This is really a compilation of the most pertinent forum posts from my UNCC classes Fall 2014 and Spring 2015.
As I’m now entering my fifth week of teaching full time, I’ve started developing a few ideas. First, I cannot bank on one day’s interaction with a student to be representative of the interactions for the next day. I find that if I have a great day with a student one day, the next day could flop. But on the other hand, I also find that if I have a bad day with a student, the next day could be great. I now come in, not really knowing what to expect from the student, and hopefully that kind of tabula rusa will help me treat every student equally and sincerely greet them at the door with a smile on my face. Second, I am starting to believe that though students may learn best when they are interaction with the material and having fun with it, that doesn’t necessarily translate to mastery. Understanding and mastery are two different things, I now realize, in that they need to be taught differently. Understanding may be done in a fun and interactive way, and perhaps mastery can be done that way as well, but I find that there really is no substite for mathematical drills in developing mastery. I’ve tried going around it in so many different ways and nothing helps it stick in the students’ minds as drilling. For some reason, I began the year thinking that drilling is the root of all evil and shyed away from that practice. I’m going to pick it up starting next week.
I think there’s something to be said about the sense of urgency in classrooms! I find that when I find myself to be dry and boring, the students do as well. But when I’m energized and enthusiastic, they are more energized and enthusiastic about it. It’s weird, as if they’re feeding off our energy or something! Another thing that’s weird is that not tolerating bad behavior is the best thing a teacher can do make their classrooms memorable for the right reasons. Too often I think we have a tendency to not discipline to feed our need to be liked, but the exact opposite ends up happening!
2. What do students want from their high school education?
I believe that students for the most part want a safe place to learn. I ask my students all the time what they want to do when they go into college. Why are you in high school? Why do you come to class? Why are you in math class? It’s not too shocking to hear almost all of them say, “I don’t know why I’m here, but I know I should do well.” Several other students have told me, “I’m only here in a class I hate because I want to move on to next grade.” Then I always ask them, “So you’re here taking a course you don’t want to take to move on to the next course you know you don’t want to take?” I doubt that students really know what they want. And I always make it a point to tell my students that I didn’t know what I wanted in high school, either.
Though I want no child to be left behind, if they are consistently leaving themselves behind, refusing to be picked up, and furthermore dragging people behind with them, then I do not know of any other option than not allowing that one or few students to jeopardize the education of the entire classroom. It’s something I struggle with on a daily basis, and I hope that they pick up the pace sooner rather than later because week 5 is already starting.
I liked the “encourage positive interactions” piece. But for me, it’s something that’s easier said than done. One of my classes was extremely positive in its interactions, but now it’s getting rowdy because they’re getting too comfortable with each other and want to do nothing but talk about what kids want to talk to each other about. I wish I could discover a way to get kids engaged and talking about the topic at hand, but that seems to be a sweet spot that I can’t find. The only thing I can see working is kids working with one other partner quietly with soft music on. Anything more than that, with multiple partners or loud music, seems to get a few kids engaged but most of the kids associate that to mean that they can do whatever they want to in class. At least in my class that’s been true unfortunately.
A. What do you see as the key issues raised in devising a behavior management plan?.
The difficulty for me has always been trying to have a procedure down for every minor thing. Students always have certain needs that I either didn’t think about or encounter before. For example, what should I do about a student who I know lives in a foster home and says that he passes out when he doesn’t get enough sugar? Should I give him candy or require a doctor’s note? What should I do about a student with a rap sheet who says he wants to listen to his headphones in my class because it’s the only thing that calms him down (headphones are banned in my school)? What should I do about a student who keeps asking if she can go to another teacher to get one-on-one instruction from her because it’s her planning period and I can’t give her the individualized attention that she needs and wants? There are so many nuances to these situations that I don’t know if it’s possible to have a management plan for every conceivable scenario.
Columbine’s Challenge dealt with safe schools and school violence. If you were asked to share with a novice teacher the five (5) most important things to do or be aware of with respect to school violence and school safety, what would they be? Why did you choose these particular five?
1. Do not curse at or around your students. Even if that’s the only thing that other teachers say gets to the students and the only thing that helps you get respect from them, I would highly advise that a teacher should set the example. I have never cursed at or around my students because I want to model how a civilized person should act.
2. Do not let any minor thing pass you by. I mean for everything from students throwing things to each other to pass writing utensils to throwing things in the trash can. Have a procedure for those things. I have my students cross their fingers and raise their hands if they need to get up to sharpen their pencil, staple papers, pass things to each other, or to throw things in the trash. I tell them that’s because I don’t know if students are throwing things at each other to pass things or out of malice, and that I only see things being thrown, not whether it was for a good reason or a bad reason.
3. Have students apologize for every minor thing. I have my students apologize even if they say “shut up” to each other. They used to tell me that it’s not a big deal. I told them stories that they all know too well: one student tells another student to “shut up,” and they respond, “what did you say to me, b—-?” And it escalates to something bigger. They’ll deny that that’s ever happened. So the first time that a “shut up” started an argument between two students, I told them, “and that’s exactly why I don’t even allow you to say shut up.” Again, I model this by never saying the words “shut up” to my students. Now, my students are starting to catch themselves in the middle of the sentence and say, “Oh, I almost said it but I didn’t.”
4. Have a procedure in place for a major issue. What will you do if a fight breaks out? I would highly advise calling for help to be the first step, getting other students out of the way to be my second step. I would personally stay out of the way because I’ve heard too many stories of teachers getting knocked out accidentally. I’m not afraid of being knocked out, but a teacher knocked unconscious does two things: it doesn’t help that a teacher is immobilized, and the student now faces a heavier penalty because a teacher is knocked out.
5. Some students will never get along with each other. Place them as far apart from each other and the loudest one as close to you as possible. Own your classroom, and don’t let teenagers take over your job.
I would choose these five because they’ve worked for me. I understand that I might not be in the majority in telling students to “please” sit down or “please” go outside, or to never use derogatory words at them. But I model the things I expect my students, and tell them that if it’s not ok for me to curse at you, tell you to shut up, etc, then it’s not ok for you to do that to me or to anyone else in the classroom. I think that helps kids feel safer in my classroom, no matter how mundane those rules may appear to be at first.
D. Generate a list of at least ten (10) best practices with respect to behavior management and/or safe schools.
1. Model the behavior that you expect for your kids.
2. Greet your kids at the door with a smile, even if you don’t want to.
3. Only allow one person to talk at a time.
4. Have as many procedures as possible for every conceivable scenario.
5. Be consistent in enforcing your procedures. The first time you let something slip, the students will continue to push that boundary.
6. Build a coalition of teachers that you can rely on to enforce procedures if things get out of hand.
7. Build relationships with students. Often times they will do anything for you if you do.
8. Use tutoring sessions as an excuse to get to know your students.
9. Do not ask your students in front of the class why they did certain things. Tell them the behavior that you expect out of them, and that’s it. Don’t give them opportunities to “explain things” to you in front of the entire class.
10. Do not show anger. Be calm, cool, and collected at all times. Act as if everything if normal when things are not, and the students will feel safer.
I am beginning to think that how the students perceive me is extremely important. They’re not always necessarily driven by the content of words and philosophy. Sometimes they react to whatever is in front of them, and that very much pertains to the teacher in front of them. If the teacher sounds bored, they’re bound to be bored as well. If the teacher sounds like they’re excited, the students are bound to be more excited.
I think it’s a big positive that your students are at least attempting your homework assignments! I have to deal with a couple issues with my students thus far. First, they lie to their parents and tell them that they don’t have homework, but they do have one every single day. Second, like you said, they don’t know how to do it. Third, they copy from other students. And fourth, they try to do it in other classes, or even in the first few minutes of my class. My Faculty Adviser during summer school told me that’s why he doesn’t weight homework all that much, and I think that advice has been beneficial for me this year. [Note: I now give out answers to homework so that my high flyers can check their work, mid-flyers can learn as they try to follow along, and low-flyers can at least get some credit and think about math when they copy. It also puts the responsibiity on their shoulders, not mine, for doing homework, since I literally give them every answer to every homework assignment.]
The religious grounding of early schooling in this country cannot be denied, nor can the history of religious influences on governmental functions. However, the Constitution calls for a separation of church and state. As such, we have numerous court rulings banning such things as prayer in schools (including at sports events, graduations, assemblies, etc.) and removal of the word “God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Furthermore, certain groups call for posting The Ten Commandments on the walls of public buildings (including schools), removal of Darwin and the theory of evolution from the science curriculum, and the inclusion of intelligent design (creationism) into the science curriculum.
What is your perception of “separation of church and state”?
Is allowing prayer in school a violation of “separation of church and state?”
The Constitution prohibits school endorsement of any religious activity or doctrine. The United States of America is a very diverse country, comprised of people of many races, cultures, nationalities, and religions. It seems that individuals calling for the removal of evolution and the inclusion of creationism in the science curriculum are not only asking schools to break federal law but are extremely myopic; demanding that only their creation story be studied! What about the creation stories of non-Christian religions? Discuss your opinion on this issue?
Religion is perhaps one of our strongest core beliefs. In other words, our religious beliefs define who we are, what we believe, what we value, and how we behave. As such, will religion always be part of schooling in this country?
1. First, I want to make it clear that separation of church and state is not a phrase found in the Constitution. It is a phrase adopted from Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. Here’s what he wrote: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.” Given that context of the phrase, “separation of church and state,” my perception of separation of church and state is a limit on the state, and not on the church. It is limiting the state by not allowing it to make any law “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Taken together with the state’s mandate for its own self-sustainment, I would say that the separation of church and state mandates that the government does not establish nor prohibit religious activities that are not detrimental to the self-sustainment of the state.
2. Allowing prayer is not a violation of separation of church and state, since, as I’ve defined in the first answer, it is not detrimental to the self-sustainment of the state. Not allowing prayer, on the other hand, would go against Jefferson’s definition of separation of church and state, which is “prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Taking this to a somewhat analogous example, when I was overseas, we had to respect Islamic practices to continue when prayers were conducted at various times of the day, all within the confines of American bases. I don’t see why we couldn’t then allow students to pray in schools.
3. I’m an evangelical Christian that disagrees with unguided evolution through natural selection on philosophical grounds and not on religious grounds. I am also an evangelical Christian who does disagree with the Creationist account. However, I think it’s important to allow the students to make up their own minds on things given the scientific evidence. If there is no scientific evidence pointing towards the creationist account, then it should not be taught. If there is no scientific evidence pointing towards the Hindi/Buddhist/insert-your-own-religion account, then it should not be taught. Evolution is coming under fierce attack these days not on religious grounds but because it faces immense problems philosophically and scientifically. What I think should be taught is a more comprehensive view of evolution that demonstrates its immense problems as well as the immense problems it purports to solve.
4. I don’t know that religion is part of schooling in this society here and now. I think there are religious overtones, but it is not so saturated that I think religion has a dramatic influence on how people conduct themselves and/or the materials being taught (think math, english, foreign language, etc.)
I wrote in my response to this module about Entry 11.2, that the phrase “separation of church and state” was adopted from Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. Here’s what he wrote: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
So my interpretation of that, as Jefferson penned it, is not a limitation on religion, but a limitation on what the state can do. It does not allow the state to prohibit religious liberty to be jeopardized. It does not put a limit on what a religion may or may not do.
d). Describe two salient points you noted in Chapter 1. Are these points or arguments valid or invalid? Provide your reasoning.
The paper made two major points. First, there are many reasons why diversity awareness and training is important. It builds synergy, builds mutual gain, renewal, progress, innovation, and expansion, builds civic capacity, establishes peace and understanding of the “other”, and improve’s America’s future which will be largely made up of minority populations. I agree for these reasons that diversity is important and that training for diversity therefore should be a priority.
The second point is that there is an achievement gap problem and that education can be a means of intervention for that problem. Particularly interesting was the notion that “for each student the educational system is not able to reach, the government spends on him or her more than enough money to support a family of four,” should they be incarcerated in prison, as many high school drop outs do. I used to believe in this notion that education is the key, and I believe that it still can. After all, that’s why I quit my job in finance to teach. I just don’t think that’s the case for every student. For some students, they see the life that their parents have as high school dropouts, and don’t think anything is really all that bad. For other students, they think that people telling them education is important is lying to them. For still others, they may believe that they’ll make it out on their own without a formal education. I think those mindsets are much more destructive than the quality of education being offered. When the mind is unwilling to receive, it doesn’t matter what information is attempting to be communicated.
e) The textbook suggests several ways society at large may benefit from embracing the notion of diversity. Describe one challenge around the issue of diversity you know about, and how you would go about resolving it.
One thing that I am continually frustrated about in talking about diversity is the notion that if we as teachers and public servants do certain things that all will be made well. For example, when discussing the achievement gap, much is attributed to either “socio-economic status and related issues” and “quality of teachers, administrators, and environments.” But what about the students themselves? In terms of diversity, is it enough for only one party (the teacher) to realize, acknowledge and attempt to resolve issues related to diversity? I think the onus also has to be on the students as well, and I do not know that even a 1-1.5 hour of diversity alone for an entire semester will resolve certain issues that students have regarding diversity. They are being taught by people that do not look like them, that did not grow up like them, and (sometimes because of those factors) do not respect the teachers that teach them.
This topic also reminded me of a day in which I though to myself, ‘let’s forget about teaching, and just talk about life issues.’ I learned more that day about students’ psyche than any other day in my rather short teaching career. One student said, “well rich people, all they end up doing with their money is buy drugs, anyway. At least if I’m poor, I can’t afford those same drugs.’ Many other students responded in the affirmative of his position. I learned that many students have, rationalized reasons to not pursue a better education for themselves.
Thus far, the book has raised a lot of issues, but have not raised any possible solutions. I personally believe that the biggest cause for much of the issues that we face today is due to students who are born to and raised by single parents. “4 in 10 children are born to single mothers and about 47 percent of all children (under 18 years) live with a single parent.” I think it’s incredibly difficult for a child to be raised by a single parent, especially to a working mother. Of course, it’s no secret that McDonald’s, for example, actually targets single mothers for this very reason: they do not have enough time to cook for themselves and need something quick and easy to feed and entertain their children. Enter happy meals. Move into the living room with that idea and mindset sometimes necessitated by the situation at hand, and we have single parents who more concerned about looking for ways to make ends meet than meeting the academic needs of their children. If we were to somehow fix the problem of single-parenthood, I believe that we can fix a lot of, if not most of, the issues we see presented to us in schools today.
I suppose I continue to have issues with books and articles that make it seem as though that if teachers, administrators,and other adults in general simply are aware of and acknowledge certain issues and act in a right way that the children will somehow magically perform at a much higher level in school. Of course the book never explicitly makes those claims, as they are much more modest in their insinuation. For example, a student is quoted as saying, “The teachers are always bitchin’ at me because they don’t want me in their classes. They think I’m a real bad ass and that I mean trouble whenever I walk through the door. They never give me a [] chance, so I be showing them what a big, bad, [boy I am].” Then the authors ask, “Is the thinking of this student justified?” and conclude, “when the reasoning powers of students are underestimated, it can lead to misplacement, tracking, and under-education…” However, where is the plight of the adults in this claim? I once had a student who vocally and publicly shamed another teacher because she gave him an F for not having a binder and only told him about needing a binder after giving him an F. “Why do teachers do that?” he asked. I talked to the said teacher later on, who responded by saying that that’s true that he got an F, but she had given him a binder in the beginning of the school year, which he promptly “lost,” and was warned several times that he will not receive a grade for assignments if he doesn’t have those assignments put together in a binder. There are two sides to every story, and I am not saying that some of the students’ reactions are not justified, and rightly so. But I find that the students themselves will shift the blame on others, particularly adults, and not take responsibility for their own actions.
What I would like to see addressed is the children’s own psyche. For example, I think a huge issue that the authors missed is the fact that many students do not care about their education because they see the life around them and it’s not all that bad. Though I work in a Title 1 school, almost all of them have cell phones, headphones, laptops, game systems, and a bedroom to themselves. If their parent(s) can afford that kind of lifestyle without having graduated from a 4-year college, why bother? Worst case scenario, the government will take care of them. So I find that many of my students have not necessarily given up only because it’s too hard; many have given up because trying hard is not worth the effort and not trying hard at school really doesn’t lead to that bad of a lifestyle.
About 10% of my students last semester were McKinney-Vento. I was able to talk with and identify students who were not McKinney-Vento because they were in foster homes, were living with their great-grandmother while their parents were “figuring things out,” or were living with their parents but in their uncle’s house. One student that comes to mind was kicked out of his house in week 3. I remember that day like it was yesterday. Everything changed. This student had received the highest grade in his math EOC at his middle school, and was polite, respectful, intelligent, and hard-working. After he got kicked out and started living with his mother in a motel room, I started to hear things like, “Man, this is stupid,” “I don’t know how to do this,” and “I ain’t going to college, brah.” When his uncle started living with his mother, his younger baby sister, and him at the local motel room, things got even worse. He couldn’t do anything or go anywhere, and he despised his verbally abusive uncle. Homelessness is significantly detrimental to students’ performance. I’ve seen it and experienced it first hand. Unfortunately, the only thing I can do at times like that is continue to believe in those students. There’s not much else I can do.
I’ve found that iPhones, Playstations, iPads, and beats headphones are not that hard to come by for these kids in “low-income” families. Having visited some of them at home, I know that even their own bed and their own bedrooms is not unusual. I never classified myself as having grown up in a low-income family too often, but having been in this school and never having had access to any of those things myself, I sometimes wonder if it is they who need to be no longer classified as “low-income,” or if I needed to actually be classified below where a lot of my students are when I was growing up.
I disliked having to go to school. I was always the last one in and the first one out. I was always tardy, always slept in, and always skipped classes. I did relatively well in high school for other reasons, but the one thing I did like about high school was for the same reasons that they had listed: I could hang out with friends, and get away from home. I didn’t care much for the education part of school. I loved the social aspect of it. And I realize that a lot, if not most, of the students I teach are the same way. School is the one place where kids can be kids, and not have to worry about what goes on at home, like I did growing up. So when they act out, I sometimes think of myself.
I am starting to think that teaching requires a healthy bag of tricks in order to almost “trick,” if you will, the kids into learning. If you can’t make the content engaging enough, at least make the process itself engaging. Being a math teacher, this is harder to do, I think, than any other subject, but I think it can be done. And I’ve found that my students have done better when I make it even that much more engaging, however little that may be.
As for your last question with communication in the classroom, I make sure that my students know that I don’t deal with BS. One of the ways I deal with that is lay the foundation of acceptable communication: I won’t call them by the N word, they won’t call me by the N word, and they won’t call each other by the N word. So I’m holding them by the same standard that they’re holding me to. Also, I’ve found even little things really help set the tone. For example, when I’m taking roll, I tell them that they need to say “here” or “present” in order for me to mark them as present. Any other word and I mark them absent, and oh, btw, 11 or more absences and you get an F in my class. That seems to get the result that I want not only in taking roll, but also in getting the classroom management down.
I think for some students, what you said about students only wanting to the bare minimum for a certain grade is spot on. I teach Math 1, and I once had a student who was getting a B in the class. I gave the test back to them after a couple days so that they can review and revise any answers that they thought they answered incorrectly. She looked at the test in which she got a B in and just sat there and didn’t even do anything. I asked her why, and she said, “I always get Cs in Math. I got a B, so I’m not going to try to get anything higher.” I couldn’t understand her psyche all that much then, and I don’t know that I understand it any better now.
I agree that notion of self-setting motivation for kids is important, but I don’t know that that’s as important as creating lesson plans that are going to help them be successful. I think every child has some intrinsic motivation to be successful at school. But far too often, I think the problem isn’t that they don’t care about doing well in school anymore; they’ve always wanted to do well. I think the problem instead is that kids think it’s better to have not tried and failed than to try and look stupid if they fail.
2. Tough Neighborhood, tough school? (pg 168-69) I work at Garinger High, which means that I work in a relatively well known tough school in a tough neighborhood. I wonder how many of those teachers that remarked that “they would rate the school climate and students as “normal”” (168) went to a school like Garinger. Perhaps they haven’t seen the fights that seem to occur every other week, a girl and a boy ending up in the ICU after getting hit by a trailer while trying to skip school, a boy getting tasered, and freshmen boys thinking it’s funny to mock hit each other around the hallways, banging loudly on the lockers and walls while pretending to hit each other on their way to classes. Perhaps they haven’t seen a class in which female teachers are being harassed and male teachers have things thrown at them when their back is to the students. I’d love to invite them to teach for a week here and take that survey again. I’m not saying no one would want to teach here. Clearly some don’t mind, as about 50% of the students are not teaching here for the first time. I’m just saying it probably wouldn’t end up with as favorable an assessment.
But I find it more frustrating knowing that these kids are all smart. I have yet to encounter a kid for whom I thought there is no hope for him or her. What weighs on me the most is the fact that if they had one on one instruction for their entire life, then a lot of these kids will be going to very prestigious colleges. They have that kind of intellectual ability. But instead, I have 30 of those kids, and I can’t give every one of them individualized attention. When I was in high school and college I didn’t really believe in home schooling. It was something I myself wasn’t exposed to and was just an odd idea for me. Now, though, I think I can see some merit to home schooling if the parents are up for it.
In my classrooms, I’ve started to notice something interesting that happens. I’ve always thought that I must protect my students from getting out of them confidential or sensitive medical information such as ADHD in front of their peers. But like some of the kids that I have with ankle bracelets, I notice much more often students who flaunt about their “medical disability.” What’s been more surprising to me is the utter nonchalance of the students’ colleagues. They accept it as a matter of fact and not something to be ridiculed (I’m not saying that that’s the right thing to do, only that that’s what I was trying to protect my students from), and some I’ve noticed are jealous and even want to be diagnosed with a medical disability.
I thought one thing that was missing from the text was the students’ own reactions to being diagnosed with ADHD and other medical disabilities. For example, many of my students, I’ve noticed, have a defeatist attitude attitudes about it. They think that biology is destiny, and use ADHD as an excuse to get away with not even trying to work hard. I’ve also received forms I need to fill out for the government to determine the medical needs that a student may require. This gave me pause when it occurred, because I did not believe that the students in question exhibited any behaviors that necessitated medical needs. What was even more interesting was the fact that a student in particular started to then exhibit certain behaviors that I had not seen in her before. The same girl who had previously done all her class and homeowrk assignments and had told me that I needed to be harder on the bad kids became defiant, started to not work, and wouldn’t pay attention.
On a side-note, I wonder if the over-representation of minorities with special needs is directly related to the socio-economic status. I wonder, for example, if the parent of the said student was trying to receive financial benefits from the government (I’m not saying she did it wrongly, she was doing it for reasons unknown to me) and was legitimately curious about the medical status of her child as a means to help alleviate her medical bills.
I’ve always wondered what it must be like to be teaching at a high performing magnet school, and I suppose the problems of lack of motivations, et al, that I face at Garinger are still there, perhaps just in different manifestations. I think that’s one of the most difficult things I’m trying to accomplish this first year of teaching: trying to understand the students’ mindset. I ended up going to a pretty decent high school in which I would say every single student was gifted and motivated, so I never had to try and understand someone who was not. If someone was not motivated, we always had other students who were and we could look to to try and get our motivation back up. Instead, what I’m observing here is that students often sink to the lowest common denominator. Instead of bringing students up, a lot of students end up being brought down by students around them. I still don’t know exactly how I can fix this problem.
Cross-cultural identities and schooling – “Given that increasing numbers of teachers are working outside their own cultures, it is vital to ask the question: “To what extent do teachers and students understand each other?” (page 245). I think this is an extremely apt and significant question, because the answer in my case is not much. I naively thought that sharing my difficult life experiences may encourage my students and give them intrinsic motivation to work harder and never give up. As suggested on page 267, I thought using “critical pedagogy to help them know that you understand their issues, and are there to help them make it – just as you did” would be more than enough to bridge the gap. I was wrong. I don’t look like them, and I’ve been more ridiculed for telling them my story than not. Indifference is often the case, but I’ve more often heard students tell me, “you’re stupid,” or “are you going to keep talking?” or “when are you going to start teaching again?” Though I’m not hurt by their remarks, I was surprised by how little impact my own personal story of struggling through adolescence made to them, though I must admit I’ve also developed some deep relationships with others that I treasure because of those stories.
Male-female dissonance (pg 264-265). I see this happening too often. I have female students who claim to be menstruating. So in order to save them from embarrassment, I allow them to just let me know that they need to go to the bathroom. They started to take advantage of that and say that they needed to go to the bathroom even when they didn’t need to go for that specific reason. I’m thinking about doing bathroom passes, but it’s frustrating because it only happens in one class and none of my other classes this semester or last semester had this issue. Also, I sometimes have to let go of certain things. When female students, for example, tells me out loud in front of the entire class, “Mr. Kim, you know you’re my favorite teacher, right?” or “Mr. Kim, after this semester is over, can I have your address?” I have to let those things go. Instead, I respond with things like, “I have to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
The Impact of Teacher Perception on Student Referrals (pg 261-262). I was told by my administration that I am required to write up students based on certain behaviors. Tardiness should be given a referral, every 3rd multiple. Leaving a classroom without my permission, automatic referral. But what veteran teachers have told me is true. Most students don’t care about referrals. They receive them like kit-kats, and it hurts the relationship that you’re building. I’ve tried referrals, and I’ve found that they don’t work for the most part. However, I’ve found that patience in spite of being spit on daily works almost every time. One day, an African-American student that sleeps in my class all day spontaneously awoke from his slumber, took control of the classroom and asked, “Hey, I’ve got a question for the entire class.” I told him not to continue, but he did. “How many of you guys think that Mr. Kim is a great teacher?” I did not stop looking at him and asked him to stop. “Ok, and how many of you guys think that Mr. Kim is a really patient guy?” I did not stop looking at him and implored him to stop. “See Mr. Kim, that’s why I respect you. I would have lost my patience a long time ago if I were you. And now you know this entire class respects you.” He went back to his slumber. I still have no idea what prompted him, and I didn’t get this particular kid to study harder but at the very least I had his respect. And I would say that’s a step in the right direction, despite our differences.
I understand that a book such as this is inevitably going to skip certain things. With that in mind, my statement here isn’t meant as a negative critic, but more of a inquiry. Because I’ve been wondering if students perform better on average if they are taught by teachers who look like them. If, for example, Garinger High School was taught predominantly by African-American males and females rather than white females. Would my students, about 65% of whom are African-American, perform better on average because of that? Garinger High was fortunate enough to have a man named James Ford, an eloquent and intellectual African American male, as North Carolina’s teacher of the year in 2014. Though I have not seen him teach personally, I am quite certain that he is an exceptional teacher, with many years already under his belt. But I also wonder how much of his teaching success is subconsciously due to the fact that he is not only eloquent and intellectual but also an African-American teaching other African-Americans.
d) Based on your personal experiences, how can teachers prepare themselves in order to become more effective in working with students from a race or ethnicity other than their own?
After an extensive teaching career thus far (/sarcasm, 1 semester down!) I would say that the teachers can best prepare themselves with two things. One is mentally and another is psychologically. By mentally I’m drawing a wedge between how you can prepare for certain things intellectually, to be differentiated from shaping your own psyche. First, I think teachers should intellectually research most common classroom management issues arising from teaching students of different race or ethnicity. For example, if you’re a male teacher, how would you react to female students who claims to be menstruating, seemingly on a daily basis? If you’re an immigrant, how are you going to react to students who explicitly make fun of your accent, or implicitly do so by their snickering? If you’re teaching a predominantly different ethnic group other than your own, how would you react when a student says to you, “You’re only saying/doing that to me because I’m black”? There are no one right answer to all those things, but there certainly are wrong things to do, such as not even acknowledging that a racist remark has been made against you or responding with frustration when students snicker about every physical or verbal misstep you take. The more you seem indifferent to every misstep, the less the students are going to care. The more flustered you seem by even dropping an expo marker, the more the students are going to make that into a big deal.
In the least unit test comprised of 25 multiple choice questions, I gave the answers to 5 of them that I thought were hard. I wouldn’t have expected every single one of them to get all of them right; after all, there may have been just silly mistakes people make. On one particular question that I gave the answer to, only 48% of the students got it right in one of my blocks. The other blocks weren’t much better; one of the other blocks scored 54% on that same multiple choice question. In other questions, the percentages ranged from 65% to 100%. Given these experiences, I cannot help but think to myself that even if I gave the answers, I can not even guarantee that more than 50% of my students would succeed. Does that affect how I approach my lesson planning and expectations? Absolutely. Am I wrong for doing so? (I’m asking that question myself, and not implying that you’re saying that about me) I do not know.
Being aware of cultural differences allows teachers to more effectively teach with differentiated instruction. For example, if a teacher is aware of students’ interests and motivations, that teacher may be able to differentiate content in order to achieve CRT. An example I’ve used in my classroom is going to a freshman student’s basketball game. After watching the game, I asked him what his best game was. He responded that he scored 48 points in 24 minutes. So the next day, I took a quick class poll to see how many students enjoy watching or playing basketball, and almost all the hands went up as I expected. So I asked my student to verbally say out loud what his best game was. From that, we were able to focus on unit rates, which was the topic of instruction for that week in my Math class. Then I compared his points per minute to the MVP Kevin Durant’s points per minute, and were able to see that my student outscored Kevin Durant by using unit rates. Being aware of students’ interests helped them get engaged, and that was differentiating instruction because it wasn’t forcing them to learn unit rates with something that they were unaware or disinterested in.
I think one behavior trap that I’m learning to use is fun, engaging, and even loud instruction. When students that misbehave see that everyone else is engaged, talking out loud, and having a good time, they are less likely to misbehave and more likely to engage with the rest of the students.
In regards to your comment on male-female dissonance, I used to think like you and allowed all my female students to go whenever there were what they called “emergencies.” However, I should note a couple things happened. First, there were “emergencies” almost every other day no matter the time of the month for some of my students. For other students, it was less often, but it was still about once a week. Female students were taking advantage of the male teachers in such regard. Second, because I didn’t want the females to seemingly get preferential treatment and/or call to attention the fact that they were going for “female” reasons, I had to allow males to go without question, too. Because the male students would have noticed that all the females were allowed to go but they weren’t. On a certain day, I literally had about half of my 30-student class leave for a bathroom within the first 45 minutes of class. Third, I never had an instance in Fall 2014 that I had to allow a female student to go for an “emergency.” And in Spring 2015, I’ve only had one class in which female students had to go for an “emergency,” and that’s the class that is giving me most trouble at the moment. Given those three experiences, it’s tough to say that I should, being a male or not, see the “sudden need to go to the restroom” for a female student.
I’ve had classes get out of hand several times. For example, I’ve had a girl push me aside to get out of class, I’ve told a student to go stand by the door and get responded with, “You stand by the door!” and I’ve had a student “accidentally” hit me on the head with a ball of paper. But teaching in a school in which almost all of my students are black or latino, it’s difficult to say that I’ve been provoked by a particular minority group. I will say, however, that there have been incidents in which a couple latinos have instigated hurtful comments to my other students. When I had him escorted out, I then passionately asked my other latino students to help me out next time by paying attention to what he is saying in Spanish and translate them back to me for records, so that immature 18 year old freshmen boys like him do not hinder them from reaching their goals. Even though that class and I continue to struggle with other things, I think I did make some strides that day by helping black students see that not all latino students are bad, and that in fact can be helpful in such situations, and that I’m doing what I can to ensure their safety.
I see that my classroom goes very differently depending on my mood. If I’m upset because I had something stolen, a student hit me on the head with a rolled up paper, or a student shoves her way out the door, it impacts how I teach not because I feel disrespected, but because the students don’t seem to either know and/or care about showing proper respect. So I can be part of the problem if my mood is low, because then the effectiveness of my teaching is low, and my students have a higher propensity to fall asleep or not pay attention.
However, I think the same can be said about you and me being the solution. As often as you go on tangents, I’m sure you spend much more time redirecting students to the topic at hand, and I’m sure you’re that much bigger part of the solution than you are a problem. I see that when I’m energetic, jumping around, literally enthusiastically hopping around to wake kids up, asking kids to repeat after me with “gusto,” kids take that to heart and can get excited about just about anything, even about systems of equations. I’ve had one day in particular in which I can honestly say that I had nearly 100% of the students engaged nearly 100% of the time for an entire day, 4.5 hours of high school math 1 instruction. I’m an extrovert by nature, so I wasn’t really faking it, but it does feel like I’m putting on a show for 4.5 hours, and that takes so much out of me. But nevertheless, the lesson I took away for myself is that my persona has such a huge impact in the classroom, both positively and negatively.
I think what the classroom looks like and how it smells definitely has an impact on how the students learn. I spent a lot of time this year just putting on more and more things on the walls and doors, and I gotta say that it looks like a completely different classroom than the mess I walked into in the beginning of the year, with the floors flooded and what not. And now, some friends of my students walk in and ask, “What class is this? I like it a lot.” I take pride in my classroom and I think the students at the very least enjoy coming to my class, even if they don’t like the content I’m trying to teach them.
I’ve tried candy as small prizes before, and in my own personal experience it worked for a while but only for a while. I think students had a disposition to take candy for granted, wanted way too diverse of a candy selection, and actually started to get sick of certain types of candy after a while. I’ve also tried raffle tickets, but that didn’t work nearly as well as candy. I think ClassDojo has been a great motivator for a lot of my students, for some reason. They like to compete and see how many points one student has versus another, and it’s clearly visible who’s on top week in and week out. I tell them that the top 3 point getters get to choose from a selection of large candies/chips/chocolates, and others who had more than 10 or 15 points or so will receive something smaller like a couple jolly ranchers or starbursts. Sometimes when I ask students yes/no/either/neither questions (or when choosing between 2-4 different answers that students got on a problem), I get students to participate by telling them that even if they guess they’ll get a point if their answer is correct. It’s worked well so far, but I also have my lingering suspicion that it will only work for a while, since I definitely can tell that more students were excited by it in the first week I rolled it out than now!
I don’t know that I would do anything differently based on Chapter 10. I already have many students express things by talking for points instead of in writing, write on the board, repeat definitions of vocabulary words, incorporate black history and introduce the impact of prominent black individuals in culture in regards to math, and manage a loud but energetic classrooms. Obviously it doesn’t work all the time, and I have a lot to grow with refinement, and my classroom management can get out of hand with certain individuals. Also, I would say that it’s almost impossible to teach like that all the time. It takes a lot of energy to be an “entertainer” for 90 minutes a class, 3 classes a day, 5 days a week, and I doubt that even the most fiery preacher, black or otherwise, would be able to sustain that kind of effort all week long.
In regards to your final question, I’ve done a couple things that have helped a little bit with making math more appealing to my black students, and using February’s black history month as a good excuse to do so. First, we read together (literacy!) as a class a short biography on a couple prominent black individuals in science, Annie Easley and Mark Dean. I asked questions like, “do you think Annie Easley needed to use math to be able to put a rocket into space?” I also showed them videos of profiles of black CEOs. One that they were all very surprised by was that the McDonald’s CEO was, until recent months, black. I asked them questions like, “What kind of subjects do you think he needed to master in order to be a successful CEO?” And math of course comes up. Obviously, there are many other prominent black CEOs, and I’ve used the CEO of Xerox and American Express as examples to not only bring awareness to successful black businessmen, but also to give them something to aspire to.
My students used to use the “N” word all the time, too. I’ve done a couple things to curtail this problem for the most part. First, I tell them that respect goes both ways. So that means I don’t get to use the N word, and neither do they. I don’t get to tell them to shut up and neither do they. I say things like, “You’d go crazy if I told you to shut up. I don’t get to say it, and you don’t get to say it. I don’t get to say it to you, you don’t get to say it to me, and you don’t get to say it to each other.” This helps them understand that at least I’m being fair. Second thing I’ve done is using classroom dojo points. Kids take their dojo points relatively seriously and whenever they curse or use inappropriate language, they get points off of dojo depending on the offense, as we decided as a class. So racist remarks get -5 points as the class decided, cursing gets -3, and so forth. I give them a couple chances to apologize to the class or to the person that they said it to, and if they do then they get to keep the points. If it continues on for a third time, they lose those points. I think these two procedures have helped me get rid of about 80% of the inappropriate language in my class.
I see that you make several good points about the challenges of the black students. In regards to your question, I think this country owes it to the black community to do everything it can to raise its standard of living. As you noted, this country deprived black communities of education in the past and its consequential wealth accumulation. Without using so much of an affirmative action in colleges, I think this country needs to make a conscious effort to sacrifice much for those who have also sacrificed much against their own will. That, for me, would entail building brand new classrooms with smaller class sizes, paying stipends for highly capable teachers who are teaching at a school with a large black population, and devoting much effort to keep it that way. We should not waste any thought into the lie that we cannot afford it, nor that it is not a worthwhile effort. The children I teach everyday have so much freaken potential it pains me to see so much of it being wasted because of various forces acting against them. They deserve better, and acting upon that ethical obligation would not even call to mind any effort to be deemed a “sacrifice.”
I think your question is a really good one. I am an Asian male, but I often get the stares of black students as if 1) I always had it easy, 2) I always loved and did well with math, 3) I’m here for the same reasons as many other teachers who are just looking for a decent job. I’ve done many things over time to try to change their mentality about me, and it’s worked for a couple of my classes.
First, whenever I go over new materials, I often tell them things like, “When I was your age, I used have issues with these kinds of questions. If you get it already, then you got it a week faster than I did.” It’s not a lie and not an exaggeration, just a sincere way of saying, look this is hard stuff, and I had trouble with it, if you are, too. And if they already get it, then they would feel special knowing that they’re getting it faster than their math teacher did at one point.
Second, I am huge on college, so I do a few things to make that an emphasis. 1) I stamp every exam that got a 80% or above with a Seal of UC Berkeley to tell them that they’re college ready. 2) I have 25 college pennants that hang up around the walls. 3) I tell them that the top student in each class can choose a pennant of their choice at the end of the semester. 4) I copied and pasted an actual Harvard admissions letter and replaced the names and addresses with theirs, telling them that I believe in them. When they point to certain college banners and ask, “Mr. Kim, is it hard to get into Harvard?” I tell them, “Yes, but you can get in. I think you’re smart enough to get in. In fact, I know you’re smart enough to get in. So let’s go.” And everyone else in the classroom hears it and knows I am saying it with sincerity.
Third, I emphasize the contributions of black individuals for black history month and their contributions to society, and say things like, “I think our great country owes a great debt of gratitude for the immense contributions this person made. We wouldn’t be a great country without them.” I can do that for March’s women’s history month by showcasing female black professors at Harvard MBA, and female black CEO of Xerox. I plan on doing that for April’s Jazz Appreciation month, emphasizing the contributions of black individuals to jazz music that I love and enjoy. I think playing Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue in the background will be extremely helpful, and tell them that it’s unanimously voted as the top jazz album of all time. I also plan on doing things on April 4th for MLK Jr’s death, showing them a video of Bobby Kennedy’s speech thereafter, found on youtube. I also plan on showing them a video on Jackie Robinson on April 15th, telling them about a man who broke the color barrier many decades before MLK Jr. came around, and how his jersey number is the only one in any sport that is universally retired in all of baseball.
Fourth, I make sure they know that I’m interested in and knowledgeable about things that my black students often care about. For example, I sometimes show them videos (almost purely for relationship building purposes) of prominent high school athletes. I ask students who are good at basketball and ask them how many points they scored on their best game and we compare their unit rates per minute with NBA’s MVP, Kevin Durant. I ask students what their 40 time is and encourage them to bring it down to at least a 4.5 to get into a really good college and play football there. I ask students what their vertical jump is and have them prove it to me by jumping and touching the ceiling. Then i joke that I can never do anything like that because I’m Asian. I also play Christian rap music, especially Lecrae, and students love his music and immediately ask whose music I am playing. He’s black, he’s good, and he raps. Anytime I show my students something new about a black culture or black person that even they didn’t know about, that gives me instant credibility. I basically know quite a bit about things that my black students often care about and they relate to me better that way.
Fifth, about 2 months into the semester, I tell them about my life story of how I grew up poor enough to have to dig things out oft the trash, live on food stamps, and hated going to school. I tell them about the abuses, about the war, about my parents’ divorce. Regardless of race, this is a meaningful discourse, but my black students tend to really relate to me after that story is told. I do it two months into it because they don’t care about me in the beginning of the semester, and they often forget about things I told them about me on the first day anyway. But they never forget the things I tell them two months after the fact.
As a Korean American, I have often made self-deprecating racial humor to try to build a more relaxed culture. For example, students have asked me if I play basketball. I tell them no because I’m Asian and I can’t jump (obviously there are Asians who play that can jump and can’t jump). Another example is when students and I talk about video games. They tell me that they can beat me in Halo. I have responded, “No you can’t, I’m Asian!” I don’t actually play Halo. But regardless, both times were met with loud laughter and I would say no one in particular really responded negatively to it. I would say, however, that I have since thought harder about the utility of such humor and if I should continue to use them at all, since I am implicitly encouraging not just any self-deprecating humor but a racial one, and students may not realize that there’s a difference between a racial humor that is self-imposed and not.