Reflection on Leading Discussion

In the week leading up to the discussion on Kliewer's article I was very nervous.  I wanted to make sure that we got at the true meaning of the article.  I had watched as each of you went before me, I listened to each of the Plus/Delta and how I could use this information to make my discussion engaging and challenging.  It was hard to figure out how to start the class.  I wanted everyone to connect and build upon the community that we had already been a part of since the beginning.  I also wanted to make sure that everyone's voice was heard.

I really enjoyed prepping for the discussion,  I did a lot of surfing of the net, on sites like National Down Syndrome Society, Mayo Clinic: Down Syndrome.  I also did some thinking of the people who I have met in my life with disabilities, whether they be mental or physical. I thought about how these people impacted my life, how they were or were not part of the community.  There was so much that I wanted to share with everyone; I love all the videos and links that were posted by you, and your careful reflections.

I found it hard on the day of the discussion to fit it all in.  I felt that many of my deltas, including my own, were about slowing it down, or getting time to discuss other facets of the article.  Like many of you that came before me, there just wasn't enough time to get it all in.

In the end I want to thank you all for your great participations and your wonderful sharing of ideas.  I greatly enjoyed the discussions that we had and I learned from you and more about you.  I hope that you feel as if our community has grown and that we bring this forward to our own schools.

Cheers,
Jenny

PS. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

Multilingual Learning

Aria- Richard Rodriguez & Teaching Multilingual Children- Virginia Collier

When I first read Aria, I was sad.  I was sad for the loss of closeness that Richard felt from his family, a separation from their closeness.  As he went on to discuss how the conversations at the dinner table diminished and how "never-mind" (pg. 37) became a common saying from the children to the parents, I grew even sadder.  I was sad for the loss he felt, his culture and attention to detail of language drifting away as he assimilated to the "public language of los gringos" (pg. 34).  "We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close, no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness." (pg. 36).

*I do wonder if all children/parents feel this bond breaking as children grow older and become their own "public individual." (pg. 39).


As I read Collier's article I thought back to the multilingual programs in the schools I have worked in and the schools I went to.  Most programs were taught the transitional method, noted by Collier to be the one of the least affective models.  "To dismiss the home language in literacy development instantly places immigrant children at risk" (pg. 233).  "Research states that first language literacy favorably influences subsequent second language literacy. Once a child becomes literate in the home language, literacy skills swiftly transfer to second language settings" (pg. 233).  There seems to be enough concrete research out there that proves that it is just as important for ESL students to be proficient in their first language, as it is for them to be proficient in English.  We need to give students the opportunity to become proficient in their first language (speaking and writing), and we can only do this by having teachers that are proficient in the language of their student.  Often ESL students are in a classroom with a teacher who is not proficient in the students first language, and may not even speak the language at all.  We call upon parents to help us with literacy of the first language, but often parents are not proficient either.

I was not an ESL student, though I struggled greatly with learning english.  I am dyslexic and I understand how hard language/literacy learning is.  I also know that a strong foundation for learning is important, I tell my math students everyday.  When students come into 8th grade math but still have little understanding of what number sense is we cannot move on.  A foundation for learning is important.  If students are being taught a second language without being literate in their first language we are trying to build a high-rise building on a foundation of straw.

On Point with Tom Ashbrook: Tim Cook and Being Out At Work in America

This evening I was driving home from class in PVD and I turned on NPR for the 7-8pm hour for On Point with Tom Ashbrook.  He was talking with people around the country about being LGBTQ in the work place and the impact that Tim Cook's (CEO of Apple and the first Fortune 500 CEO who identifies as gay) announcement has and will make.  I thought I would share it with you all.

Tim Cook and Being Out At Work in America

Tim Cook; "I'm Proud to Be Gay" Businessweek

Ze, Hir, and Hirs

Safe Spaces- August and GLSEN.org

While reading Safe Spaces, I often reflected at the breaks and though of my school, and what exposure I had to LGBTQ issues, I could not think of a single example.  Though I remember one student from high school who was openly gay, that was it.  I do not remember learning about gay rights activists or the LGBTQ communities.  I do remember when Ellen DeGeneres came out in 1997.  I do remember the controversy over that, and how people were shocked and could not believe she "played" such a good straight person.  I feel like now-a-days there are constant media reminders of the different types of lives that people can lead.  Shortly after DeGeneres came out, Will and Grace started on NBC.  Now we have a variety of shows and media that represent LGBTQ people and issues: Modern Family, Glee, Orange is the New Black, Shameless and the list goes on .  I feel that times are changing, but that is not enough and we still need to part of the solution, and help put an end to the prejudice, "Making schools and communities welcoming to LGBT youth."

There is still a very large Global Divide on Homosexuality .  As of 2013, 60% of people in the US said that society should accept homosexuality, with countries such as Canada, Spain, Germany, Czech Rep. France, Britain and Italy having rates as high as 88% saying yes to acceptance. US is second in our percentage gain since 2007, with an increase of 11%, demonstrating that we are ready for this change.

We need to think about how we "shape attitudes and ideologies" (August, pg. 83).  I enjoyed how the chapter was broken into two section curricula and communication.  August shared examples and remedies for starting the conversation and continuing it.  I especially connected to the communication section, on page 96 the pronouns Ze and Hir were used, at first I thought it was a typo, but then I read on and noticed they were used again, and I realized it was intentional.  I looked up Ze and Hir and found out they are pronouns along with Hirs that are not gender specific.  It is our responsibility to educate ourselves so we can help educate the youth on these exact types of instances.  ( I also took the time to make Google Doc and Word "learn spelling" of both Hir and Hirs).

As a I read though GLSEN.org and watched some videos I thought to myself, how and where can I bring this into my school, my Catholic school? Can I discuss LGBTQ issues at school? I don't like the idea of teaching through tolerance, because I don't think that tolerance is the right word.  It should be more understanding, accepting not tolerating.  I will continue to role these thought around and I would love to hear back from you all about how I could approach LGBTQ at a Catholic school.

Check-In 10/29/14

Today's Weather:

• Today started off as a wonderfully sunny day: doing some chores around my mom's house, including setting up her internet, and getting her an online ID for cable. I'm her technician for anything technology-wise. 
• A few clouds passing over during the mid-day: found out my classroom is being moved to a little hut that is outside, that I will need to walk into school to pick up my students, then walk them back to class, cutting much needed time out of my instruction time, and there is no bathroom and possibly no wi-fi or printing abilities.
• Ending in a glorious sunset: great time catching up with my sister-in-law, via iMessage on our iPhones, its free and a great way to stay in-touch with my family in France and England.

Forecast for the rest of the week: It will be a great weekend, lots to look forward to.  My first time dressing up as a couple for Halloween, Friday night: Wayne and Garth and Saturday night: Jenny and Forrest.  My friend Margaret is celebrating her 30th birthday on Saturday night with a Halloween, costume party.

The Future Generations

The Flight from Conversation- Sherry Turkle
Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis- Michael Wesch

As I read both of the articles this week I thought about my own technology use and how it affected my life now.  I thought about how I like to always have my phone with in reach, how my iPad sits beside my bed, and my computer is always charged up waiting to be used.  I thought about the social media side of the equation. "Texting and e-mail and posting let us present the self we want to be.  This means we can edit. And if we wish, we can delete. Or retouch: the voice, the flesh, the face, the body. Not too much, not too little - just right." (Turkle pg. 2)  I thought about how I present myself to others through social media. I am a pretty avid use of Instagram and Snapchat.  I love photos, and I love seeing what others are doing through photos and videos.  I still use Facebook for communication and organization of events. Do I use technology too much? Could I go a day, a week without my phone? Tablet?

I'm in awe of technology and also scared of what it might become.  I think that we use technology in so many wonderful ways and their have been amazing advancements because of technology.  But I also worry about people loosing their ability to communicate with each other.

Top 10 Reasons to Use Technology in Education are great examples of positive uses of technology in the classroom and Technology in Education: A Future Classroom  is a great example of what technology in the classroom might look like in the future.  I agree with Welsh that we need to help "students recognize their own importance in helping to shape the future of this increasingly global, interconnected society..." (pg. 7).  The internet and technology has done so many wonderful things for our society, creating a more global world.  I think it is important to incorporate technology into the classroom, because it is the way of the future, and it is important that we set our students up for success, but at the same time we need to make sure that our students are well rounded and still can carry on discussions and conversations with other people.

The Potential Weapon, Literacy

Literacy with an Attitude - Finn

I really enjoyed this reading.  I felt that it finally got at one of the biggest issues in education, economic status and how it affects students' education.  

As I read I broke up the classes into the three sections that Anyon did and I created this little table:

	Working Class	Middle Class	Upper Class
Comments about Knowledge	one student mentioned “think”	learn, remember, facts, study, smartness, intelligent, know, school, study, brains	open to discovery, think, figuring out stuff, you can make knowledge
Dominant Theme	resistance	possibility	excellence, individualism, humanitarianism
Work	follow direction, quiet	getting right answer from text or teacher	think for oneself, creativity, discovery
Learning	to follow directions, do mechanical, low-paying work,	follow orders and do the mental work that keeps society producing and running smoothly, cooperation	create products and art, negotiate from powerful position, masters of the universe

I thought about this in reference to the type of schooling I had, and the type of schools I have taught in.   I identified with the themes that Anyon found, and as Finn said are still present in education today.  I thought about this also in reference to our upcoming paper.  I recognized a lot of my middle-class background coming out in my teaching style.  "Knowledge in the middle-class was "more conceptual"... more a matter of gaining information and understanding from socially approved sources." (pg. 13).   When thinking about the type of questions I pose to my students or have been posed to me they are mostly questions that can be answered by looking in the text or referring to what the teacher has said.  "You got the right answer by following directions, but the directions allowed for some choice, some figuring, some decision making, and the teacher explained the purpose of assignments and why the directions would lead to the right answer." (pg. 13)  This quote really ties in with how math was taught, and how I was taught math.  You follow the steps that the teacher gives you, if you follow the step correctly you get the right answer.  Now, I do see a shift in math instruction, there is more reasoning abstractly, modeling and strategy that goes into it.  Students are now having to problem solve and discover the algorithm instead of just being told it.  Students are being asked why.  This is probably how students in elite schools have been learning for a while, and now we are asking all schools to teach this way with the Common Core.  I think that teachers are struggling because they think that their "lower" students can't handle mathematical reasoning. "the teacher in one working-class school commented that she skipped pages dealing with mathematical reasoning and inferences because they were too hard." (pg. 10).  This is probably the same issues that teachers and parents are dealing with when it comes to the Common Core.  But I think it is learned behavior,  if we create a culture of "anti-dialogue," (pg. 169) how can we expect our students to reason abstractly and make inferences when we have been shutting them down for so long.  Freire's method in Brazil was dialogue, get people invested and concerned through dialogue and they will strive for an education, they will strive for literacy because they will have something to say and they will want to be heard.

"It was about empowering the powerless as a class so they can stand up for themselves." (pg. 172).  

There is a game here as Johnson said, and we need to empower the powerless so they can take a place within this game.

Voices of Students

Empowering Education- Ira Shor

I will admit it right off the bat, this was the hardest reading for me so far.  It wasn't just the length or small hard to read text.  I found this reading to be very word, without it needing to be, with many examples that did not differ much from each other.  Also, as a math teacher I am alway looking out for great ideas to bring back into my classroom but it always seems that articles, or PD sessions or example lessons always tie into English or social studies history classes.  

I want to empower education, I completely agree with Shor's list of empowering pedagogy: "Partcipation, Affective, Problem-posing, Situated, Multicultural, Dialogic, Desocializing, Deomacratic, Researching, Interdisciplinary and Activist." So I began to think how I could empower through participation and problem posing.  Problem-posing empowering really keys into the problem solving side of math and the new Common Core Math Practices.  But I couldn't see how I could start my school year off asking a bunch of middle school students: What do you want to learn in math?  My fear would be that they would say NOTHING.  In this day and age I feel that we do not need some of the same math skills that we have needed in the past, because there is so much access to technology.  But then I began to think of more high school math topics and how we could really get students involved in money and money management.  So many students go off to college and have to get loans, with out really knowing what they are getting their selves into, or get a credit card for the first time.  So why don't we teach students about these type of problems.  It is hard being a teacher sometimes and students ask you "what do I need to know this for?"  Sometimes I don't have an answer, here is an article about 5 Math Lessons You Don't Really Need (but are still taught).  

While I continued to research this topic of Problem-posing math issues I came across a neat website has "Real-world lessons from Mathalicious help middle and high school teachers address the Common Core Standards while challenging their students to think critically about the world."  It has lessons about increasing the horse power of an engine, how the urban population has change over time and how we will all fit on this planet.  I would love to be able to have my students pose questions that they have and see if we can find ways to mathematically solve them.  

I have enjoyed reading your comments, here are just a few other interesting link/videos that I have found.

** Food for Thought:

When did you choose to be STRAIGHT?- See how people respond to the question that is often asked of gay people

30+ Examples of Heterosexual Privilege- "If you are straight (or in some cases, perceived to be), you can live without ever having to think twice, face, confront, engage, or cope with anything listed below. These privileges are granted to you, and many of them are things you’ve likely taken for granted.  (Otherwise known as the “Why it’s easier to be straight” list.)"

Queering Schools

RethinkingSchool.org Reading

Queering Schools  by the editors of Rethinking Schools

Last week while trying to pick a week to lead discussion there were two topics that I was very interested in.  I was interested in the Nov. 5th topic Seeing Queerly and the Nov. 19th topic The Politics of Inclusion.  Both these topics are something that I feel passionate about.  We have talked so much about the power of privilege and these two groups are at the bottom of the power pyramid in todays culture, but I can see the growth that they have had in my lifetime.  We have talked about the campaign "Spread the Word to End the Word" and I have heard about "To B GLAD" day (Transgender, Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian Awareness Day).  In the end I chose the topic The Politics of Inclusion, but I still wanted to do more research on Queering Schools.  So whomever did pic the topic here is a jumping off point for you. 

Currently, I work in a Catholic school, I am not Catholic, nor was I raised Catholic, or any religion in particular, though my family celebrated Christian traditions, I do not personally consider myself a Christian.  As I began to read the article I continued to think how would this conversation/lesson go at my school.  Would it even be allowed? (Stances of Faiths on LGBT Issues: Roman Catholic Church)  Though I may not push the boundaries at this school in my first month as a teacher there, I still think that the LGBTQ community needs a voice in our schools.  Just like the racial issues we've been discussing in class, this subject also needs to be bought up and discussed with students.  The article Queering Schools was about ways that we as teachers can begin to bring the topic of LGBTQ issues into our schools.  The editors quoted and excerpt from From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun, by Jacqueline Woodson, “Transsexuals, Teaching Your Children” (spring 2010), 

"What about enlarging a study of the Harlem Renaissance to explore the lives and impact of such LGBTQ poets, authors, and musicians as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Angelina Weld Grimké, Ethel Waters, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Josephine Baker? What about including the Lavender Scare in the study of the McCarthy era? Or the Stonewall Riots as part of the political foment of the late ’60s? Or considering implications of the campaign for LGBTQ acceptance in the military in the context of questioning current U.S. military strategy?"

The next quote reminded me so much of our discussion in class, and especially last weeks article by Armstrong and Wildman.  Again, these authors urge us to not sweep the issues under the rug, but find ways that we can openly talk about them.  

"This means a school filled with adults who are prepared to talk and listen to children talk about gender and sexuality, as well as other controversial and sensitive topics—adults who are willing to learn from youth as well as lead them. Community is built by working through differences, not sweeping them under the rug." 

I greatly enjoyed looking through the articles on ReThinkingSchools, and I cannot wait to see what each of us choose to read about.  

Color Insight

Colorblindness is the New Racism- Armstrong and Wildman and the Ferguson Syllabus

1) The Ferguson Syllabus:
As I read through the 8 articles on the Ferguson Syllabus, I though about what each of them implicated and what affect they had on my view of the interaction in Ferguson this summer.  I think of my self as someone who is aware of what is happening in the world.  I try to keep up with world and US news. So this summer when Michael Brown, an unarmed black youth was shot by a white police officer, I thought it would be another event like Trayvon Martin.  But this time I think it is different.  This time their have been riots and protests bigger then anything since the Rodney King riots of 1992.  I reviewed a few articles but I returned to the first article by Victor Rios, "Stealing a bag of Potato Chips and other Crimes of Resistance."  As I read this article I thought about Delpit and Johnson. Were the two boys in this article trying to find umbrellas to make it in the culture of power, were they trying to break the culture of power, or were they just trying to get by?  Rios says "In feeling excluded from a network of positive credentials, education, and employment opportunities, young people develop creative responses that provide them with the necessary tools to survive in an environment where they have been left behind and where they are consistently criminalized." (pg 50) These boys don't even have access to the lowest rungs in the culture of power.  

"The boys had grown up in an environment which had deprived them of the social and cultural capital they needed to progress in school and the labor market.  Therefore, they developed their own alternative social and cultural capital, which they used to survive poverty, persist in a violent and punitive social ecology, prevent violence, avoid incarceration, and attempt to fit into mainstream institutions." (pg 49)

2) Armstong and Wildman- Colorblindness
pg. 68 "Color insight recognizes that a racial status quo exists in which society attributes race to each member.  Whereas colorblindness urges us not to notice race, color insight says, "do not be afraid; notice your race and the race of others around you; racism and privilege still do affect peoples' lives, learn more about the racial dynamic."  

I think that this quote really embodies what I got from this article.  I think that if we are ever to improve the disparity with in  the culture of power then we need to put the issue on the table and discusses it opening with all parties involved.  I really enjoyed how this article actually had some concrete ways to bring these issues into the classroom and how to start the conversation.  pg 68 The Racial Observation Exercise.  I went in search of other people who had messages that went along with this theme of color insight.  Mellody Hobson is an American businesswoman who is the current Chairman of Dreamworks Animation, and she is black.  She spoke in March of 2014 on the topic of Color blind or Color Brave.  I really enjoyed how she backed up her position with valid points of personal experience but also true statistics in this current day.  

A Linguistic Celebrations - a great Spoken Word by Jamila Lyiscott about the 3 languages she speaks.  This more ties into last week but I enjoyed it, and thought I would share.  

Check one please: Skills or Process

The Silenced Dialogue - Delpit

In this article I believe that Delpit chose the process of writing and the teaching of writing to start a conversation on how we educate children.  At the beginning of the article I disagreed with a lot of what Delpit said, I also believed that the teacher using the process approach to teaching was just lazy. It is in my experience that both approaches are needed.

As a read on I began to really understand that it wasn't just the writing process that Delpit was talking about.  On page 31 she says "students ultimately find themselves held accountable for knowing a set of rules about which no one has ever directly informed them."  I felt the same way, I felt that she was not directly informing her reader what she was trying to get at.  As I read on, I began to understand more that it was that she wanted students to be "taught the codes needed to participate fully in the mainstream of American life...they must also be helped to learn about the arbitrariness of those codes and about the power relationships they represent." (pg 45).

I really liked the excerpt on the Alaskan native teacher who taught the students the value in both language sets, Heritage Language and Formal English.  I think it is teachers like this one and the teacher that interviewed the Southern black high school student who are helping to move the pedagogy of educating students of diverse backgrounds ahead.  I like how this teacher in particular challenged Joey to determine if Black English is bad or good. This teacher really had his/her student thinking about language and the differences in language and how it is used.

It was hard as a white-middle class person to really understand/identify with some of these issues, but the real life interviews and examples really put it into perspective that I could understand.  If you look at the statistics, School teachers by race, I do not think I am alone in this.  Out of the almost 4 million teachers in the US, 83.5% of these teachers are white, non-hispanic.  Over all I have learned that it is important to always keep the lines of communication open, and really listen to what people have to say because we all have different life experiences.

Here is just another little article about educating black students and how government reform has helped or hindered. Dream Deferred

So what can we do about it?

Reading: Privilege, Power and Difference- Dr. Allan Johnson

As I read this article I agreed with most, questioned some and needed clarification on other parts.  I feel like I have read, thought about, or discussed this topic many times before.  Dr. Johnson was upfront with who he was and what privileges were afford to him for being a white, male, heterosexual.  He gave examples to how privileges do exist for whites vs. non-whites, males vs. females, and hetro-sexuals vs. non-hertosexulas.  What I wonder now, as I have before: 

What can we do about it?  

What can I as a white, female, hetro-sexual, middle-class person.  How can we "all just get along?"  I believe as Dr. Johnson said "Understanding how to bring dominant groups into the conversation and the solution is the best challenge we face." (pg 11).  How do we start this conversation with our students, how do we address the facts?  I found an article that has more to do with how to address races with your own children, but I think we can apply it here with our students as well.  Raising Racially Conscious Kids.  The article talks about six different things we can do to raise racially conscious kids, you may agree, disagree, or question how, but as long as we are thinking about it and discussing how to alter this "powerful force" then I feel like we are moving in the right direction.

1. Recognize that children experience race and that they need help to understand and contextualize it.

2. Make a conscious effort to share books, movies, and other media with your children that present diverse viewpoints and story lines.

3. Take advantage of every opportunity to talk about race in America.

4. Address your privilege and the ways you benefit from institutionalized racism, but also the ways it can allow you to challenge the system.

5. Teach your children to be “up-standers” to their peers.

6. Be careful not to paint people of color as lost and persecuted souls looking for a White Knight!

Personal Connection: When I first started working as a teacher I worked in a predominately white, middle to upper class school.  My second job was in a school that was much more diverse.  I did not think anything of my race or gender or background going into my first job, but as I started my second job at a school for low-income students of diverse backgrounds.  I thought how will they see me, a white, middle class woman coming into their school, their neighborhood and trying to educate them.  I had to be conscious of my self, more so then I had ever been before.  This school was one of the first places where I was not surrounded by people like me, who had similar up bringing,  similar categories on the "Diversity Wheel."  In the future I would love to have more tools on how to approach this situation.  I want to "change how we think so that we can change how we act, and by changing how we participate in the world, become part of the complex dynamic through which the world itself will change." (pg. viii)

My Beginnings

Hello All,
My name is Jenny Henderson.  I am currently a 7th and 8th grade accelerated math teacher at Cluny School in Newport, RI.  When I was growing up I was one of the lucky ones that already had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to be, a teacher.  I started off at College of Charleston, where my first advisor tried to talk me out of being a teacher because I am dyslexic, so excuse my spelling, I'm trying my best.  I thought this was a very negative thing to tell me and I would not take no for an answer.  Later, I moved onto Roger Williams University, where the staff were supportive of me and my pursuit of teaching.  I received my first certification in Elementary Education.  But at that point I was tired of school and wanted to travel the world, my other passion in life. So I started working on yachts, and I'm talking those big ones that come in and out of Newport, RI each summer.  I traveled up and down the east coast to Maine, Nova Scotia, Maryland, Florida, then to Central America: Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico and the west coast to California, Washington, Vancouver, and Alaska  When I moved back to Rhode Island I started the long journey of finding a teaching job.  I found this to be quite discouraging, but just as before I did not let this get me down.  I finally received a call on the second day of school in fall 2009 to be a long term substitute in a 6th grade humanities class, I loved it, just as I knew I would.  This position led me to Rhode Island College, to earn my middle school math certification.  With this new certification in hand, I once again was on the hunt.  This time my hunt took me to New Bedford, a community with a rich and diverse history.  New Bedford and my family also have a long history.  My family once made sails for whaling ships.  I was excited to learn more about this community and really explore New Bedford's history.  I became the 7 and 8th grade math and science teacher at Our Sisters' School.  I spent two years at OSS, where I became the Math and Science Department Head, Advisory Coordinator, Schedule Coordinator and so much more.  I loved OSS and I learned so much from my time at OSS, but at the end of the school year in June of 2014 I decided to conquer my next mountain, graduate school.  I have always loved school and it had been too long and I needed to make it a priory in my life.  I left New Bedford and journey back to "the island," aka Aquidneck Island.  

Being back home has made very happy and I know this is where I want to be.  I love the water and need to see it every day.  You can often find my down at the beach, in the water or sailing my sunfish.  

(*This picture is not on my sunfish, don't have a picture, it's a wet boat, no place for a camera!)

I am very excited to be back in school, it has always been a place where I thrive.  Now I just need to find a few more jobs to support my habit of school and teaching.  

Cheers, Jenny