Learning Denied Class Lesson

I really enjoyed class today. Unlike some of my classmates, I never caught on to the fact that Dr. Winters was acting in a way to demonstrate the ways in which Patrick was treated in the classroom. I was shocked by how she treated the one "slow" group and including us in embarrassing them. During this class time, I felt very awkward and afraid to upset the professor. I also felt bad that she kept drawing attention to the same group. I thought that this was a very effective way of helping the class understand how Patrick was treated, and in turn, better understand the book. Reading Learning Denied was very difficult to read. I couldn’t understand how teachers could try and deter a student’s learning. This is exactly what happened in class when the professor had the slow group continue to work on the first assignment while she taught the rest of the class other important lessons, causing these students to miss learning important ideas. Reading this book, I felt completely helpless, which Patrick and his parents felt at an even bigger magnitude. I was shocked and couldn’t believe that the school district would rather focus on Patrick’s weaknesses and build upon those rather than taking into consideration his strengths. I have always thought of special education as something that is positive, but this book shows that there are some circumstances in which the special education program doesn’t work in the best interest of the student, which occurs when certain learning disabilities are misdiagnosed. Now that I have seen the horrible effects that holding back a student have on that student and their family, I will be careful in making observations about my students when I have my own classroom.

Monday’s Observation and Today’s Class Discussion

Once again, not too much happened at the junior high on Monday. I walked in to find another substitute teacher, so the lesson plan was changed a little. The class started a new unit in which they will study Africa south of the Sahara desert. She first introduced the unit by having the class look at different maps of Africa to help them to better understand the economy, countries, and landscape of the region. Students spent the majority of the class time reading the first two chapters which talked about the topographical features of the region. They did so by students reading aloud each section. After reading each section, the teacher asked students about the reading to emphasize important ideas. When they had finished reading the two chapters, the students answered more questions about Africa using their atlases, such as the largest island, the three tallest mountains, the deepest lake, and the three longest rivers. During this time, I was able to walk around and help the students who were having trouble completing their assignment. They were asked to turn their worksheets in at the end of the period, which somewhat forced them to do some work while the students had a substitute. Once again, the students had a lot of trouble behaving well with a substitute, but they all managed to finish and turn in their worksheet.

In class today, we talked about high-stakes testing, as well as the legal part of teaching. Some of the legal issues that we talked about were shocking, such as the possibility of a teacher being fired because of his sexual orientation or having a baby out of wedlock. These social issues don’t seem to have any influence on the effectiveness of a teacher. These legal issues affect how we teach and what we teach. I agree with many of the students in our class that these legal rights and responsibilities were very vague. I also found it interesting that this reading selection states that tenured teachers can be fired. Although they can, it takes a lot in order to do so. Although tenure is a very important for teachers in regards to job security, it can also be detrimental to the students. From my experience, some (only a small percentage) of my tenured teachers disrespected their students and weren’t motivated to teach. Although this is a horrible thing to happen in the classroom, I still believe that tenure is very important. Reading this selection left me very afraid for my future as a teacher. It seems as though teachers can be fired very easily or not offered tenure. It scares me so much that even in the teaching profession there isn’t job security. These readings were a huge wake up call about the importance of having knowledge about the legal rights and responsibilities of teachers. I plan to learn more about this before I begin teaching. On another note, we got our philosophy of education papers back today. I was surprised how well I did on the paper because I had a lot of trouble finishing it. I plan on improving it over the semester.

Life in Schools Presentation

Today in class, the second literature group presented their book, Life in Schools. Once again, I was very impressed with there presentation. This group also did a lot of research, but used less statistics (mainly because the main idea of this book couldn’t be supported by statistics and graphs). I was very impressed with their knowledge of the capitalist system and they were successful in explaining how the system affects the educational system. Until this class, I have never thought about how the different classes in society affected the classroom. The group showed that the capitalist system lead to oppression as well as the alienation of workers. These problems are passed onto our children through social reproduction. The answer to the problem presented was for teachers to engage students in social analysis. Although I think the presentation was well-rehearsed, I feel as though a lot was left out because the group ran out of time. While capitalism and the problems that it causes were well introduced and explained, I feel as though there should have been more time spent about what answers the book has. I did, however, find the main ideas of this book very interesting and I hope that we can talk more about it in class when we have more time.

Catching Up on My Journaling

Now that I am done with my philosophy of education paper, I can once again work on Journaling. Much has happened since my last entry, including our class discussion on Tuesday, more assigned readings, and observation at the junior high. Not too much has been happening during my observation. The students were preparing for their chapter test which is on Friday, so they spent Monday and today reviewing and finishing their study guides and maps while watching a video about the Andes Mountains, which they were studying. During this time, I looked ahead at the next unit, which focuses on Europe. I also spent some of the time memorizing the rest of the students names. This is the class that I’ve spent the least amount of time with, so there were some students that I didn’t know. I am also realizing that it’s going to be a little difficult to work with my student that I’m profiling. Her supervised study classroom changes everyday and I only observe her in class every other week. I will need to meet with her in class next week so I can figure out her schedule and find times when we can meet.

In class on Tuesday, we first discussed our philosophies of education. I was relieved to hear that other students had trouble keeping their papers to less than three pages. I had so much that I wanted to say and so many questions that I needed to answer, but there was no way to address every issue. I really hope that we have the chance to rewrite it this semester because I want to make my philosophy more concise. Also, we discussed the article we read about immigration and its affect on the educational system. I found this article very interesting because when I think about education, I don’t often think about immigrant students. I did, however, have some experience with these students in elementary school because we had a very good ESL program at my school. I have found that these students learned a lot of their English from their peers during social times such as recess. I believe that these students will add to the success to the future of America. They have many positive values that students in America don’t have, and add diversity to the classroom. I think that the issue of immigrant students is very important and should be addressed more often.

My Philosophy of Education

On Thursday, we began to brainstorm about our philosophy of education. This is an important piece of writing to create during this class because it is important to have an idea of what my beliefs about teaching are early in my studies of the profession. I already have some ideas from writing a philosophy of education paper last year, but I have many new and evolved ideas through the discussions and readings that we’ve done in class.. Most of my beliefs came from my experiences in the classroom. I remember what I enjoyed most in school and what helped me learn well, as well as the experiences that discouraged me from learning. It is a huge mixture of the strengths of many of the teachers that I have had. A major part of my philosophy involves learning through experience and the student is responsible for learning. The job of the teacher is to guide their learning. When considering my thoughts about education, I had never thought to look at what I think knowledge is. It is such a basic question, and I see why it is essential to answer it. While I am excited complete my philosophy paper, I know that it will continue to change throughout my studies here, as well as throughout my career.

Immigration in America

In the article, "Immigrant Children and The American Project," Carola Suárez-Orozco discusses the issue of immigrants coming to America and their effects on the country and the educational system. The concerns that she states early in the article are very important to ask, but questions that I’ve never thought about before. I’ve put very little time into wondering how immigration affects the culture of the United States, as well as how it would affect the educational system. Even though I may not realize it, immigration is still occurring at a rapid rate. It seems as though a major issue for immigrant children is "acculturation." It is difficult for these children, or for anyone for that matter, to decide how their two cultures will come together. I feel that these children are at some sort of an advantage because they work hard in their jobs and in school. They came to the United States for a better life, rather than many children here that take all that they have for granted and aren’t inspired to work hard. On the other hand, it must be very difficult growing up in the United States, trying to balance both cultures. I can’t imagine how hard it is for these children to try and fit in with their classmates while still holding onto their original culture. As it is said in the article, many times these children have a very difficult time fitting in, causing "shame, doubt, and even self-hatred." (56). Another difficulty that these students usually need to overcome is underfunded schools, which we talked about during Tuesday’s presentation. Many immigrant families move to cities, where many schools are underfunded, lacking supplies and an environment vital for learning. The most important point of this article is that "immigration generates change." (56). These immigration children will grow up in this nation and become a major part of society. Early in their education, we must make them a part of society without having them completely abandon their other cultural identity. I think that Suárez-Orozco states it perfectly that we must "cultivate" the assets that they already had before coming to this country, rather than viewing them negatively.

First Literature Circle Presentation

Today, our first literature group presented Savage Inequalities by Jonathon Kozol. I was very impressed by their presentation and the research they used to support the book’s main idea. Unlike most presentations that I’ve seen throughout my educational career, this group included the class and made their lesson interesting and fun. I think it was helpful that the students used schools in Illinois as examples. It made the issue hit a little closer to home. Through using the school report cards, as well as other statistics involving district budgets, ACT scores, and drop out rates, they were able to support Kozol’s thesis that low income schools lack the resources to provide an adequate education for its students. It was very depressing to hear about schools that used the majority of their budget to repair the building rather than on newer teaching resources and the lack of opportunity that these students have. What was most motivating about the presentation was the report card for the magnet school in Chicago. The district in which this school was located didn’t have a large budget and it had a good amount of minority students enrolled (I believe over half). Although I’m sure this school isn’t in as great a need for more funding like East St. Louis High School, these results show that there is some hope for underfunded schools. I think that it would be a very good experience for our class to visit one of these schools and observe how the school day is different from our experiences in high school. I hope that I’ll have the opportunity to do so sometime before I become a teacher. I was very impressed with the amount of time and effort that this group spent in order to present the ideas of this book. It sparked my interest in how money affects education, and I hope to read it sometime (most likely after the semester ends).

Some Progress Made in Observation

Today, class was much like the other days in which I’ve observed. The students began their class period by taking their daily map quiz. In today’s map quiz, the students were introduced to a new concept involving directions. Instead of explaining the concept of east southeast, Mr. H (the teacher which I am observing) helped guide the students to understand it on their own by asking them what they knew about the four cardinal directions. He used this same strategy to help students learn about how to measure distances on a map. When I went around the room to help students with their quizzes, I was frustrated that some of the students either didn’t listen or didn’t understand what the class had just found together. I find it hard to believe that some seventh grade students don’t know the four cardinal directions, but I guess that’s possible. I also realized that I need to be more confident when answering students’ questions. For some reason, I’m always worried that I won’t be able to answer their question, but that hasn’t been a problem. The students spent the rest of the class period working on labeling their political and physical maps of South and Middle America. While they did this, I went around to help students, but I also looked for the student that I would like to profile. In doing so, I realized that I hadn’t learned all of the students names yet. I am going to solve this problem by either asking Mr. H for a seating chart or asking the students what their names are when I help them. The problem is that I observe a different class each week because of block scheduling. I’m hoping that by next week, I will have the names of the students in both classes memorized. I did, however, pick three boys and three girls that I thought would be good to observe for my profile. Mr. H agreed with two of my selections, so I am going to decide between the two of them and e-mail him tomorrow. I feel as though I should choose a girl because I think that she would open up to me more than a boy would, but I could be wrong. I’m going to look over the assignment again and see which student would best help me. On a more positive note, the students were pretty well behaved today and I don’t hate working with junior high school students like I did last week. Once again, I’m starting to think that it wouldn’t be that bad to teach in the junior high rather than in an elementary school. I’m still trying to get more involved in the classroom, and I’m going to talk to the teacher about that on Wednesday. Hopefully I’ll be able to teach or assist in teaching some mini-lessons soon. I just don’t want to interrupt his class because I know that I’m very fortunate for him to take time out of his day to give me the opportunity to observe his classroom. On a final note, I’m interested to see how the first literature circle goes tomorrow. I have no idea how to structure our presentation, which is in less than a month!

Understanding Discrimination Through My Ancestry

I just finished the sermon, "How the Irish Became White," which we received an e-mail about earlier today. I thought that the story was especially interesting because most of my heritage is Irish. Until class on Thursday, I didn’t know about the extent of discrimination that the Irish first faced when they came to the United States. I do however, remember my dad talking about how his Irish Catholic family was a ‘minority’ in the town that he grew up in, although he didn’t face discrimination. I found it hard to believe that a group of people that had undergone discrimination and something similar to slavery would turn against those with a similar experience. It seems as though our country is like a group that likes to make newcomers feel unwelcome until they conform and become more like the group. Those new members, in turn, oppress those in which they were once on the outside with. Although I have never experienced discrimination, this article helped me to come closer to the issue, knowing that my ancestors had gone through it.

On a different note, I will choose my student that I will profile tomorrow. I’m still not sure about what kind of student I would like to observe. I’m excited to begin working on this and hopefully spending a little more of my day at the school so I can see how the child acts in other environments such as other classrooms, at lunch, and at recess. At first I thought that I wouldn’t be able to relate to the students, but junior high school students seem to have grown up since I was in junior high. It is scary how mature these students are, or at least the mature nature of things they know. I am interested in learning about what these students talk about and what influences them.

On a final note, which really has very little to do with class, I hope the weather warms up soon because some of these walks to the junior high have not been very enjoyable.

Today’s Class Discussion on Chapter 5 of Nieto

Today in class we discussed chapter five of Affirming Diversity, which focused on culture, identity, and learning. Unlike the previous chapters in the books, this booked talked about the ways in which teachers should acknowledge the ethnicity of their students. We shouldn’t act as though we’re color blind, which is something I’m guilty of doing sometimes. At the beginning of class, we made it clear that this idea didn’t contradict the earlier chapters because Nieto is talking about ethnicity and not race. I had never thought of the fact that students of different ethnicities might learn differently. That is something I’ll have to try and observe the next time I visit my geography class. Once again, our discussion turned to tracking, which is an important issue to discuss in the class. Through this book and by looking back on examples of how tracking negatively affected students while I was in school, but I still don’t think that tracking is horrible. I think this is because I had a somewhat positive experience with tracking. When I was in first grade, I was put in the lower reading group. I think that this was fair because unlike some of the other kids in my class, I was still having trouble reading. By the time I got to second grade, I was in the more advanced reading group. It’s not like we were singled out in the class, we were just assigned different books to read during class. This is like what goes on in the second grade classroom that I observed last year. As I described in an earlier post, each student is given a letter, and that letter symbolizes the level of book that the student can read up to. Each of the students have different letters, but I think that this system had a positive effect on them. Many of the students were determined to move up a letter and worked hard by actually reading during their scheduled reading time, as well as at home. This is similar to my experiences in school. Although I never passed the tests to get into the advanced reading group in fourth grade, I continued to work hard in my classes, trying to improve my reading and writing skills. Finally, in eighth grade I was recommended to take the enriched language arts class as a freshman in high school. Although I was a little apprehensive about being put in that class (most likely a result of tracking) I was challenged in that class and it was one of the best experiences I had in high school. I know that it’s important to help others when they need it, and I know that I will also learn when helping others, but I still feel that in a tiny way, tracking is somewhat good for students. If all students were to stay back and help their peers, how can they ever reach their potential? How are they going to be challenged? From my experience, whenever I was in a "regular" English class, I wasn’t being challenged and didn’t meet my full potential. I could have worked harder. This is largely my fault, but I think that many students need to be pushed. I know that this is a horrible way in which to look at tracking, but it is only because it had a positive effect on me. I never felt bad about being placed in the "regular" classes throughout elementary school and junior high school; I had a very good education. But I learned so much about the world and myself as a thinker more in my enriched classes. I think I’m just a little confused about what would happen to the "gifted" students if they weren’t allowed to move on and were held back to help their peers. If anyone could help answer that for me, that would be especially helpful.

Yet Another Day of Observation...

Today was my fifth day of observation at the junior high school. As ususal, I walked in during the teacher’s study hall period, so I went around observing what the students were working on. Aside from working on some geography assignments, students were also working on a Jekyll and Hyde venn diagram in order to help them compare and contrast, a bacteria map in which they were to label the different parts of a cell, and a geometry vocabulary crossword puzzle. I’m very fortunate to be able to see other projects that students are working on in other classes. I thought that all of the assignments were creative and made the subjects more interesting for the students. I know that I would love to fill out a crossword puzzle in order to learn vocabulary words. I’ve noticed that during these study hall periods, many times some students will come up to the teacher’s desk and ask him random questions, such as today when a boy began talking about astronomy with him. Instead of sending the student back to their seat, the teacher has a discussion with the student. This boy is taking an interest in a certain subject, and the teacher took some time out to discuss something of importance to the student.

When class began, students started by working on their daily map quiz. During this time I was able to go around the room and help answer students’ questions. I was surprised by how many of them were unfamiliar with finding a location using latitude and longitude, especially since they have been working on it for the entire school year. Because the teacher was still a feeling sick, he planned to hand back papers and have the students watch a movie. While he handed students’ papers back, he reviewed them and explained common mistakes that students had made. One assignment was especially difficult for the students, in which they had to create a graph, so the teacher dropped the grade but still reviewed common mistakes that were made so that they would be able to understand what they had done. Once all of the papers were handed back, the class began their in class video assignment. While they were watching their video on the Amazon, students were to fill out the five themes of the geography of the Amazon. This included the location, the place (physical and human features), human-environment interaction, movement (of goods, people, and ideas), and region. Before beginning the video, the teacher gave explanations for each of the themes using Bloomington as an example. This referred to Dewey’s idea of building education off of what students already know.

On Monday I will finally decide what student I should pick to work with for my profile. Once I have some idea, I’m going to discuss it with the teacher and see if they are a good candidate. We have agreed that I should pick a student that isn’t a model student and always well behaved, but I need to find one that is somewhat disciplined and will be able to help me with my observation and research. I also need a student that will be able to get most of their work done so that I can use some of their time to work with them. Aside from this, I have one small concern right now. I feel like I’m not that active in my classroom. I’m just not sure how I can contribute because much of the time it is a class discussion that the teacher has planned. I think it would have been easier for me to observe in a language arts class where I could work one on one with the students. The most I’ve done thus far is help students when they are working on worksheets and map quizzes on their own, but that doesn’t happen often. I’m not sure how I can get involved. Does anyone have any suggestions?