Discussion 3

I thought your discussion on how different cultures view and utilize chemistry is interesting.  It reminded me of how math is viewed from different cultures.  Based on what is taught in Algebra, Geometry, Calculus, etc, many of the concepts are attributed to being developed in European cultures.  Many theorems and theory's are named after different important figures in math (Pythagoras, Fermat, Liebnez, etc).  When learning math from a traditional textbook, one might assume no other group or population encouraged mathematics development. However this is not the case.  History shows that each culture had its own number system, and ways of documenting data gathered. One example that I found interesting was Quipu, a knot tying system developed in South America around 3000 BC. Each knot held significance and meaning, and someone who knew how to read a Quipu could find important numerical information; information such as bookkeeping. It thought this was interesting because it is an example that is completely different that what is traditionally taught in a mathematics class.  In order to embrace our students multiple intelligences, we need to provide different ways to communicate mathematical ideas.  Many things we show them have symbolical meaning in math, but that doesn't mean it is the only way to represent that information.

I enjoyed your reflection, but I'm very curious to know, how will you incorporate both parents and home cultures into your classroom? Especially a Chemistry classroom, I can see how I might make it work in an English classroom but I wonder what connections you can draw between science and culture.

I really enjoyed the first quote that you chose
from the reading.  I often find myself asking students to think about
their comments and judgments of others in a new or different light.  I
also attempt to broaden their horizon of being understanding and tolerant to
cultural and philosophical differences. 
Many times I will have one of my students do or say something, and then
ask me, if I think they are weird or make the statement that they are weird.  I always respond, “no, I don’t think you’re
weird” and then try to follow up with a thoughtful response to reassure the
student that being unique is a positive trait. 
High students are at a vulnerable age, where they are still trying to discover
and ground their values, beliefs, and general outlook on life, self, culture,
and environment.  I feel it is my
responsibility as an educator to encourage their self-discovery and growth
instead of enabling feelings of insecurity.

I really enjoyed what you shared! I feel I could do a better job at creating activities for my students to discover. I found that when I did do this, my students retained the information because they were able to recall the experience.  This is what Mertler has described as a Critical Input Experience because it is something students can refer back to and recall.  Affirmation is also really important.  Many students seek the "right" answer in math, but the best learning experience involve some misconception.  You need to be able to understand what you think you understand in order to be able to challenge it when new information is introduced.  

I also thought the quote you pulled out was a powerful one. By taking that approach you are helping your students to become flexible thinkers, which will be incredibly valuable for them later in life. I like that you incorporate inquiry-based lessons into your practice. I confess this is a challenge of mine. I was also interested in how you learn about your students. The best piece of advice I ever got from another teacher was to "steal, be a merciless, education thief". What she was getting at was that the best way to improve your practice is to learn about the classroom practice of effective teachers and use and adapt what you can from it. So, I'm curious, how do you learn about your students?

Kathleen,
I previously shared with you how I thought you where a good
writer with a lot of insight. You reflection this week is a reflection of my
previous comment. I really enjoyed reading it, and thought your first quote was
a great pick.  It represents the essence
of respect and value for other people’s opinions. 

Kathleen,
I previously shared with you how I thought you where a good
writer with a lot of insight. You reflection this week is a reflection of my
previous comment. I really enjoyed reading it, and thought your first quote was
a great pick.  It represents the essence
of respect and value for other people’s opinions. 

I had the same experience in high school where I did not feel connected to the content because my perspective was not heard. My classes in high school did not have the safe space for me to feel welcomed to share my thoughts. It really affected the way I felt about school. School was fun because of the extra curricular activities I was in, but the content, I was indifferent. All I knew what to get through it, and get through it with good grades. I also agree that it is important that we engage students by showing them that their perspective and insight intot he world is important. Creating a community environment is key to establish a safe learning space that is encouraging and empowering.

Jasmine, I thought your reflection was very
thoughtful.  It is probably an accurate
representation of how many students, who are the sole person of a particular minority
in their school or classroom, experience school.  At my school there was an uneven distribution
of races and ethnicities, and the cultural divide was evident.  The lack of understanding cultural
perspectives is a phenomena that that I feel teachers should start addressing
in classrooms to close the gap on cultural misunderstandings.  The more that student’s see each other’s
backgrounds and perspectives, the more they will become comfortable sharing
their own differences and become more accepting of others.  I will strive to have future classes that
have a safe space where students feel comfortable opening up.

You know, I'm starting to feel the exact same way about Adenika's course!  She gave me a zero on my journal review because it was from a college-level article.  But if you look at the syllabus, college articles were never explicitly excluded!  You really would have to read beween the lines to come up with such a conclusion.  Plus, on multiple occasions, she praised Kathleen for having more than two journals...which gave me the impression that the more we expanded our breath of journals, the better.  In class, I expressed to her my frustrations with her, saying to her that I feel her grading is unfair.  And all she said was, "You have the right to feel that way, but you're just upset that you got a zero on you paper."  And then she went on to lecture the class as to why her obstinancies are justified.  For heaven's sake, why don't you take the time to ask your students what *their* perspective on the issue is?  Then maybe you'll realize that you've got some things you need to work on as well.  Nuff said.    

Jasmine,
I
thought your reflection was very 
insightful.  Like April I also thought it
was an accurate
representation of how singled out students feel in
school.  It made me think of my residency and how the predominate cultures
are Hispanic. Because of this I feel my 4 African American and 2 Asian students
feel singled out and misunderstood. This leads them to respond in two different
ways, 1. Conform to other cultures and undermined their own or 2. Alienate
themselves from the rest of the student body. In my classroom I currently strive
for students to be acceptant and respectful of all cultures but I’m realistic
to the fact that the same is not done in other classes. 

 I felt the same way for a long time. In high school I felt like I did not have a space to share my perspective or experiences, and if I ever did I knew it would not be seen as valid. It was a struggle to find my voice and a class where I felt the teacher understood/cared about my ideas. It wasn't until college where I found that space, and my voice. I have shut my mouth since. haha.
 
 thank you for sharing.
 
janitzia

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences Jasmine!To answer your question in your reply to my reflection, I found that students feel more comfortable in a classroom when they feel their thoughts are affirmed especially by the teacher.So, whenever a student shares and participates, I always say “thank you, that’s (good/correct/awesome/great)”followed by the student’s name.I too see the importance in respecting and welcoming every single student’s perspective in the classroom.I too am constantly trying to find ways to make every student feel welcome and establish a community inside the classroom where students feel respected, safe, and acknowledged as contributing learners.One thing my mentor and I do in the classroom to acknowledge students’ cultural backgrounds is to allow them to coordinate potlucks.A few students usually ask us if they can coordinate a potluck and we make sure that it doesn’t conflict with instruction, so it’s a great way to create community and allow students to share a piece of themselves with everyone else.Plus, I am a firm believer that food brings people together, and who doesn’t like to eat?<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />Back to your reflection, I found that while I was in high school I never really shared my thoughts with the class.This is something that I continue to struggle with even now.For me, I feel that when I feel that the instructor/teacher and my peers care about what I have to say and a sense of respect, then I’ll open myself up.Similarly, I believe our students feel the same way.Therefore, “…creating a community environment that values opinions (and) creates a safe place for students to share their ideas…” is extremely important and one of my priorities when I take on my own classroom. As a learner, what do you feel encourages you to share your thoughts and perspective with the teacher and classmates?

I went to a school where culture and racism was never discussed.  I felt like lessons were aimed towards the norm of the school (caucasians).  I had a hard time discovering who I really was becuase of the lack of role models that I could personally relate to.  In my pre-calculus class I was the only latino, in my school there weren't many latinos that gathered together to discuss school related issues. 
I would feel the same thing that you mention about not wanting to give your voice out and opinion about something when you were the only person of that race in the classroom setting.  In High School I was always kind of quiet becuase I felt like I wasn't part of the norm in the class, so I decided to observe instead.  I remember specifically in one ocassion my classroom had a discussion about politics, and all the students were discussing what their parents talked to them about politics, about their positions, therefore they took the same position as their parents.  I was left out becuase my Mom didn't vote, she couldn't vote, she didn't know much about politics and never discussed it with me.  I knew nothing about politics, and I felt like part of my identity was abscent due to not having a position on political views.  

Jasmine,
 
I always appreciate your reflections. I understand how
uncomfortable you must have felt in high school. I sometimes wonder if you ever
feel that way in our Cal State LA courses? Has something changed for you in
recent years that has made you feel more comfortable expressing your opinions? What
are things teachers can do to create a safe environment for their students
discussing single group studies? I took some women’s studies courses in high
school and college, but almost all my classmates were women. That’s one of the
tricky things about single group studies—it seems courses and majors designed around
them are only taken by members of those groups. I guess that’s why it’s
important to imbed these topics into our curriculum no matter what subject we
teach.

I definitely relate to how you feel about your histories being non-existent and not shared about in the school/academic setting. Sometimes in elementary school growing up in East L.A. there were attempts by the school to recognize all cultures and one of them was an annual celebration of Chinese New Year.  In the beginning I was fine with it and there were signs saying "gung hay fat choy" and happy chinese new year, but then one day my grandpa picked me up from school and realized the Chinese characters did not reflect the correct translation and that it was actually a "diss" or mockery of our language.  i got furious as my culture was interpreted wrong and it was disrespectful to our people, and many kids were going around campus saying slurred and racist pronunciations of the "gung hay fat choy".  To this day it was a attempt I recognize was good, but did very little to share histories of my people and culture.  They also had a book that characterized our LION DANCING as dragons and the principal introduced it as dragons dancing around....it's LIONS yo!!!! I was mad, so today i'm in a grassroots organization called Chinatown Kung Fu Lion Dance Troupe in Los Angeles Chinataown where we are multicultural (asian, southeast asian, hispanic, black, mixed) and we raise awareness of our culture and celebrate it's traditions through the performing of the art and incorporating community projects in the process. I wanna learn about your history now, let's start the cycle of inclusion.

I enjoyed reading your post John. I specifically liked the last part when you sad, "...if you believe in your students, they will rise to the challenge." I really believe in that. Some students have people going in and out of their lives and they don't have the consistency they need. It is harder for them to open up and trust others and causes them to be guarded and defensive. I believe that all they need is someone that cares and believes in them. As teachers, we need to provide that positive light.

Stephanie:
Thanks for
sharing your personal story with us.  I like how you are aware of your
students, including the shy students, and can relate to them and help them
break out of their shells.  Your students must be impressed to know that
you were a former shy student who now not only overcame this but is becoming a
teacher who speaks in front of the kids all the time!  You must be an inspiration
to these kids.  Also, I see your other point that if you want your kids to
open up it is important for you to share too.  It is a two way street, but
a careful two way street because you are the adult.  I like how you went
into mathematics to break the stereotypes and misconceptions related to it.
 These seem like appropriate and powerful things to discuss with your
students because these stories may help motivate the students to break
stereotypes and misconceptions too.  Thank you for sharing.  Your
students are lucky to have you as a teacher.  
John Rubenstein
 

In your post you mention the importance of create a classroom that all students fell comfortable and welcome in. I couldn't agree more!! I think we forget how stressfull and scary the classroom experience can be. Having to read outloud, or answer questions we may not have the answer to. Creating a safe space where students are not afraid of being wrong, and feel comfortable asking for help should be one of the basic principals in a class. I think it is also important to understand the different dynamics in different commuities, and understand how those dynamics will reflect in the classroom environment.
janitzia :)

Amber, thank you for your perspective.  It's good to get an opinion from someone who's had a few years of teaching under their belt.  I agree that any attempts to incorporate race or ethnic aspects into the lesson have to be genuine, authentic and real, not superficial, as you mentioned.  I like the "personal wall" that you have in your classroom.  It demonstrates to the students that 1) you are a real human being, and 2) you practiced what you preach regarding race and multiculturalism.  I will be stealing your idea thankyouverymuch.Also, going back to incorporating race in the lesson plan.  After CSTs, I was going to do a few activities that involved my students researching non-white male scientists such as NASA scientists.  It sounds a little superficial now.  Kind of like a last ditch effort to

Chris:
Thanks for sharing this reflection with us. I agree that the term
scientist should not be so limited in its application to only a specific type
of people conducting a specific type of science.  I see also what you mean
that these skateboarders could be going through the scientific process.  I
guess the question may be, does utilizing the scientific process in and of
itself make you a scientist?  Is there something else to being a scientist
than that?  I agree with you also that
you must have a favorable environment first before the students can succeed.
 We, as teachers, need to constantly work on this and reflect on this.
 We need to make all of our students feel welcome. 
John Rubenstein

Is science just a thought process? Is
it the ability to use the rhetoric in order to describe natural
phenomena? I think that what you are referring to here is the logical
thought process. Bridging the gap between what a student knows,
loves, and studies and connecting it to our content is our duty as
educators. The best teachers are the ones who are able to take a
students personal passions and connect it to math, physics,
chemistry, or biology. How to do this? If only it was as easy as
knowing that all students in your classroom love skateboarding. What
about the students who do not? By accepting one sub-culture,
naturally there is one that is excluded. Is it possible to be totally
inclusive or do we just hope to connect to the majority of students?
Essentially, we can acknowledge that students are each as unique as a
single snowflake. Are we destined to make a the folly of macroscopic
observations and just see frozen water, or can we take the time to
really know every individual? Is it possible to dive into such
details or are we doomed to the limits of time and pacing plans? I
truly believe that we need to find the balance between the two by
guiding each student to reflect and let students study what kind of
patterns are in their own metaphorical snowflake and how these
pattens came to be using the knewly learned lessons. In doing so,
perhaps we can help students embrace that long lost
counter-narrative.

Chris,
 
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about skateboarders. My
first boyfriend was a skateboarder, and that sport changed his life. It gave
him a group of friends, something fun to do that didn’t involve chemicals, and
stuff to work on. After dating him I saw the good things that can come out of
skateboarding. I also have watched enough skate videos to know how the sport
can change the way you view public spaces. At USC it was a constant battle to
skateboard-proof parts of walkways and flowerbeds. It was upsetting. I saw it
as the school finding a way to keep the young members of the neighborhood off
the campus. I thought the actions had racist undertones. I like your metaphor,
because I still think it’s common for people to criminalize skateboarders. 

That's so true.  Up until high school, the economy of my cultural capital thrived on bikes, action figures, backstreet boys, computers, and playstation.  Those things were what was real to me.  And if you asked me how a final fantasy game worked, I would be able to go on and on with my explanations--about all the various available weapons, story plot, etc.  As for what I learned in school, I still knew quite a bit about them....but they had a certain foreign quality about them.  The things they talked about in school didn't seem relevant to my life. They felt forced; unnatural.  Which is why, when I worked really hard in high school to be good in school, it was like surgically inserting a piece of sharp machinery into me.  By the second year in college, I was burnt with school, and I feel like I've been just barely making it through ever since then.  The concepts we learned in Tejera's class have really provided me with the tools that I need to fix my self.  Slowly but surely, I'm removing all the rusted machines within me, and, in its stead, growing my organs in the right direction: scaffolding the mental nodes in my mind to organically incorporate the academic concepts necessary for my survival.  When the two worlds collide, there can only be one out of three outcomes: either the worlds must disintegrate in some fashion, bounce off in different directions never to see each other again, or synthesize with each other to produce something even greater than the two isolated.

Truly, people can be bogged down by the
labels placed on them. In your passage you really touch on cultural
capital. This capital is one that we as educators have to be able to
break from labels like urban to help our students see it as valuable.
I bet that you see more of this self-defeating resistance in middle
school than what I have seen in high school. By the time that many
students reach this grade level, they have become accustomed to the
educational institution. I would imagine, that middle school children
are still struggling to find out who they are and your job is to show
them that they are part scientist. That their families have a wealth
of knowledge that can be used to become scientist in the traditional
sense. And more importantly, that students and families of students
have the logical thought process to investigate, hypothesize,
predict, and experiment.

Thank
you Irving for sharing your enlightening reflection!  I was completely inspired by your belief in
your students as “…home grown biologists, botanists, and anthropologists in
waiting.”  What better way to affirm your
students’ funds of knowledge, then to help them realize the scientific skills
they utilize everyday?  I thought it was
inspiring that you explicitly sight culturally relevant examples of how
students practice these skills.  <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I was
also struck by your statement that “…they, and we, have been conditioned to
believe that their reality is not a scientific reality.”  This is a condition we have to break as
educational practitioners.  The ongoing
question that we’ll have to answer is How
do we “…convince our students otherwise…”???  More importantly, how do we convince ourselves?

Irv,
I love your example because it reminded me of how in my classes they think of a scientist as in a lab coat, White caucasion male, very smart, working in a laboratory with chemcials etc.  Not once did a student believe that scientist could be him or her.  i think the challenges we face as teachers is to allow for our students to go into non-traditional routes and programs where they usually are not represented as with our STEM fields.  I think there needs to be more STEM leaders and people of color who come back into our classrooms to share their educational journeys and struggles and the stereotypes and barriers they broke to get their degrees and jobs.  It is extremely powerful for the kids to see people who lived their lives and experiences make it into those fields and break the social and culturally restrictions outlined for them in society.
-Kev

I like the quote you chose.  I don't know how many teachers anyone has spoken to in their schools, but the one's I've had conversations with, including some magnet teachers, have this glow of arrogance when discussing parental involvement.  They talk as if though our students parents can drop everything and show up to school at their leisure.  We've learned in our course work that parents in the urban setting face difficult situations, such as not being able to attend meetings because they are not allowed to take the day off, or not having a babysitter available.  All their complaints and concerns are regarding parents coming to them.  They haven't concieved of the idea of reaching out to the parents via home visits or phone conferences.  True, parents are ultimately responsible, but it takes a village and we are the leaders of the village.

Hi Yanett,
I repeatedly enjoy reading your reflections because they feel really honest. Of course, I don't think anyone is being dishonest, but whenever I feel we are getting too caught up with big ideas (and I admit it, I sometimes get carried away with big ideas) I can count on you to bring me back to earth. Anyway, your reflection made me think of the multicultural issues that exist between minority groups. Most times that multicultural issues are discussed they are discussed in reference to the majority group (white, caucasians) but what about the experience of your student. What about the 4 or 5 black student at wilson? or the asian students? how are their experiences different or the same than if they went to a majortiy white school?? I think these are important questions for our students because it is their lived reality. For the most part, I've seen all my students regardless of cultural background get along really well. And I have not experienced any one trying to live up to their stereotype as you describe. (the one girl who protested academic language was latina). I have even seen a few interracial couples which I consider a good sign. the one issue that I do see at Wilson is that the asian students seem a lot more engaged, driven and motivated, so I wonder why they can succeed while other students cannot ... and I wonder how their presence affects the latino students ... I wonder if for the latino students, asians are the smart students and since they are not asians they cannot be smart...more questions to ponder ...