Professional Development & Collaborative Literacy

Last week at my dyad placement, I was able to take part in a professional development experience with my cooperating teacher. Teachers from third grade through sixth grade from my placement school met at a neighboring elementary school within the district to discuss and observe a demonstration lesson taught by an exceptional sixth grade teacher surrounding collaborative literacy and guided practice. Overall, I felt this was a very constructive and beneficial professional development workshop for everyone who attended, as well as a wonderful learning opportunity for me, a developing teacher.

Prior to observing the literacy lesson, we discussed the importance of guided practice, small group practice and one-on-one conferencing as an effective way to maximize instruction for each individual child and in meeting each of your student’s needs. We also went over focus questions and shared what we hoped to take away from this observation experience personally.

When I stepped into the sixth-grade teacher’s room we would be observing, I was so excited, yet completely overwhelmed. There was an unbelievably amazing amount going on within this classroom, it truly was alive with learning. The room itself was so bright and friendly with lots of student work on the walls, there was a daily letter from the teacher to her students taped up to the whiteboard, their class mission statement, “To live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy” was displayed proudly; the relationship that existed between teacher and student felt so personal. Her classroom was a culture of leaders; every student had a leadership role within the classroom and you could truly feel the thriving sense of community.

When she began teaching her poetry lesson, the students were completely engaged. Each student seemed so excited and eager to be there, to learn; everyone was actively listening and taking notes, offering insights and asking questions. The level of respect between teacher and students was inspiring. She welcomed comments and questions and verbally requested that students disagree or challenge her thinking if they thought or saw something differently than she did, making it clear that she was there to learn along with her students.

After the poetry lesson was over, the students began to work on their individual literacy activities specifically chosen for them, allowing the teacher the opportunity to meet with individual students or with literacy groups she needed to check-in with. The students’ sense of community was apparent during this time as well; as students worked independently, I saw students asking for and offering help to one another in a variety of ways and on a number of different occasions.

Overall, this experience provided me with a wonderful opportunity to grow in my own professional development. Although I have only touched on a few of the things I took away from this experience, it truly was amazing and inspiring to see a teacher’s deep knowledge and understanding of her students and their needs, as she strived to meet them exactly where they were in their development.

Bilingualism

One of this week’s readings I found particularly interesting was Lily Wong Fillmore’s article, “When Learning a Second Language Means Losing the First.” Wong Fillmore and a group of researches decided to carefully examine the rising phenomenon of “subtractive bilingualism” in the United States through careful interviews of hundreds of immigrant families. The researchers’ findings, and the subsequent implications, are quite concerning and disheartening.

Previously, I had not considered the significant consequences of a young English Language Learner being immersed in a school culture that speaks solely English, or very little of his/her native language. Because of powerful forces of assimilation, social pressures, a desire to fit in, a need to communicate, etc., as children spend more and more of their time in this school culture they begin to lose their native languages, creating a language shift within his/her family; although the phenomenon is present in other areas of the world, the United States appears to have a much higher rate of subtractive bilingualism because we do not especially value ethnic diversity. Losing a primary language can have far-reaching effects on a child and his/her family. In many cases, parents are no longer able to socialize or communicate with their child, nor share their values, beliefs, understandings and wisdom with them, all of which holds the potential of breaking a family apart. Children can experience educational difficulties as a consequence of losing their primary language as well. Often times, children give up their native language before they have become efficient in English and risk the chance of never fully developing either language.

As a future teacher, I am concerned and disheartened by what we have learned from Wong Fillmore and other researchers’ findings. Learning a second language should not mean having to lose the first. Thus, I completely agree that children should not be required to learn English before they have fully developed their native language, but is this idea even possible in our present education system? How can we transform our school cultures into more accepting places where it is easier for children to maintain their cultural identities? 

The human component of teaching

I have mixed feelings about Sugatamitra’s video from TED.  While I agree with some of what was presented, that many times “good” teachers don’t necessarily go where they are needed the most and that children are completely capable of learning on their own, which they do every single day, the idea that Self Organizing Learning Environments and “granny clouds” could potentially take the place of the human component of teaching is quite troublesome to me. Isn’t there something to be said for the human relationship that develops between students and their teacher over the course of the year that they spend together? What about the consistent guidance, kindness and support present in traditional classrooms as the teacher carefully and thoughtfully supports individual growth in her classroom? It seems to me that everything we have learned through our program thus far goes against this idea of sitting kids in a small room as they watch someone impart their knowledge to them from a screen. Where does differentiated instruction and designing lessons for students’ individual needs and interests fit into all of this? Are there different avenues for students to access learning and show what they know? Is this supporting educational equity? What does this form of education prepare a child for? While I do believe that technology has great potential in positively influencing education, a simple yet important question we must continue to ask ourselves is, what is technology good for and what is it not good for? 

Makeal's story

I found Makeal’s story to be so inspiring! The video clip clearly demonstrated the power technology can have in helping students find their voice. Makeal’s apprenticeship and blogging has provided an avenue for him to develop confidence and a new set of skills. Makeal is eager to pursue and share his interests, knowing that he has an audience and that others are interested in what he has to say. It was amazing to watch him talk about his dreams of becoming an architect, video game designer, or firefighter!

I thought the students in the following video provided insightful reasons as to why they enjoy blogging in the classroom:

Teaching is traveling

            Teaching is traveling. As a teacher, it is so important to truly get to know your students and be able to answer questions about individuals like: Who is this child? Where do you come from? What is your family life like? How do you learn best? What are your strengths, your aspirations? What inspires you? What do you fear? You must strive to identify with and understand them.

When you travel, you immerse yourself in new cultures. You learn all there is to know about how people live, their communication style, food, religion, their values and beliefs. Through this quest for knowledge and understanding, you are able to gain a sense of relatedness and connectedness with people who may be significantly different from you. This also nourishes a sense of respect and a belief that we need to embrace our differences. When we pause to consider where someone else comes from and what makes them who they are, we are able to put ourselves in their shoes and empathize with them. This is what we must do as teachers. In order to have the greatest positive impact in the lives of our students, we must truly and sincerely understand them. We must also strive to foster the idea of empathizing with others and embracing our differences in our students as well.

I also like to think of the metaphor, teaching is traveling, as it relates to the journey a teacher and her students have together over the course of the school year. Before you begin any trip, you must first decide where it is you wish to visit. What interests you about this particular place? Why do you want to visit? How are you going to get there? And perhaps most importantly, what do you hope to get out of this trip? The process of planning a trip is very similar to that of beginning a school year with a classroom full of new students. Forming a community and finding commonalities in what we all hope to learn over the course of the year together are important first steps in establishing goals and creating a positive learning environment where everyone will thrive. We also must answer, how are we going to get there together and what can each of us do to ensure that? Having students reflect on their own learning and what they hope to take away from their school year enables them to feel as though they are an important part of planning our journey together.

Dedication to ALL students

            When I think of students coming into my classroom from a life of poverty and my obligation to them as a teacher, I am continually drawn back to the issue of homework. In her article “Understanding Poverty,” Donna Beegle discusses how through her research and that of others, thousands of educators have found that homework provides no benefit at all for students in poverty. She continues on to say that often times, it instead creates added stress in their lives and the lives of their families, works to alienate the student even more, and makes them feel as though they don’t belong in school. Many times, these students have no one at home who feels willing and/or capable to help them with their homework, or parents or siblings may not have time, or the education to help. So why do we continue to give homework to poverty stricken students?

            This also gets me thinking that if these families who are working extremely hard and so many hours barely have any time at all to spend together as a family, should they have to, and do they really want to, spend what little time they have together sitting and working on worksheets that are brought home from school and that often times only result in heightening everyone’s stress levels? What good is coming from their efforts? It seems as though their time could be spent doing something much more meaningful and valuable to them. So, what’s the alternative to homework? More time to practice skills and lessons in class? But that would mean cutting back on time for other subjects during the school day… How do we make our lessons meaningful and accessible to all of our students, including those who are coming from poverty?

            Something else that’s on my mind is how many other opportunities are students coming from poverty missing out on in schools and what action can, and should, be taken? Often times, what seem like little things to others, such as the pants you’re wearing or what’s in your lunch, can further alienate a student and make them feel as though they don’t belong in school. In Beegle’s article, she discusses how so many students cannot afford their yearbooks at the end of the school year, an important part of their history, and the impact this has on them. I would hope to donate mine to a child in need - do others do this? And what about school lunches? It seems there is always inequality associated with lunches, whether it’s when the “cool” thing to do is bring your own lunch, or now everyone buys hot lunch, or the stigmatism associated with “free” lunches, and those who buy them. Can, and should, we equalize things like lunches? What are we willing to do to try to make school a welcoming place for every student?

Standardized Testing & Cultural Biases

“Tracking is a practice linked to the legitimation and maintenance of deep social inequality.” 

– From Bill Bigelow’s Getting Off the Track – Stories from an untracked classroom

Because major cultural biases exist in standardized tests, students of color as well as those students coming from low-income families are at a clear disadvantage from the get-go and often times suffer as a result. How can we be administering these tests to our students, knowing that they are clearly unfair and favor the white middle-class students? Not only are they unfair, they seem to fall severely short of assessing a student’s true abilities.

In her article Why Standardized Tests Are Bad, Terry Meier points out that if a large portion of middle-class white students suddenly performed poorly on standardized tests, the results would be thrown out and the test itself would be viewed as discriminatory. However, even though over two decades of research clearly shows that cultural biases do exist in standardized tests, there seems to be no concern at all for students of color. This is so upsetting and discouraging. How much more proof do we need to demand changes? Especially with how much weight is placed on these tests, being an all or nothing, the process can be so stressful on students and then, if they don’t pass, the result can be a huge blow to their confidence and to their idea of self-worth. It seems that we are just perpetuating struggling student’s internalizations that they themselves are to blame for their low-achievement, when, clearly, it’s a problem within the system itself.

When considering the most effective ways of measuring a student’s ability and achievements, I am learning just how important it is to have a variety of ways/avenues for students to show what they know. The idea of flexible assignments is so important and enabling students to relate what they’re doing to their own lives, personal experiences and interests. Curriculum needs to constantly draw on students lives and because of student’s differing abilities and ways of learning, evaluation should be flexible as well. It’s exciting for me to think about all the different ways a teacher may implement these ideas into her classroom. For example, the use of student performances, imagination, different forms of writing, art, class discussions, field trips, interviews, films, slide-lectures, improvisation, readings, poetry, simulations, acting, sharing circles... all of these are wonderful ways to expand your curriculum and contribute to equal access to learning for all students.