Ok, so yeah this reading was rather difficult. I found myself reading passages over and over and still getting nowhere in some parts of this text. Page 17, the paragraph from Code COMPLETELY LOST ME. I couldn't make any sense of it! Thankfully though, there were some parts from which I was able to connect to some of the other readings.
The excerpts from Heath were really interesting to me. It seemed almost like the idea we had previously discussed in the class, the idea of Code switching and having multiple voices for various settings. The difference here though was an entire different personality that the child from Roadville had to assume in order to function appropriately in school and not be punished or chastised for creating make believe or "lies" at home. This really got me thinking about some of my students and the lives they come from. I mean, what if in one's home, females are completely inferior and education is not valued, a woman's place is solely in the kitchen and taking care of babies. I mean, everyday on tv, I see things that completely shock me. For instance, that poligamist group that was exposed last year. I was outraged by what was happening, but what if I one day got one of those students in my class? Could I effectively provide a more "culturally responsive pedagogy" (p. 25) in my classroom for these students? I honestly right now don't know. I mean, what do you do with families who aren't supportive of a curriculum? I did have a child once who was Morman and couldn't celebrate holidays. For me, this was a big dilemma as I was teaching kindergarten and the study of various cultures and the way they celebrate holidays is a part of the curriculum. I simply had the child complete different activities then what the rest of us were doing and we missed out on many celebrations. This was also my first year, so I think I would handle it better now, but that was a whole year lost.
I am very excited about learning how to better integrate students' ouside beliefs and practices into the classroom, so I think that this text will help me to better understand how to do this.
As for Walkerdine, I don't quite grasp what her work was doing. I understand that she was observing working class mothers, but her input and excerpts didn't quite make sense to me. I wasn't exactly sure what we were suppose to get out of the discussion on pg. 29 between the two students harassing the teacher, other than I would never allow that to happen and language like that isn't acceptable to me. I mean, I understand that children are brought up in lots of different situations, but I still think there is a line between acceptable beliefs or behaviors and completely inexcusable beliefs and behaviors like those two preschoolers.
I am very eager to continue reading this book to see what theories emerge. I think it is going to be an interesting journey.
Whtiney Gilbert
Comments (1)
Good point about incorporating students' home lives into the classroom. The example about the Mormon child was something I could relate to. I had a student a couple years ago whose parents would not let him read The Scarlet Letter because of his religious background (he didn't tell me what it was, but I later learned that he was a part of the LDS church) It really put up a road block for me because The Scarlet Letter was a very LONG unit. I had to come up with a lot of different activites for him. Many times we see this as a hindrance to our teaching, but it is also a great opportunity for the teachers to learn about new cultures and viewpoints, if only we treat them as such.
Posted by Christy Rivers | March 30, 2009 12:17 PM
Posted on March 30, 2009 12:17