PROMPT 6: Relating to Shor

To be a culturally competent teacher we need to show our sensitivity to sociocultural and linguistic differences. We have to come up with different techniques that will encourage our students to participate and interact so they can learn. In my classroom we have different days were we have to do stations, and that day we had to do Phonics. The point of this section was to help students learn how to spell words. These kids seemed so bored that they didn’t want to do the work because it didn’t keep them interested. Melissa said, “Do we really have to do this? It’s boring.” She just wouldn’t sit still. I sat and thought for a second and I knew I had to come up with something that will interest them and will also help them learn. We had a board of pictures that were meant for something else. The thing that came to mind was that I had to come up with game, so I did. I decided to use the board with the pictures and I asked the students if they wanted to play a game like Bingo. They were excited and said “YEAH!” I told them that we had to look for something to use as chips and one of my students went to grab the bag that carried the plastic pennies. We had the flash cards but I knew the game would be too easy for them so I told them this was going to be a little bit more different then the real Bingo. The rules were that every time they had the picture of the word I said they will have to sound it out and tell me the first letter it started with. Then if they had the whole board full they will have to say “ALPHABET” to let us know they won. In the end they will have to sound out all the words to the rest of the students. They loved the game and they thought it was fun. They thought they were just playing a game when in reality they were all participating and learning.

The action that I took to have these students participate reminded me of Ira Shor who wrote “Empowering Education”. In this article Shor says, “Participation is the most important place to bring because student involvement is low in traditional classrooms and because action is essential to gain knowledge and develop intelligence” (pg 17). What I did with this group of students was that I paid attention to what they told me and I used new ideas to change the traditional classroom. We showed the communication that the students and I had. So they were able to participate and learn in a way that they had fun with.

PROMPT 5: Relating to Delpit

As a culturally competent teacher we are encouraged to work with the family of our students. If I was to imagine being the teacher of the classroom where I volunteer at, I believe I would encounter some challenges. The students in this classroom are diverse and this means that they have different backgrounds. They get a different type of education back home from their parents which they consider important to have as survival skills in their environment. With this said some students in the classroom have a tough time listening to Ms. Klaire. At times she has to repeat things and when that doesn’t work she has to raise her voice and then they know it’s serious. It is tough to know how our student’s parents are racing their students and this is why it is a good thing to interact with the families. As a whole school we can have different types of activities that allow their parents to participate, the only problem is that sometimes we will not get the best amount of participation. In this case we will have to come up with many new things to help us get to know our parents better.

At times it is our responsibility to get and understanding of why we are not getting the respect of our students. In some cases students will not take us serious because we have a different type of way to show our authority. The theorist, Lisa Delpit, talks about this situation in her article, “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children”. Lisa beliefs teachers should adapt to the children’s culture. Learn what they know and integrate that into their learning. We should not tell our students that the way that they are being brought up is wrong but we should show respect to their parents cultures.

PROMPT4: Relating to Johnson

As a teacher we need to be aware that we are about to step into a diverse environment. Being new at all of this we have to keep an open mind and look at the many different things that our students can bring to the table and can help us teach them. I am Hispanic and English is my second language. Even though I am Hispanic, like our many students, we still have different beliefs and different cultures. Personally I don’t believe that my personal history or sociocultural background will intersect with those of my students.

I have experienced many of the similar things that our students have to deal with in public schools since I was in them my whole life. Being a teacher I have the advantage to know how the students feel. I will have the advantage to be able to communicate with my non-English speaking students. I believe that being bilingual is going to help me a lot in the future, when it comes to helping my students that are struggling with their learning because they are non-English speakers. I am also going to be able to communicate with their parents perfectly fine if they speak English or Spanish. This can also be a disadvantage because my students can get a little bit too comfortable because I speak Spanish, so I will have to limit myself to the amount of Spanish I speak in the class.

During one of my tutoring sessions I was working with my usual students, who are Jasmine, Melissa and Nelson, I was shocked to hear a comment. When doing phonics, which they have to show me they know how to sound out words, it was Jasmines turn and she was taking a while because it seemed like she was trying to sound out the word in her head before saying it. But she never got the chance to finish because Melissa, who is Asian, said “she doesn’t know she’s Spanish that’s why she is not going to pass to second grade.” It hit me hard that I didn’t even know what to say, all I said at the moment was that it wasn’t her turn and that she needed to respect her classmate. The only thing that Jasmine did was rolled her eyes. Even though all the students are minorities they still have some type of racism going on even if they do not notice it. This relates to Allan Johnson who wrote “Our House is On Fire”. In his article he talks a lot about racism and privileges still occurring in our community and we are too blind to see it. This is true, in my FNED 346 class we took the IAT (Implicit Associated Test) which showed us that our surroundings influence the way we think about another person being from a different race, but doesn’t mean we are racist. Even though many of us did not like our results this test has been proven to have accurate results.