RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2009)

Hi Melissa,
You make this point:
Noll knew a lot about these two students. I liked how she not only used their lives at school, but she also included their outside lives.
Did you notice how Henry also included outside (cultural) aspects to the girls' literacies? I was very interested in how both the authors showed how out-of-school experiences shaped their in-school literacies.

Melissa,
I agree that Daniel was smarter than a C/D student. However, my concern was not that he was uninterested, but maybe he had a deeper issue. It stated that he was very disorganized - he wrote a great paper, but then lost it, and some other things. This flew up red flags to me - if I was his teacher, I would have looked into this further.

Melissa I am not so sure that I agree with your statement about never experiencing a student getting shortchanged! Usually these students get more help. Weather they need it or not, it definitely helps them to speak grammatically correct. However, think about this! Our smarter/more intelligent students/advanced students need additional help. They become so bored just sitting in class going over material that they already know! I do realize that AIG is an option but many students are over looked! I feel that they are short changed because they receive no extra help! Since they are looked at as being on grade level they are just left alone! The school very seldom rewards these students but frequently reward the students that have fallen behind! Do you feel this is fair?
My child will start Kindergarten this year, he is ready for first grade, and I know that he will fall into this category! I do feel that he will be short changed at school. I wish everyone would stop being so prejudice and look at the entire picture of our education system!
Misty Mistretta

Melissa, I totally agree about Noll's findings being much more reader-friendly. I mentioned this in my post, and I noticed Kim Shaw mentioned how hard Henry's report was to read as well. Goodness gracious, how ironic is it that the whole point of their research is to personalize--get to know--these students so that they'll open up, but we couldn't get a sense of personalization from Henry's report of the Caribbean gals? Ouch. Anyway, your testimony about never having seen kids shortchanged is understandable in that you never really went to school with any minorities. What an extreme you've gone to now being the only white person in your room at times! I want to encourage you to learn from your students and their cultures--which I'm sure you already have. Perhaps a school like yours would benefit from what you're learning in this class. I bet your administration would appreciate reading a couple of these articles. Point-of-perspective education is so very important; we must approach it from all possible points of perspective !

I agree with you that the Daniel could have been a much better student had he felt like he had a voice in his classroom. Had his love for drums, music, and his culture been accepted and encouraged in school he would have been more likely to participate willingly in other activities too. Zonnie was able to somewhat have a voice that connected home and school through her poetry. We are much better off in the classroom when we do encourage their voice and make that connection--we learn so much about our students when we learn about their homes and families.

Jessica Jackson

Melissa, you have been in a unique setting all of your life! You understand more than most of the rest of us about the feelings of being the minority. We agree that getting to know our students is a major issue for teaching them. The difficult part is putting it into practice. I believe it to be a worthwhile task. One way I have tried is to send home an inventory to the parents which has questions designed to help me know them and their children (my students are in first grade). Also, riding the bus along the routes to see where the kids live reveals a lot about where they come from and issues they must deal with. Sometimes it is extremely eye-opening1

Melissa, You are very lucky if you have not seen students shortchanged. I think of the term "No child left behind" and have to chuckle; that really is not possible is it? Our education system is messed up to say the least. I think that our average English speaking kids are served well by it, but kids with learning disabilities, cultural differences, home life issues, ADD problems, etc. may not always get what they need from it. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean that teachers are not doing their best, it's just that our system is set up to serve the majority, which usually means average white kids. Sure there are programs like EC, ESL, Title One, AIG, and others, but children are usually served in these for only part of the day. I have somewhat experience this first hand and I want to comment on Misty's post. My 11 year old was identified AIG in 2nd grade. She is a brilliant child; her IQ is 138. She was ready to start kindergarten early but I was not allowed to let her b/c of her age. She spent the first few years of school being sent up to higher grades to have appropriate lessons b/c she was so far ahead of the other children. I begged for grade advancement but it was suggested that this would probably not be in her best interest. (She is very small for her age and there would have been a tremendous size difference.) I feel that she has been shortchanged somewhat by our system, simply because we group by age. I am outraged by children who are sent on to the next grade simply because they'd feel awkward if all their friends went on and they didn't. How emotionally damaging is it to sit in a class and know you are not as smart as everybody else. Shouldn't that be considered too? Maybe what America needs to do is to rethink how our classrooms are set up. In high school and college, people are not grouped by age, they are grouped by ability. It would be absurd to put a beginning Spanish student in a class with other students who had taken years of Spanish already. But yet we do this in elementary school and I do think that it is unfair to our students. Misty, you have the option of having your child tested and placed in first grade. Had I known that years ago, I certainly would have done it for my child.

Lorie Hedrick

I agree that Daniel probably should receive higher grades than he does. I also want to get to know my students better next year. We changed class this year and I felt that it was hard for me to find the time to sit down and just talk. I think that I can help my students better if I know them better. Like Misty said, at my school AIG students are overlooked all the time. We have so many students that are below grade level that the students who are AIG sometimes are shortchanged. I am also trying to help these students by giving them more challenging activities. I'm sure it must be difficult to go from one extreme to the other like you did! Like you said, I think it is important to know your students' interests as well. That is something that I want to do better at next year.

Dana Eudy

Just as Noll and Henry knew about the lives outside of school of the children they wrote about, we as educators have to know our students outside of school.

We have to make an effort to see our students as not just our students but as the amazing people they are.

We need to know their families. We need to know their situations. We need to talk to them, to do an interest inventory to see what it is that they love and want to learn all they can about so we can try to integrate it into their education if possible.