RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2010)

While I have always thought I had a fairly good understanding of children, the further we progress into this course the more I see how predictable and expected my behaviors in the classroom are. I feel ashamed that I have fallen prey into all of these judgements and biases that we have been reading about. Once again I had no idea how I was building up more barriers for my students to overcome in their literacy learning. To devalue their home discourse and try to make their school discourse superior is an injustice. So not only are our students having to code-switch their languages if they are bi-lingual, but discourse switch as well. And we as educators wonder why so many of our students seem to be falling through the cracks…we’re not allowing our students to let their true identity come out and let them focus on their learning but on navigating their way through a sea of subjectivity.

I can think of many occasions where my children have interjected into a lesson with a personal account. I would interrupt them and stop them from getting the classroom off track. After this reading, I realized how I was shutting out the child’s home discourse and preventing them from using it at school. While I didn’t desire this behavior I should have been more tolerant of their desire to share their life experiences.

At my school sometimes I am considered to be the “heavy” as far as discipline is concerned. I have the same rules and discipline/behavior plan in my classroom as the entire school but I am firm and have a respect for my students. I am extremely focused to time on task and having my students get the job done. There is an understanding that “you need to do what I want you when I want you to do it, because if no then you will have to do it when you won’t want to do it. But this reading has shown me that the discourse my students demonstrate is set based upon my high expectations. My desire for my students to be successful has initiated an additional discourse of rules, language, mannerisms, and values that they partake in every day in my classroom.

I am also reminded of how I have parents come to me concerned about their child’s progress or behavior. I had a particular boy a few years ago who started Kindergarten with me. At the first conference for his screening, I noticed how the child was very timid, quiet and shy. Once he began school in August this same behavior returned when he was in the classroom. However, when the boy was with his parents he was loud, unruly, and up moving constantly. It was exactly like he was flipping a switch between the 2 discourses. Was he what they are defining as to be a hybrid? His parents did not seem to understand that because they had never established rules or expectations for his behavior at home he would act differently than he did when at school. Hick’s argument about how literacy is shaped through cultural and social practices and encounters as well as in an educational setting has been apparent in my own classroom. During visits, conferences or phone calls to parents I have seen how some cultures, for example that of my Hispanic students, have a strong hold on a child’s education. These parents are strong supporters of what is going on in the classroom and want to be involved in their child’s education as much as possible. The value of education is highly regarded in their culture based on the apparent attitudes of the students and their parents. I am also able to relate to what came of Walterdine’s research in how children’s gender roles are formed within their discourse as well. I can think of a particular Hispanic girl who has already slid into her culture’s expected role for her. I have been blessed to teach this child for 2 years now, and recognized that at five years old that her desire in life is to be a mother. She is eager to help, take care of others, and refers to her younger siblings as her “babies” as she has seen her mother and aunts do within the home. It also makes me wonder if the home discourse of the girls will limit the outcomes of their future or if they will be or desire to be more than what is expected of them to be wives and mothers.

I am really looking forward to moving deeper within Hick’s research. Already it has been an eye-opening experience for me and we’ve only begun working through the material. And the discussions and explanations from other students and Dr. Jackson within our community of learners has really helped me to bring away more of an awareness and I’m hoping a better understanding of the material.

Nikki Leggins