Blogs

Give in.
Go ahead, 
Slice my soma.
Violate my 
Parotid stroma.
Just please don't let me 
Wake up in a coma.
Pleomorphic Adenoma.

In the beginning of class, the students did their Do Now and studied their vocab words for the quiz. The teacher asked me to pull individuals who struggled to finish his/her homework-- reading and giving meaning to poems in a pre-made packet -- during the quiz time. I knew from the get go, I didn’t want to give the answers to the students right away if they got confused. As a student, I have always benefited from my mentors questioning me in order to help me figure out the answer on my own. The goals of the exercises in the packet were to help the students build their vocab and the ability to interpret stories and poems. Most importantly, the goal was to prepare these ELL students for the benchmark exam.

Multiliterate education largely does not exist in an effective form not simply because teachers lack the tools with which to implement it, but because enough value is not put on it for tools to be developed in the first place. At the expense of multiliterate education, other curricula are put in place that foster values entrenched in the privileged middle class cultures and economies that hold power in this country. I think this text reads nicely alongside Delpit as one attempts to explore different ways of approaching how we change power and value systems in schools, and how multiple literacies can be achieved perhaps only through recognition of the reasons behind favoring certain kinds of literacies over others.

• During lunch, Teacher L asked me to introduce myself and say a bit about why I would be joining them. I told them I was training at Haverford to be a teacher and wanted to learn about how to teach from their class. Then they asked me a couple of questions (will you teach here? Etc.) Then, Teacher L had each of them introduce themselves to me and say something about their selves. Students said thinks like ‘I really really really really like sports’ or ‘I am crazy about horses’. One student introduced herself to me in sign language spelling.
  • This is the best introduction to a field placement class that I’ve had so far. I really got to get a sense of each student from the beginning, and was introduced as a teacher and member of the community.

• After the class had time for two students to share their fairy-tale projects, which were fairy tales they had written, illustrated, and bound. They first explained what the story was about, showed the cover and back with fake prizes and review quotes. (‘This story was excellent, it left me on the edge of my seat. When is the author writing a sequel?’ –Publisher’s Weekly) Then they read the story to the whole class, which was done in a friendly way with a bit of talking in the middle, and laughing with the group. (One boy said in the middle, ‘Teacher L said I couldn’t use violence, so I used cupcake blasters instead’). Afterwards, each of the two students received comments and maybe a question or two from the class, and lastly Teacher L.

Blinding, trying to read 
Between lines, it's just space unconsigned.
Minding, dying to need.

Where is the end and beginning
Between the eye and the mind?
Reading words you can't find.

Thinking, ready to bleed.
Full mind, empty space unenshrined,
Proceed, it can only be freed.

Where's the beginning and ending
Of what has been lost and defined?
Freeing, planting a seed?

Minding, dying to need.

Black/White Paradigm? What about Asians in America? 

As an Asain, I wasn't quite sure about how I personally related to the discussion of "white privillege" and black opression. How do Asian Americans such as East Asians and South East Asians fit into the picture because the black/white paradigm does not fit the Asian American experience.
As an individual from a privileged background as well, I guess I would probably associatte myself with "whites" but at the same time Asian Americans also had a history of being oppressed when they first arrived in America. In that sense, Asian American can be considered "black" as well because they were also heavily discriminated against, such as the Chinese Exlcusion Act (1882) where the U.S banned Chinese Immigration and the Japanese Internment Camps (1942) where 110,000 Japanese Americans were were forced to live in "exclusion zones". 

It's interesting to see how Asians have been excluded or neglected from all my U.S History text books throughout my education. Despite the fact, I went to a predominantly Asian school with an American educiation system in Shanghai. We learned about White colonization and Black slavery but our curriculum never taught us anything about Asian American (Yellow?) history/oppression. It seems that while Blacks deal with second-class citizenship, Asian Americans are viewed as outsiders whom access is denied.

February 19, 2013

Private Kindergarten

Goals for the day:
1.) How does R affect dynamics of classroom

2.) Potential teacher discord
3.) What is A’s place as the only girl other than R?

4.) Gender dynamics

R:
Somewhat tangled brown bob with bangs
Tall and lanky
Wearing black leggings with a red flannel nightgown-type dress that often gets stuck in the leggings

Missed interaction. R had small fit with kicking feet (and incidentally me) over having to clean after kid’s choice…then a few mins later she gets to put marble into jar (positive reinforcement – when marble height reaches line, class gets a party treat)

AT (assistant teacher) needs to intervene for R. during share time multiple times

R. seems to be caring (as MT said) – this week’s sharing “I am glad to see that G. is back”, whereas last week’s share time was “I am glad to be back. I missed everyone”
-- is she longing for connection and friendship?

AT feels overbearing??? (SEE BELOW FOR STORY COLLECTION)

F. again criticized R. during sharetime – R says “pactory” and F says rather rudely “it’s not pactory. It’s factory”. R looks like she is about to cry

Before sending students off to centers, MT says she is going to pick who sits on what carpet squares for one center to help “our friends learn the best they can”

I'm a little frustrated, because I haven't been able to attend my field placement for the past two weeks due to being sick, and then the students having a Friday off (which I wasn't told about!). I'm choosing an event from my French teaching assistant (TA) work from a week ago that I still remember well.

1. and 2.: Collect stories/What happened?

The TA sessions that I lead for intermediate French students are meant to be conversation-based. I have nine students this semester. The professor who organizes TA meetings is mostly responsible for the content of our sessions (activities, lesson ideas, etc). We have quite a bit of freedom with timing and pacing of the lesson, which I like.

We are usually given way more activities than the students are capable of completing in any given weekly hour-long session. The activities are not completed for a grade--it's just extra practice. This week, the professor gave me specific activities scanned from a workbook on the subject of film/cinema in France, since this was the focus of vocabulary for the students that week.

            A couple of days ago we had an intense conversation in one of my classrooms debating whether or not Ebonics should be included in school curriculum. A couple of students argued that it would be okay to allow Ebonics in high school, but it should not continue to happen in college. They argued that the “real world” consists of Standard English and that education should be based on this type of English. This conversation made me think about Dewey’s statement, “the main purpose or objective is to prepare the young for the future responsibilities and for success in life, by means of acquisition of the organized bodies of information and prepared forms of skill, which comprehend the material of the instruction”. This quote makes me think about the fact that everyone has different definition and vision of success.