Week 2: Exploring Learner Diversity

 My learning goals for this course:

• Learn strategies on how to use literacy as a tool to connect and relate to student’s lives.
• Learn how to modify literacy instruction to fit the culture of African American and Hispanic students.
• Learn strategies on how to support children to become intrinsically motivated to read and write (this is essential in order for children to develop a love for reading).
• Take on more of a leadership role in my placement classroom.

My professional goals are to teacher younger elementary school in an urban setting.  My first step toward reaching this goal will be student teaching in the Chicago Public Schools next fall.  This experience will help prepare me for the real world of teaching that I will face if I work in an urban district my first year.  The two JIGSAW readings I choose discussed a lot of critical issues that I have experienced in my placement this year and will come up next year when I am student teaching.

The Diller (1999) article, Opening the dialogue: Using culture as a tool in teaching young African American children discussed a white teachers experience discovering ways to relate to the African American students in her classroom.  I really connected to this article and learned some important strategies that will help me relate to the African American students in my current placement:

• It is impossible to have a classroom environment where color is not an issue.  Children from different races experience different lifestyles, values, and cultural.  It is important to embrace these differences and not pretend that they don’t exist.
• I want to have literature in my classroom that reflects the lives of my students.  The stories they read have to be relatable to their lives. 
• As a teacher it is important to be aware of the families that the children in my classroom come from.  I must not assume that all children are being read bedtime stories every night.   As a teacher I hope to provide all the children in my classroom with books that they can have in their home, especially those who come from families that can’t afford books.  It is important to share with families’ simple ways in which they can create a strong literature environment in their home.  This doesn't have to involve spending a lot of money.  Ways can include teaching families how to use the public library to access free books, telling oral stories to children, and writing their own stories at home.
• An important issue that this article talked about was Black English that is used in many African American homes.  This is a topic that needs to be approached delicately.  I do not want children to think that the way they speak, and the way that their family speaks is “wrong.”   I want to learn more ways on how I can help students learn to know the difference between what language to use in school and what language to use when at home or with friends.  
• The teacher in the article learned to use more explicit directions and become more assertive and straight forward when redirecting the behavior of the African American students in her classroom.  Behavior management is a big issue in my placement classroom and I need to be more assertive with the children and make sure to set clear expectations.

The Fleming (2004) article, Putting literacy learning in context: What practicing teachers say about realities of teaching in urban schools talked directly about teacher’s experiences in the Chicago Public Schools. This article was a real eye opener to me about the types of issues that I will be dealing with next year during my internship.  As excited as I am, I also am nervous about whether I will be ready to handle such an intense environment.  This article made me think about the type of teacher I want to be:

• I realize that the school I work will have poor funding and resources available. This means that I will be responsible to making my classroom a rich literature environment.  This includes having lots of books and writing materials for the students to use, including technology such as leap frog and other computer games that the student’s can use.
• The students I teach will most likely come from a very different background and cultural experience than me.  I realize that it is essential for me to have a deep understanding of the cultural that my students come from.  I need to change my teaching style to fit their needs.
• Students in my classroom will be at a wide range of reading and writing levels.  I want to learn strategies on how to best support all students in my classroom.