Prompt #6

A very difficult task that most of the teachers face is communicating with the students in ways that demonstrate sensitivity to sociocultural and linguistic differences. First of all, most of the teachers aren’t fluent in the languages these students speak besides English. Teaching assistance is often need, and unfortunately not available all the time, due to the poor funding of the school. The teachers must come up with verbal and non-verbal communication techniques that encourage positive social interaction and support learning in their classroom. Most of the time this isn’t an easy task because the students must also participate.

In the classroom that I tutored in, a lot of the teacher’s assistants deal with students who have different sociocultural backgrounds. I’ve noticed the teachers purposely split up groups so that the students that don’t speak fluent English get explained the assignment in their native language then later on they go back to the teacher so the teacher can help them out in English. This was a very effective strategy that the teacher used.

Also, when the teachers would set up partner assignments they would put the students that fluently speak English with another student that would have trouble with English. This was also effective because the teacher could use the students that were fluent to help out the other students, which saved a lot of time.
Trying to deal with this problem myself, I would first try to get the students to “break the ice”. I would ask a lot of question about their background and sometimes ask them how to say some things in their language. I also could speak Portuguese and one of my students spoke Spanish and we would compare words because most of the words sound similar. I wanted the student to feel comfortable around me because I was once in their same position.

The very sad thing is the lack of teacher assistants they have, and I feel honored to come in and tutor this children that need it because there is only so much staff to go around. I can relate to this problem to Johnson. Coming from an area like these children do, the school budgets tend to be low and tight. Hiring these teacher assistants that are fluent in two languages can get costly. It sometimes isn’t fair because the rich schools get assistance and extracurricular activities that sometimes are unneeded, when these assistants can really make an impact on these children’s learning experience. They have the disadvantage because they don’t have what the other kids have, and it is really crucial for their learning.

Prompt #5

If I am the teacher of this classroom where I must work with families and the community I would most likely come through many challenges. First of all dealing with parents and having them participate in school an activity is difficult enough, you must convince them and tell them the importance of it. If the parents don’t speak fluent English this may make it a more difficult task. If they ever have to help the student with their homework they must first understand English, what the task at hand is asking, and then translating it so they understand it in their language.

Building a wider school community is helpful for the students. Trying to get this altogether can benefit the students future, but it must be condoned to all parents. Being this culturally competent teacher I must reach out to all different backgrounds that the parents of these students may have and try to convince them to participate. I could address these problems by maybe getting a translator or a teacher assistant to translate what I say so that the parents can understand so they may ponder whether or not to participate.

I could show respect by letting them know that it could be difficult because having a job and trying to learn the English language could be a tough task. I could also tell those reasons how this could benefit their child’s future so they don’t have to go through any struggles when they are older. Maybe having a few open house events could be beneficial because it could give the parents an overview of what goes on in the classroom and how the students are doing. If they parents show up to these they may be interested in helping out their child and building this community

The theorist that I could relate this prompt to is Lisa Delpit. Delpit was all about participation in the classroom and outside of it. She also talked about how students can be teachers. And I thought if the parents get involved then maybe they can teach me a thing or two about their background. I can become a well-rounded teacher and I could help out the students more efficiently. Participation is key and if these parents and the community participated this could influence a better future and a better learning experience for these students.

Response to John's Prompt #1

After I read John’s response to prompt one I decided to write a response to this because his use of sensory detail caught my attention and I was interested in the rest of his response. He begins his response describing the building and how he is nervous to enter this building which he has no clue how his experience could be.

I like his style of response because I felt as if I were walking through these hallways with the state of mind like his, which was nervous and out of place. I can relate because on my first day of tutoring I felt the same way because I didn’t know what to expect. The neighborhood around the school wasn’t very welcoming and my positive thoughts of this experience were going down the drain. I begun to think many negative thoughts, but then thought many students prior to me went through the same thing. He also didn’t have much experience dealing with children. I thought this was going to be a problem but after the first day was completed I enjoyed dealing with them because they are open-minding and interested in learning. Although we had different subjects to tutor and grade levels both experiences, I felt, were similar.

Response to Mike P's Prompt # 6

I am responding to Mike P’s prompt 6 because he dealt with 6th grade students and tutored math; as opposed to Kindergarten and First grade reading like I dealt with. I wanted to compare and contrast the older to the younger students. He explains how there was a problem in multiplication and division in 6th grade students; this reminds me of my students that couldn’t add two simple numbers together. This could probably be a chain reaction to the future as we see in the students that Mike tutored. I that it was interesting that he mentioned factors outside of school that could affect the student’s math abilities. It could be true that if most of the student’s parents can’t speak English then they may not be able to do basic math.

He thought of a possible solution to this, and that was to encourage the students to practice this at home or seek help from a friend. I thought that this was a good idea because the more the practice outside of school, the more prepared they will be coming into class and being ready to broaden their math skills and gradually improve. Mike also mentions that most of the students don’t have the proper supplies at home to effectively complete their homework, which is a big issue and reason why they may not practice this at home. Overall, I think that Mike did a great job in mentioned key points that needed to be solved and what the students can do to benefit themselves to improve their math skills. I also liked how he mentioned it to Delpit and the communication because communication is key for these students to transfer what they need to know from their language to English so it could be taught efficiently.

Response to MJ's Prompt #2

In MJ’s response was very observant he mentioned that children with the same ethnicity and background would form ‘’cliques’’. I never came to realize that until after MJ depicted that, and I see it more a lot in my 1st grade class rather than my Kindergarten class. Some of the students at times speak their native languages to each other. It was important and necessary that MJ mentioned the percentages in the free lunches because it shows the poverty in the majority of the students. When he mentioned that almost half the school was in the English as a Second Language program, this was essential to the schools funding for teacher assistants. This means the more of these students the more assistance they would need in order to fulfill a better learning experience for these students.

When he says the students act as if they are at home with his family reminds me of the students in my classroom; they would interrupt the classroom and talk when it was not their turn, or get up to use the bathroom without permission. It was clear that manners weren’t used or taught outside of the classroom. I like how MJ related Johnson because it is true that the white people just ignore serious issues like this that reflect on the future of America. If problem can’t be resolved sooner than later, it will only get worse, and whites will always remain with the advantage academically and in society.

Prompt #4

As a tutor I am aware that where I am teaching there is a diverse group of children in the classroom. I also notice that there are social cultural factors that do affect the learning of these children. The difficult part of this is coping with the students that may not always comprehend what I am trying to do or have difficulty maintain focus on the activities. As a “rookie” in this field I try to put myself in their shoes and imagine what they are going through at a young age.

If I came into this thinking that I could just tutor the students and it will all work easily I would have had a difficult time in completing my duty. I understood the diversity and differences and individually tried to apply my time and knowledge to each student because of their different backgrounds. A couple of my students spoke Spanish at home which made it difficult at times for them to understand my directions and what I wanted them to do. I tried to remain patient and calm; this helped because the students gradually became better at the activities they needed to do.

The area of my elementary school wasn’t as bad as these children have to deal with. The parks and buildings are old and tarnished. There is a lack of teacher assistants and after school activities. This can relate to when Kozol talks about the importance of money and funding properly. If these areas would have more money I believe that students can focus more on school then their lives outside of it, and have better academic opportunities. All these students are different and may have better lives than others. Comparing my life to a majority of these students childhood is different also. I lived in a peaceful middle-class environment where I would never have to worry about anything outside the classroom.

This also can relate to Carlson when he says “no one speaks from nowhere, and no one speaks from everywhere”. I interpret this as that everyone has a background where they came from, and everyone has difference. Contrary to that, no one can say they have dealt with all kinds of differences because you can’t put yourself in everyone’s shoes. It is difficult to say that you have dealt with the same problems as everyone else.

There were challenges in trying to get the students to cooperate and at times I would get frustrated if they kept repeating their errors. Then I came to realize there is only so much the teacher can do in school with every student individually. The students probably get a limited amount of help at home and have different sociocultural backgrounds and their parents maybe ELL’s. An advantage to this was that my parents didn’t speak English when I was younger and they eventually learned it later on. This made me understand where the students came from and how to cope with them. I had some misconceptions on the students who spoke a language besides English. I thought that they would have difficulty understand the readings, but one of my most productive student spoke English and Spanish so it contradicted my misconception.

Response to Mike M's Prompt 3

In Mike’s response to prompt 3 he clearly states the importance of assessing students at their rate of learning. This reminds me when in my classroom the teacher would group students based on their ability to learn, and what they have learned so far. I like how Mike starts off by stating that this is indeed essential to teaching. Mike gave some examples of techniques to efficiently assess the students, which was relevant to what my teacher in the classroom I tutored used. I found it helpful that he mentioned these techniques because it gives the reader knowledge of what can be used in the classroom.

Shor really emphasized on equal participation, as Mike explains in his prompt. This is key to Shor’s theory and his beliefs in teaching. I also like when Mike adds in the statement that Shor said when he explained how there is a need for structure and openness. This is in fact something I believe is true; in my classroom the teacher had a variety of day-to-day lessons so the students were interested and it worked. When I read about how in Mike’s class they would separate the students by their academic capabilities this reminded me of my classroom and how the teacher would organize the students. I can also relate to when he said it was difficult to make sure the students were on the same page.

Overall, I found the methods Mike mentioned about Shor to be relevant to my experience and how my teacher used these methods. He mentioned key points of Shor and his main focus and goals as a teacher, which was helpful in letting me understand his experiment and how Shor related to it.