In Ladson-Billings article titled, “The Dream Keepers” She states, “Students whose educational, economic, social, political, and cultural features are most tenuous are helped to become intellectual leaders in the classroom.” As a teacher it is our job to insure that all of our students feel comfortable and safe in their classroom community so they can reach their potential in the classroom. I believe as a teacher you could do many things to learn about the diversity in your classroom to really get to know your students while having your students get to know their classmates. You could attempt to get to know your students’ parents. You could send notes home, call homes, or even set up meetings with them to get to know who the students are going home to at night time. You could have your students introduce themselves in a journal, an informal peer to peer interview where they present to the class the interview, or even just setting up a time where you can meet at lunch with your students for a one on one interview and have informal conversation finding out anything you want about that particular student. You could also have an international day where you invite your students and their parents in to share a piece about their culture with the rest of the class.
Before a teacher considers doing any of this I think it is important for teachers to consider who the students are. If you are teaching the younger grades it would be harder for the students to convey their thoughts through writing so it would be easier to incorporate show and tell into the classroom schedule. Writing assignments in the younger grades could even be as simple as them writing a sentence about themselves and drawing a picture. In the older grades they could do more creative writing about themselves through a classroom biography book. If it is too hard to get parental support, having an international day would probably be very hard to get participation. Therefore, a teacher could just have show and tell in the classroom where the students bring in something to shares with the class about their culture.
On top of getting to know your students culturally, in class on Monday February 2nd, I realized that on top of getting to know your students culturally, it is also very important to get to know your students strengths and weaknesses in the classroom. If a student struggles in a certain subject or multiple subjects, there may be a lack of intervention services for that particular student in you classroom with special needs if the teacher does not take appropriate action. It is our jobs as teachers to respond early and make as many accommodations as we can in the General Ed classroom. It is also important that the General Ed teacher collaborates with the Special Education teacher to get new ideas for modifications for the student who is struggling by using inclusion methods as much as possible/appropriate. Finally, this would also be a good opportunity for teachers to meet with the struggling students’ parents so that the teacher can go over the goals they have for the student as well as finding out the parents’ goals for the student.
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2 comments:
I really like how you give concrete examples of what you would do in your own classroom in order to get to know your students. When I read the prompts for our blogs, I normally think of what I can do now in order to be prepared for teaching in the future. I think I leave out an important aspect- what I hope to actually do in the future, and you did a great job of that. I especially like how in one of your examples you mention having students do informal peer to peer interviews. I think this is a great idea that could be implemented at any grade level. It would allow students to get to know each other personally, through that conversation, and then as a community when one student is asked to introduce the other.
I also like how you pay careful attention to how you could adapt an idea or activity to different grade levels. (i.e having students write a journal entry about themselves, or draw a picture of themselves if they are too young to write sentences).
Last, I really appreciate how you tie in special needs and learning disability issues. It is important to remember that as teachers in a general ed classroom, we need to pay close attention to our students, and intervene when necessary before that student falls behind. I am glad we get to hear the perspective of those who are knowledgeable about special needs!
Julie,
Like Kelley, I'm impressed with your strategic and focused thinking about what you could do as a teacher in your own classroom. I especially appreciated how you thought about age and grade level when it comes to getting to know your students. Too many novice teachers believe in "one size fits all" strategies to use with their students and don't understand the range that exists not only between grades, but within grades as well. The written assignments you describe (sentence writing to auto-biography writing) could often be applied to the different skill levels existing in one classroom.
I also really appreciated the quote you pulled from Ladson-Billings, “Students whose educational, economic, social, political, and cultural features are most tenuous are helped to become intellectual leaders in the classroom.” As teachers, we are providers of power and change - and that has to start with understanding who we are teaching.
Sarah :)
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