PROMPT 3: Relating to Carlson

In order to be a good teacher sometimes we need to break the barriers and make some change. We, as teachers, need to use a variety of assessment techniques appropriate to diverse learners and accommodate sociocultural differences that affect learning. As seen on my last prompt there are many students that have English as their second language. The way they are being taught and assessed is affecting their learning. We need to come up with different type of activities that will teach and help our students understand that there is more out there rather than just our “normalizing community.”

At some point we will need to accommodate to a need of our student. When it comes to testing a student, that are English Language Learners, we need to either give them more time while testing or give better examples that we believe will help. On one of my tutoring sessions, Ms. Klaire asked me to test Jasmine, Melissa and Nelson, out in the hallway. She gave me a list of 20 words and told me to first read the word to them, then give them the word in a sentence and finally to repeat the word to them. I thought it would be easy to test the children, but I was wrong. When I began testing them I noticed none of them wrote anything on their paper. I decided to sound out the word for them a few times to see if it would help. I kept encouraging and telling them that they could do it if they tried, and they did. Ms. Klaire came out to see what was wrong because according to her I was taking too long because she was done testing the rest of the class using the same words. I apologized, and began to do it her way again but the children had blank marks on their paper. Ms. Klaire needs to give the children a better opportunity to show what they know, because I was able to see their capability with the bit more time that I gave them. This reminded me of what we discussed in class about “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB), a program with a goal to see improvement in the future with Reading and Math. The NCLB has a great goal but fails when it sees all students being the same. They don’t see that there are students that are ELL’s or students that have disabilities, and are testing them all alike.

Not everyone realizes that we are all unique in a certain way. We have the ability to do a lot but sometimes we need to do it a little bit more different than others. At times we need to help people see that there are people that need respect and a type of opportunity. As a competent teacher we should teach our kids that there are sociocultural differences. There are some people that stick to their norms and avoid the fact that there is more out there then just their norm. In example we have ELL’s that are not receiving the same help at home like other English speaking students. All of this reminds me of Dennis Carlson who wrote the article, “Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community”. In this article he talks a lot about gay people being treated wrong but he also focuses on the five components of Democratic, Multicultural Curriculum. He talks about us, as teachers, having protection and equality for differences and protection of minority rights. He says we should challenge the “essentialistic worldviews”. He tells us that we should cross and rupture the boundaries between different people. We should build alliances and hear what people have to say from their personal experiences.