Colette Cupid

I really enjoyed reading Friere. As stated in earlier Blogs, I was not a fan of his writings at the very beginning. However, as we contuned to read various chapters, I really enjoyed what he had to say. It is interesting to see how he is so well known. I have seen him cited in various others readings since I have been in this program. He is mentioned in Oakes and Lipton and was even mentioned during one of the speeches for Asa Hilliard at the conference last week. Friere’s words are truly encouraging and inspirational. I will more than likely refer back to this book when I need that extra push to stand up for what is right, be daring and continue to become that “cultural worker” and change agent.

Chapter 12 of Oakes and Lipton kind of brought the whole book together. I really enjoyed the readings from this book, especially the excerpts from actual teachers.  The excerpts were genuine and realistic which helped me to connect with some of these teachers’ triumphs and frustrations. I especially like how Oakes and Lipton gave suggestions on what we can do to be “change agents”. The two that stood out for me were ” Commit to a Hopeful Critique” and “Find Satisfaction in the Everyday”. They both reminded me of what the young lady said Dr. Asa Hilliard would tell her after a hard day of work, “Where was the Excelence?” I think that is a good philosphy to look for the good in education and our students even when things seem dismal  and to remain hopeful and positive.  With this in mind, I also understand the importance of keeping hope alive but also doing what you can to bring about change. As stated in Oakes and Lipton, ” Hope sustains the actions, and people must act or the hope turns against them-empty” (pg 502) They further go on to quote Freire where he says, ” One of the tasks of the serious progressive educator, through a serious, correct, political analysis, is to unveil opportunities for hope, no matter what the obstacles may be” ( pg 502) I will continue to be hopeful, finding satisfaction and excellence in the everyday and using what I learned to be a change agent in my classroom and beyond.

Reading over some of Obama’s educational reform plans, I am pretty excited with most plans. I like the idea of increasing the Head Starts. I have worked in Head Start before. I think emphasis should be placed on quality and not just quantity. Our program was under the school system and there were some scandalous things going on with the program. such as people  misusing funds or teachers/paras hired not qualified for positions,  The whole idea of Headstart is a great one but when people are not held accountable for things and everyone is not doing their jobs, it hurts the program. So I would just suggest that he also reform the evaluation and monitoring  process of Head Start so that not only more children are being serviced, but each child is getting a quality experience.

  I also liked the idea providing incentives to get teachers into the teaching field and to retain them. I think money is one of the deterence into the field.  I think it is hard for people to take out loans to pay for undergraduate degrees in education, only to be in debt when they graduate and are not making a huge salary. There are so many other professions where you will incur a debt when going to school, however, the salary sort of makes up for it. I think by making college a bit affordable and providing various monetary incentives for entering the field, more people who really do have a passion for making a difference will be attracted to the field,

The only negative I can see now is the idea of merit pay.  However, as stated in class, we would have to find out more information on how merit will be measured. I am hoping not on test scores  alone because that will just bring a whole new wave of problems, (teachers not wanting to work at underserved schools, teachers not wanting to teach EIP classes, the level of competition, cheating, etc)

I know Obama’s plans are not perfect and I am sure there will be snags along the way, but they definitely seem like a step in the right direction. I am looking forward to seeing these changes come into fruition.

I can remember being in third grade and going to speech class every Tuesday and Thursday.  We would play Candyland with the teacher but the only way you could move your colorful candyman was if you pronounced the word on the flashcard correctly. I remember all my words were “th” words.  Much of my speech at the time coincided with what Brian described as the “th” rules. I would always say “DEES” for “these” or “DA”  or “DEE” for “the”. I would pronounce mother as “mudah”.  I am not sure if it was Ebonics I was speaking or  just me mimicking my father’s island accent.  Either way, I was considered to have a speech impediment that needed to be rectified. After listening to the lecture on Ebonics, I look back now and wonder whether my teacher’s were not honoring the language of my culture, if they were devaluing the way I spoke at home by labeling my speech as a “problem” which needed fixing. The more I think about it, the more I am thankful for the speech classes. I believe school is one of the places we equip students with tools to help them succeed in life and become productive citizens. Well, the speech classes helped me to speak and pronounce words in standard English correctly.  I would need this in my future in order to be successful. Whether it is right or wrong to consider SE the language of power, it is what it is and I am thankful I was taught it. This does not mean that I don’t still say “mudah” or speak Ebonics around family and friends, but I think I have been given the tools to code switch  which helps me to keep my cultural language while also knowing the language of power.

Another point which I liked that Brian pointed out is that NOT ALL African Americans speak Ebonics. I don’t think people should just equate Black with Ebonics. In my opinion,  just because you teach AA students doesn’t necessarily mean you have to learn Ebonics. This goes back to getting to know each child individually. Yes, if you notice that your class or some students speak it, then definitely, a good teacher will try to understand the culture or background of the language. But I just don’t think it should be assumed that just because a child is African American, then they speak or are knowledgable about Ebonics. I have made the same mistake with my Hispanic parents. I just assumed the parents spoke Spanish because they were of Hispanic origin. I learned the hard way with a parent who was angry that I was sending everything home to her in Spanish. She is of Hispanic descent but never learned the language. It all goes back to the reoccuring theme of getting to know each and every student and their backgrounds individually.

I can remember practicing the CRCT with my students for the first time. My class at the time was made up of predominantly ELL students from Mexico. The question on the practice test was ” How long will it take Mr. Brown to mow his lawn. A. an hour B. a day C. a month.” I was under the impression that my students understood the concept of time. However, most of them got this question wrong. I can remember asking them if they understood the question and one child asked, “What does I mean to mow?” and another asked ” what is a lawn?”. I realized that most of my students lived in apartments and wouldn’t exactly know about mowing a lawn. After explaining what mowing the lawn meant, most of them got the question right….except for one who put a day because he thought the man was cutting the grass with scissors! Another question that showed the bias on the test was a picture of a sled and the children had to fill in the first two letters to the word. This was another one they got wrong because they didn’t know what the word was. Sleds are not typically found in GA or Mexico! Oakes and Lipton state that many of the IQ and standardized test embody cultural biases. This is why I hope there will be a greater move to try to use alternative or authentic assessments nationwide such as the use of portfolios. This idea that one test fits all is so unrealistic. Hopefully, in time this will change.

This study did not shock me at all. I was able to use my personal experiences in seeing first hand how vast a difference there is in teaching methods and philosphies of schools in different social classes. I have worked in both an affluent school and schools for the working class. In both my experiences, I agree with the researcher and her findings. Both schools exhibited the teaching characteristics she explained in her findings. The school I worked in for the working class did not promote autonomy, while the affluent school gave more power to the students to construct their knowledge. At the affluent school, there was no standardized test given and report cards were 3-5 page narratives. However, at the school for working class families, assessments were constantly given in the form of pencil and paper to gather “data” and there was an overemphasis on the students passing a state standardized test. These differences just help to perpetuate the achievement gap between the classes and in turn between races.  Anyon states, ” Differing curriclar, pedagogical, and pupil evaluation practices emphasizes different cignitive and behavioral skills in each social setting and thus contributes to the development in the children of certain potential relationships to physical and symbolic capital, to authority and to the process of work” . I agree with this statement. Children in lower socioeconmic status are continuing to be taught to be dependent, obediant and following orders (scripted curriculums). While children from affluent schools are being taught to be independent thinkers, self governing , innovative and leaders. If Tite 1 schools are required to only choose curriculum reform models that are scientifically based in order to get funding, why don’t the vast majority  of these programs stress autonomy, independence or leadership skills so that the school system can help equip these students with the kind of thinking and learning experiences which will aid them in moving out of a lower socioecomic status?  I currently teach in a Title 1 school and I will continue to try my best to teach my students to be autonomous thinkers so that they know they are equipped and capable of becoming leaders now and in their futures.

One activity that stands out for me and opened my eyes about myself was the activity done over the summer with Tonia. For the activity, we needed to write the first word that came to mind when viewing pictures of various students. Of course, I don’t consider myself racist but that activity showed me that I do have preconceived beliefs about people based on appearances. For example, I automatically thought the young man with tattoos all over his arm was a member of a gang or thought the Asian student staring out into space was studious. We knew nothing about these students except what we perceived in that one picture and I had already made a judgment about them based on stereotypes…some good and some not so good. As we have read in various readings and know first hand, any kind of stereotype can be damaging. The activity made me think long and hard about my practices as a teacher and whether I make these same assumptions with my own students. I can’t lie and say that I have never, but I do believe I am more conscious now and try to get to know my students without making judgments based on stereotypes.

I really enjoyed the readings for this week. They were really eye-opening, especially the article entitled Fiction Posing as Truth.  I had no idea about the Carlisle Indian Industrial Boarding School in Carlisle, PA. After reading the article, I looked up more information on the school and definitely could see why the author was so outraged. The sad thing is if I had not read this article and simply read the book through scholastics, I would have no idea that the history depicted in this book was so misrepresented. I have never been a fan of the historical fiction genre, even as a child. I remember reading a picture book on Harriet Tubman and at the end of it, the story said it was a historical fiction  story BASED on the life of Harriet Tubman… all events in the story did not happen. I remember thinking, “Well how will we know which ones actually happened and why put made up events in the story to confuse us.”  If you have no idea about the actual historical event , how do you decipher what is true and not true in a historical fiction piece? I think this just reaffirms that we simply can’t just grab a book because we think it is Multicultural. We have to do the research, evaluate the literature and make sure what we are presenting to our students is accurate, respectful, authentic and culturally sensitive.

         The incident with Carla and Madalena was very interesting. I thought that Madelena’s intervention was risky but very effective. She showed that you can hold children of  low SES backgrounds to a higher standard. This simple act by this teacher made the child and her grandmother feel validated. Madelena went the route of holding Carla’s physical appearance to a high standard but we as teachers can go beyond just physical appearance. I think holding low standards for these children puts them in to the “deficit” category. All children are capable of achieving so it is important for us to hold the bar high for each one.

   In class we discussed the “risks’ Madelena or teachers would face when intervening. I do believe that the risk is the fear of overstepping boundaries and offending parents. Some one stated that you just do what is “right”.  Well, one’s definition of what is “right” may not be the definition of another persons “right”.  I understand basic needs need to be addressed with a child and in cases such as Carla’s, yes, it is neccessary to intervene. But when you get into things like saying a kid is unkept because he needs a haircut, this is all subjective. A child may grow an Afro or dreadlocks and a teacher may feel this hairstyle is “not appropriate”. This is HIS/HER idea of what is “appropriate” according to his/her culture. For an African American youth, growing their hair out into an Afro is “appropiate” in their world.  So to suggest to a parent to have the child get a haircut, that is overstepping boundaries. Also, the same case could be said with hygiene. A teacher may intervene and give a child deodorant or write a letter to a parent addressing the child’s hygiene. However, not every culture believes that body odor is an offensive phenomenon and they don’t use deodorant. I just feel you have to be careful in how you approach a child when intervening solely on what YOU think is best. You need to get to know the child and their individual circumstances before making a judgement that intervention is needed.

 What stood out for me in this week’s reading of Freire is the similarity between what he states is happening in Brazil and what is happening in the US school systems. Freire brings up the importance of teachers learning about the cultural identities of the learners in their class. He speaks about understanding and valuing the identities our students have outside of the classroom and school. One of the examples he brings up is language. He states, “A worse thing happens in the area of language, in which the syntax, orthography, semantics, and accent of the kind spoken by lower-class children are almost always denigrated” (Teachers as Cultural Workers, page 133)

  This automatically made me think of the issue of Ebonics in our school systems. I agree with Freire in that students should learn Standard English. It is the language of power and in order for them to succeed, they will have to learn when to code switch. However, their language should be valued and not put down in the classroom. I have heard plenty of teachers say, “We don’t speak like that in this classroom. You keep that language for the streets.”  This makes the language seem as if it is inferior. I have also heard teachers say this to Spanish speaking children about Spanish.  It is important for us to make students feel validated and to respect their cultural identity which includes their language. Our students should not be made to feel ashamed of how they speak just because it is different from the “norm”.