As I read about Laurie in Chapter 4 it made me consider a trio of girls in my classroom this year. Within this triangle there was a constant struggle to be the best friend of one. Each of these girls were bright and working on grade level but two of them came from working class homes where the mother was the central figure. The other was from a middle class family. While reading I realized that I witnessed a similar scenario within their revolving relationship and tensions that filtered into their journal writing in which they could write freely about a chosen topic.
This year because of a smaller class size it afforded me an opportunity to get to know my students on a more personal level. I made the effort to attend ballgames and birthday parties which gave me alot of insight into their lives and behaviors outside of school. What I found was exactly what the book described. The two working class girls had almost a different personality in their family setting than they did at school. At school they desired to be more like the middle class girl and constantly struggled with achieving her acceptance. She in turn perhaps unaware played the role of "good girl" and wielded her power to befriend one today and the other the next. Often the weaknesses of the "odd-one-out" were verbalized. We spent many recesses discussing how best to communicate with each other while following our rules of "Be kind", "Be Safe", "Be Responsible" and "Be Respectful". Through these conversations I think I attempted to help these girls move between their two worlds, however that was on a more social level.
In looking back I too, as Ms. Hicks did, wonder if I could have used this as a critical learning arena during Reading and Writing. I had a tendancy to keep this struggle at bay due to my own teaching agenda during class time. Once again I am considering the author's point and question when it would be more effective to abandon my method and strive for contextualization of their reality at that moment. Would better understanding and engagement evolve for my students?
I also considered the willingness of Laurie's mother to make this change for her daughter. With many of my students from working class families I find a reluctance to accept help or the fact that their child is struggling. With many I perceive this as a lack of value for education because of their own school history, but now I wonder if it has more to do with acceptance or denial of their social class. Or perhaps it is a reluctance to accept that a middle class teacher really cares about them or their child. Could it be embarrassment and did my questioning cause it? This chapter has given me alot to think about not only the fictions of my students but what fictions might I have build around them through my own middle class perception?
Comments (5)
Sara, I too have struggled with the issue of continuing with my teaching methods or abandoning them (when necessary) in order to better connect with my students' lives outside of the classroom. I honestly think it depends on the situation. Some lessons require lecture, while others require hands-on activities, while others require discussions, etc. If I realize that one form of teaching instruction is not as effective as I had planned, then I alter my method of instruction. Personally, I tend to think that students should be taught the same concept in multiple ways, so that they have much more to connect the concepts to. ~Allison Reese
Posted by Allison Reese | June 12, 2007 10:38 PM
Posted on June 12, 2007 22:38
Sara-
As I read your response and saw your classroom rule, I just had to comment. We have the exact same rules in my classroom. I think those four ideas cover pretty much everything a student can come up with behaviorally.
I too experience many of the same things from my working class families. I have found that the reluctance to accept the situation comes from many of the same idea that you shared. My parents often do not know what to if their child is struggling, school was a struggle for them as well. Sometimes my parents are embarrassed that their child is doing better in school than they did, or knows more than they do now (yes, even teaching Kindergarten I have seen this happen). The there are times when the parent is just plain embarrassed about the whole situation and may fall into any of the above issues which just adds to the embarrassment. I have also found that sometimes my ESL parents won’t ask for help because they feel intimidated – we know something they don’t and sometimes they are afraid someone will take advantage of them or of their kid.
Posted by Lisa Outland | June 13, 2007 2:03 PM
Posted on June 13, 2007 14:03
Once again comes the age old question of what to do? So many situations arise and you just can’t have an answer for everything. How do you handle that situation when your not sure if your own background is conveying the wrong message to the students you teach? One example of this dilemma comes to mind from a book that I just finished reading not too long ago. It is by the author Torey Hayden who is a special education teacher who writes about her own struggles in the classroom with all types of students. Tigers Child I think is the name of the book, and Torey has this little girl who has been placed in her self contained classroom because there is nowhere else to put her. She lives with her father who doesn’t pay attention to her and she ends up setting a little toddler boy on fire in the migrant camp where she lives. Torey takes the girl in and becomes her “mother” and she has to take a step back and determine whether her influence is a good thing or not. The girl will not have this much motherly attention/relationship from any of her other teachers in the future and Torey doesn’t know if it would be right to continue the relationship. I won’t give it all away but anyway, I relate that to your post feelings.
~Kristen Billings
Posted by Kristen Billings | June 13, 2007 2:03 PM
Posted on June 13, 2007 14:03
Sara,
We all have abandoned our teaching to address or tend to our students personal needs. One day, I wrote a prompt on the board for the students to write about. The prompt was, "tell me about a time you had fun with your family." They had to tell me where they went, what did they do, and they had to tell me how they felt about it. Well, this student just burst into tears. He shared with me, that the police came to their house, arrested his mother, and put her in jail. These are the times, we have to forget about the SCOS and attend to our students personal and immediate needs and we must not ask for forgiveness or apologize.
Posted by Shirley Mathis | June 13, 2007 11:09 PM
Posted on June 13, 2007 23:09
Wow, Sara, what a brilliant analysis of the social relationships in your class using Hicks's theories!
It is so, so important to examine how those fictions are constructed in classrooms -- by whom and for whom. Analyzing your own power and desires will reveal so much about how those fictions are produced.
Posted by Alecia | June 14, 2007 8:32 PM
Posted on June 14, 2007 20:32