I found it very challenging reading this text. I had to read some parts more than once.
I believe doing a research project for three years could prove to be very beneficial. As with Jake and Laurie, the author can learn so much by following them through kindergarten-2nd grade. I would love to have the opportunity to research for this time frame. I just finished a research project in Teacher as Researcher. My time spent on the project was about six weeks. I would have loved to follow these children for a year or longer to see if it made a difference.
I found the transcript with Sean, Terry and Miss Baxter very disturbing. I guess the language they were using was a learned social behavior from home. The language must have been what was spoken in their home. This reminds me of some incidents from my classrooms. The language was not directed at me by the child. Thank goodness! If I had been in a situation like this one, I do not believe I would have been very tolerant. The first situation happened several years ago with some African-American children. A boy in my class was going around saying that someone was doing the nasty. That was a first for me in the classroom. I tried not to over react but spoke with the child and told him that the language was not appropriate. After talking with mom, the child did not say this anymore. I believe that a child needs to be taught that the language is not acceptable in the classroom. A teacher can do this without making the child feel bad about himself or his home. The next situation happened last Friday with a girl in my kindergarten class. She did not exhibit this particular behavior like the preschoolers did but the language used in her environment was inappropriate in a school setting. She and I were walking down the hall and I had just called her mom to come pick her up because she had head lice. She looked up and said, "Mrs. Thomas, if you would keep this school clean my momma said that I wouldn't get lice." She went on to say, "My momma calls you name a bad name." I said, "She does?" She said, "Yes, you know that word that starts with Mmmu..." I said, "Yes." She said, "You know the other part starts like Fffuu. She says that word about you. That's bad isn't it?" I spoke with the child about the language and told her that I was sorry to hear that her mom said that word about me. I praised the child for using appropriate language at school and encouraged her to continue to use appropriate language. The child was caught between two worlds. There was the home culture and the school culture. She wanted to respect her mom yet she knew the language mom used did not belong in the school culture. I feel like this was bothering the child and she had to talk about it. The child is outgoing and speaks to everyone. If someone speaks to her, she definitely acknowledges them. Except, on that day, the principal walked by and said hello to her while she and I were engaged in a conversation about this language. She didn't acknowledge the principal because she was so concerned about discussing this language. Her home language and school language was definitely on her mind. What are we to do in situations like this? Fortunately, my student did not use the language heard from home. As stated in the chapter, "Somewhere too teachers had to confront their own racisms and classisms before they could see the richness of children's culturally saturated lives." I believe this means that we as teachers have to move beyond our biases. It could be language or anything. I could have told this child how awful the language was and made a big deal out of it. This would have made her feel bad about herself and her home life. She may have shut down and not shared any thoughts with me again. She may have shut down as far as her work in the classroom goes. Instead, I chose to talk with her about the language and how that language at school was inappropriate.
As far as the transcript with Sean, Terry and Miss Baxter, I don't believe responding with"You're being silly" is appropriate. Not only were they using this learned social behavior amongst themselves but other children could have heard it. What actions should be taken in situations like this? What do we do when our children are caught between two worlds like these incidents I have described? How do we teach them to move between cultural worlds? As Heath worked "alongside teacher ethnographers in her university courses, she helped their young students juxtapose community language practices with school literacies, as students learned to articulate language differences and move between cultural worlds." As they moved between the cultural discourses they did not give up their community experiences and language practices.
Comments (15)
Hi Dawn,
The interaction between Sean, Terry, and Miss Baxter was very eye opening. I was at first shocked by the way these two boys were speaking to their teacher. I can’t imagine having students speak to me in this way. I was next shocked by the fact that these two boys were preschoolers. All I could think about was if they are this way now, how will they be acting toward women five years from now? How scary. Just like you I was shocked by the fact that Miss Baxter just stated that they were being “silly”. This is definitely a situation that I feel should have been handled in a different way. However the question remains: How do we handle a situation such as this in an appropriate manner? By not correcting their behavior Miss Baxter is telling these boys that their behavior and treatment of her is okay. To me, this is harming the future of both of these boys.
Kelly Mabe
Posted by Kelly Mabe | June 6, 2007 9:51 AM
Posted on June 6, 2007 09:51
dawn and kelly,
i too wondered how a teacher carefully and skillfully tackles the situation. i do feel like our first book presented a strong foundation for thinking critically about race, class and gender. i have approached situations on a much smaller scale with my children in the past. at times i have expressed to a child that there is home talk and school talk to help them understand that we speak to each other in different ways in different places.
this year one of my boys was dancing in a sexual manner. while talking with the child, he explained that he learned how to dance like that at home...with his much older sister and brother. i told him that he was a great little creative dancer, we just couldnt dance that way at school. the other issue that day was the fact that the sub i had with me at the time witness it all...and he did his dance in front of her daughter. she was not happy. it was another one of those challenging days in kindergarten.
donna byrd-wyatt
Posted by donna byrd-wyatt | June 6, 2007 11:43 AM
Posted on June 6, 2007 11:43
Dawn,
The story you told in your post was a challenging one. So were the stories in the comments sections of your post. I feel like we all have various stories dealing with topics of this nature. Something as simple as dress code becomes a challenge at my school when a child is told their clothing is inappropriate, then when their mother comes to school to pick up the inappropriately dressed child, she is dressed in the exact same manner! It then becomes a dilema for the child when mom says one thing, but school says another.
At my school we began a program at school this year entitled Positive Behavior Support, you may be familiar with it. With the introduction of this program, we decided as a faculty that we can no longer assume appropriate behaviors for school were taught at home, or that students knew them, and that we as a faculty should teach, demonstrate, and positively reward the behaviors we desired. It may sound simple, but to actually try to teach "appropriateness" of school behavior, you have to but heads with cultures and values of home.
Posted by Sarah McMillan | June 6, 2007 4:25 PM
Posted on June 6, 2007 16:25
I also was surprised by the way the teacher handled Sean and Terry's inappropriate behavior and language. Telling them to "Stop being silly" in response to the foul language they were using and abusing was not a serious enough response to what they did. I wonder what happened to them after the transcript ended? If I heard my students using disgusting and disrespectful words like theirs in my class, I would more than likely consider it an offence serious enough to send both of them to the office and let them talk it over with the principal.
I realize that the foul language is probably what the boys are use to hearing either at home or in the community where thy live. However, this example does illustrate the need for good teacher/ student relationships in which the students knows that the teacher values and genuinely cares about them as individuals, which can be a powerful tool to change these children's negative perceptions of school expectations and motivate them to work towards achieving needed gains in literacy.
Posted by Vickie Howell | June 6, 2007 10:31 PM
Posted on June 6, 2007 22:31
Dawn,
Thanks for sharing this story about your student -- how serendipitous that this incident happened while reading this text!
I think you handled it perfectly -- and showed how to respond in a serious, mature fashion to a home culture that is completely at odds with school culture. I think your modelling such a response taught your student a lot. It seems she was feeling some internal contradictions, and you validates her feelings without making her feel
"wrong." I think this is the challenge that both texts are attempting to elucidate.
Alecia
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Posted on June 10, 2007 22:24
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