Prompt #2: Johnson

The culturally competent teacher should be able to account for, demonstrate awareness of, and respond to the sociocultural distinctiveness of her or his students, families, and communities when planning for and delivering instruction.

Hello Again,
Today I thought I would write about the linguistic, ethnic, and sociocultural characters of the students in Mrs. Medos class. Just from looking around the classroom as I have mentioned before the students are of mostly Spanish decent. After talking with a few students it sounds as though most of them are originally from Guatemala and various other South American countries. It is easy to spot the variety of cultures, ethnicities, and languages just by spending a small amount of time with the students in the classroom.

With a little further research online I was able to determine that ninety-five percent of the students in the entire elementary school receive either free or reduced lunch. This directly correlates with the number of students living either in or very close to poverty. 71% of the student population is Hispanic, 14% African American, and 10% White. What surprised me was the number of students in the ESL program. 17% of the students in the school participate in an English Second Language program, which is nearly one fifth of the students, who can barely speak the language of their own country. In light of all these facts, bearing poverty and language barriers, only 24% of the students are proficient in mathematics, and a mere 32% in reading.

Certainly speaking different languages and practicing differing values and beliefs makes it difficult for many of the students to relate to one another. I would say that my teacher does a great job trying to facilitate the differences the students have. She seems very aware that they often find things appropriate to do with the other students and she very calmly will respond “I know that may be okay at home sweetie, but that is not how we do things here in room 118”.

Discussing the cultures, ethnicities, and languages of the class made me think of the Johnson article, “Our House is On Fire”. In that article Johnson discusses the issue of White Privilege in our society, and he proposes that we all can recognize this innate privilege. Then being more aware, we can start to adjust to a more equal society. This relates to Mrs. Medos classroom in an interesting sense, because only two of her students are white, and the two students in the ESL classroom that are white are actually some of the most shy and uninvolved students in the classroom. Now obviously a white student whose first language is not English is not what Johnson was using as his example, however the most interesting part is to see who has fallen into this privilege category in the classroom.

In the classroom, made up almost entirely of Spanish students, including a teacher of Spanish decent, the privilege interestingly falls with the Spanish students. Recognizing this has allowed me to realize that perhaps Johnson talks so much about White privilege because we originally started as a mainly white country, and it just shows that whoever is part of the majority holds the privilege. This explains why given the current demographic of the country and classroom, the privilege needs to be adjusted to a much more equal playing field.

Prompt #5: Delpit

The culturally competent teacher involves and works with families and community resources, understanding the differences in families, the important influence of family participation in students learning, and the benefit of collaborating with the wider school community.

Dear Bloggers,

Today I am going to discuss the challenge of incorporating parents and the wider school community into the classroom. Mrs. Medos, the teacher whose classroom I am volunteering in, is very involved with her student’s parents. However, in most circumstances it is not a positive conference between the two. Most often she speaks to parents concerning their children not doing their homework, acting out in class, and arriving late to school. This is a challenge that she encounters when trying to collaborate with the parents on a daily basis. The problem, I believe, is one that Lisa Delpit explains quite well in her article “The silenced dialogue”. Delpit says the schools are failing to recognize that “if the parents were members of the culture of power and lived by its rules and codes, then they would transmit those codes to their children. In fact, they transmit another culture that children must learn at home in order to survive their communities”. I strongly believe that this is the problem that Mrs. Medos often deals with. The parents of her students have instilled rules and codes into them that may not be appropriate for the classroom, and they themselves live by the rules, which can cause a large gap in communication and collaboration between the parents and their children’s education.

I personally would have a very difficult time trying to bridge the gap between parents and their children’s education. One direct correlation of the difference in culture is that many if not all of the parents only speak Spanish. This alone creates a huge problem in trying to coordinate their involvement with the classroom and school, when the students are there to study and speak English. So I believe the best solution to this problem is to have the parents work with their children outside of school, in Spanish if necessary, and work on teaching them the values and rules they need to practice inside the classroom. This way the parents can be involved, and the students will arrive on time, do their homework, and not act out in class, which will greatly supplement the time they spend learning in school. With more productive students and knowing they have enhanced their ability to learn in school the parents will by much easier to collaborate with, and the teachers will certainly respect them and thank them for their contributions.

The final aspect that is mentioned in the prompt from the Cultural Competence Teaching Areas is that attention needs to be paid to the differences in families. Delpit suggest that the schools must provide the children the content that other families from different cultural orientation provide at home. I think this is a great strategy to not only recognize the differences in families, but to teach the children the differences in culture and allow them to be more culturally aware. Since most of the children in Mrs. Medos class are mainly from the same country and culture, this is not a huge conflict, however, I feel any differences are explained to all the children and accepted by the teacher as something that is okay, or something she needs to teach the children to make exceptions to while they are in the classroom.

Prompt #1: First Impressions

Hello Bloggers,
Today was my third visit to a local kindergarten ESL (English Second Language) classroom at Mary L Elementary School. Perhaps it has to do with my background, coming from a school system in rural Maine, but I was very surprised to see just how much of an urban setting the school was placed. With no parking lot, and very narrow one way streets running through numerous houses, apartments, and many other not so appealing buildings, surprised may be a lenient word. The building itself is a large brick building with no decorations on the outside other than one run down sign. I noticed the apparent lack of a play area for the children both outside and also inside the school. Not only was this a huge contribution to the sense of seriousness I felt, but after entering the building and witnessing the children walking in silent lines, carrying passes, and witnessing how pertinent the staff was to strangers in the building, my sense of seriousness was confirmed.

Entering the building, the halls are very wide and tall, have very few posters, and are mostly cement. However, I was very happy to see how well decorated the actual classroom was. Hundreds of educational posters, symbols, and pictures cover every wall nearly from floor to ceiling. So, perhaps educational decorations are not valued by the school, but they certainly are by Mrs. Medos. Her classroom is set up with a number of tables that break the children up into about five groups, however, I have noticed almost the entire time I am in the classroom; the students are all sitting on the carpet together. The carpet functions as a form of control for Mrs. Medos, it makes it much easier to watch all of the children and keep them seated and paying attention.

Being an ESL classroom, the twenty-four students consist of two Caucasians, two African Americans, and the remainder is of Spanish decent. I am certain that the main focus and value in this classroom is the learning and development of the English Language. However, after spending a few mornings in the classroom, I have discovered that even though there is such a huge value placed on English, the teacher herself places a huge emphasis on the importance of behavior, respect, basic skills preparing the students for first grade, and attendance. She gives the students and parents are very hard time if they arrive to school late, have incomplete homework or are missing signatures on papers. Mrs. Medos tries very hard to help not only the children, but their parents, understand the importance of showing up on time and trying your best in and out of school. With a few exceptions the students all seem to be highly motivated to learn and explore new concepts. I think Mrs. Medos is very good at providing a variety of learning strategies to best accommodate all the children and she is a very patient but serious woman who has earned the respect of her students.