RE_5539

Hmmm. Well I left very frustrated by this chapter and have somewhat of a sense of hopelessness. It seems once again we as teachers lose a battle to a student's homelife. I was confused at the portion of the chapter that said Jake learned to "do school" when it came to the point where he won the ABC student award. He was able to adhere to expectations in that school setting, so why couldn't he do that at home? This made me start to realize there were never expectations for school and education set by Jake's family at home. No one seemed to "make" him do anything due to the parenting philosophy of Jake's mother that children need to learn from their mistakes. Yes the parents read to Jake and involved literacy in their day to day tasks, but there was no standard for literacy learning at home. This is probably due to the fact that Jake does come from a working class family, but still it seems the blame was being put on the teachers and not Jake's family context.

Yes, there are things teachers can do. Jake was only interested in doing activities at school that interested him. Kindergarten somewhat worked for Jake because he was allowed to do what he wanted to do. Isn't there a lesson here that needs to be taught that the world doesn't always allow you do to what you want to? It is obvious that Jake comes from a home where the family has different ideals, but I am still just stumped by this situation. At the end of the chapter Hicks speaks that schools need to change for the Jakes and Lauries to feel they belong at school. So I would like to ask her, what more can we do? We can continue to try day in and day out to make our lessons culturally relevant. We can attempt to show children the significance of education. We can provide them a loving and caring environment and have an open mind when it comes to their histories and home lifes. But within the school setting now, what can be done?

Resistance and tuning out became a safer route for Jake. He was obviously a product of his enviornment and embraced many of the same values of his father. Hicks states that "for Jake to engage with the kinds of literacy practices valed by school, he would have to see a space for the things he most valued". She then stated that responsive school for Jake would be an acknowledgment of his identity a sa member of a blue collar family with particular expressoins of masculinity and that in his first and second grade years that did not occur. The writers notebook activities seemed to work for Jake, other activities that did not involved his interests did not work. At some point kids have to meet us halfway. What seemed missing here was that Jake was not open to valuing anything else besides want valued to him. It is then our job as teachers to only teach them about what they value? Isn't school a place for learning new ideas and having new experiences? What are we then to do?

So I am stuck at the end of this chapters. Yes Jake's behaviors make sense do to the context of his family life, but now what? I would have been interested to see if the teachers made an effort to get to know Jake personally, and perhaps have a conversation with him about the importance of school, ect, but really I am just stuck. Does anyone have any ideas of where we go from here with Jake?