us? And what have our children lost- and gained- as we’ve succumbed to them?” (Rosin 78).  As much as I loved my childhood and the freedom to play that I was given, I, too, feel I have been instilled with fear and worry about the dangers that kids can face when unsupervised, whether it be strangers or injury, and I know I will be anxious about both when I have children of my own.  But, after reading this article, I am really left thinking about the importance of unsupervised play among children.  Rosin also states that “adults have come to the mistaken view that children must somehow be sheltered from all risks of injury.  In the real world life is full of risks and reasonable risks are essential for children’s healthy development (Rosin 80).  We do not live in a bubble, so I believe children should be exposed to the consequences of risks they take, such as when the boy put a cardboard box in the fire and smoke instantly fills the air and burned the children’s eyes.  This was considered a “natural consequence” and was a true learning experience for these children.  Someone could verbalize over and over that smoke will fill the air when the cardboard is placed in the fire, but the children needed to see for themselves and in turn learned a lesson about fire and smoke.

            The Tobin article allowed me to look at play and social interactions from an educator’s standpoint. First, I was very surprised by how much of a preschoolers day is comprised of playtime in the Japanese schools.  In the United States, preschool is viewed as an early intervention for children’s academic success.  The Perry Preschool Project, which took place in the US, is one study that shows the benefits of early intervention, especially for at-risk children. This study looked at the long-term effects of children in a high-quality preschool program versus children who did not attend preschool.  Unlike the United States “the main reason children in contemporary Japan need preschool is to have opportunities to experience a level of social complexity lacking at home.  Adult intervention interferes with this complexity” (Tobin 109).  The Japanese preschools were very focused on play and allowing children authentic socialization experiences.  Many teachers did not intervene when children argued or even fought and allowed them to problem solve on their own. “The reasoning behind the noninterventionist strategy is to give children ample opportunities to deal with social complex situations including arguments and fights” (Tobin 133).  I feel the Japanese preschools have some very great points about their ideals on developing children socially.  I feel adults too often intervene and don’t allow children to think for themselves and problem solve on their own.  The real-world is full of problems and as adults we need to know how to solve those problems, for the most part, on our own.
        After reading the articles I am left thinking about best practices for child development.  I feel that the Japanese preschool program does a nice job of incorporating play and allowing children authentic interactions among their peers to aide in social development.  When I think about United States preschool programs I think a lot of emphasis has been placed on the academics, and we sometimes forget that these are three year old children and need unstructured play time to develop a sense of self. 

References

Hanna Rosin (2014, April). Hey! Parents, Leave Those Kids Alone. The Atlantic, 313(3), 75-86.

Joseph Tobin, Yeh Hsueh, & Mayumi Karasawa. (2009). Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited: China, Japan, and the United States (Ch. 3). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

CEP 822 Intro Post

Hello! My name is Lisa Myers.  I live in Traverse City, MI and have taught second grade for the last four years at Central Grade Elementary School.  A little over a year ago my husband-to-be and I eloped in Fiji.  We just built a house, so when I’m not teaching or working on class assignments I am busy with house projects.  In my free time I love to enjoy the beauty of Northern Michigan summers by biking, SUPing, or lounging in my hammock with a good book.  I also love to travel!  I am very excited to be completing the MATC program with this course.

In the first clip, The First Day, I was reminded of the first day of school and the importance of setting the standard from the moment students enter the classroom.  A first impression is very important.   Mr. Prezbo was not assertive and trusted that the kids would go to their assigned desk.  Unfortunately this did not happen.  Chaos ensued as he passed out bus passes to the wrong students and got even worse as the students exited the classroom without listening. I think this is a good reminder of the importance of understanding the demographic and culture of students you are teaching.  Mr. Prezbo took for granted a simple thing such as having students go to an assigned desk.  Possibly with some communication with colleagues about these students Mr. Prezbo would have been better prepared on how best to communicate with them so he could have potentially avoided that mess and gave a better first impression.   When Mr. Prezbo told Randy to just take a hall pass it was clear he did not understand these students.  Randy took Mr. Prezbo’s trust for granted and stole a whole stack of hall passes.

In the next clip, Detention and After-School Bonding, it still appeared that Mr. Prezbo did not have a good handle of these students.  He was making exceptions for students in detention and allowed all of them to leave “just this one time” when the students started listing reasons for needing to leave.  It does seem like Mr. Prezbo is starting to try to get to know the students on a personal level when he was talking to a couple of the boys outside of school. I’m wondering if this will work in his favor or if the students will take advantage of him.  Based on what a few students shared about their home life it seems that they face many troubles and really need to think about survival. 

In the fourth clip, Sharing a Happy Moment, it seems that Mr. Prezbo is finally starting to understand the students and learns that the way he will reach these students is by connecting content to their life.  When he discovered their interest in poker and gambling he quickly thought about how he could relate gambling to what he needed to teach the kids.  The kids were so engaged and wanted to learn about the odds on dice.  This really shows the importance of connecting content and curriculum to students interested, especially with difficult students to earn respect.   Like Mr. Prezbo said, you need to “trick them into thinking they aren’t learning and they do.”