“There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently than one thinks and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking at reflecting at all.”
-Michel Foucault
This quote really relates to me in my reading, writing, thinking and learning process during this class. I have been doing a lot of reflecting about my teaching and students who I have had that struggled with literacy practices. I feel like I have been one-track minded and have not been able to put myself in the shoes of other cultures, classes and dialects. From the readings, I do think that I look at situations from different angles now. I can’t keep looking at something from the same perspective and expect to gain new insight. I know that everyone is created equal and we should accept people for who they are, which is part of my discourse of growing up with a religious background. But, what does that really mean? I feel that my eyes have been opened. I do have a similar discourse of coming from a working-class family like Laurie, Jake and Hicks. I can relate to them but all of my histories are not exactly the same. The parts that are the same, I can make connections and then transfer these connections to my students who have similar discourses. Having this knowledge helps me to figure out how to connect with my students.
I have also learned how I can “perceive differently than one sees.” I look at this as meaning; things are not always as they appear. There may be something deeper going on, than just the surface level that I see. For example, I had mentioned a student who could appear to have ADD. My gut told me that it wasn’t ADD, but I wasn’t able to put my finger on it. He comes from working-class. From Hicks, I learned how a sense of wanting to belong in a middle-class room was very important. I think he was looking for the “we of me in school”. This really hit home with me professionally. Before learning about this working-class discourse, I would always get frustrated with these students. I would say to myself: Why can’t they just follow directions the first time? Of course, I was only looking from my histories of school. I had learned the school discourse to be a “good girl”. I wanted to please the teacher just like Jake and Laurie started out school wanting to do. But as the work became increasingly harder for them and their home discourses were not meshing with school, they began to fall behind and appear disengaged. This relates to my student in that he would pull out a picture that he had of him with his brother and sister and would just stare at it. Part of his history was being removed from his mom’s house for a period of time and his dad isn’t involved in his life. Now with hindsight, I think he is like Laurie. When he was feeling positive at home, he made greater strides at school. But, if there was trouble then that is when he appeared disengaged and not focused. So, as a teacher it is important for me to create a warm and inviting classroom welcomes and connects to the children’s home life. Next year, I plan to do more surveys for students and parents in order to find out more about the children. If I can make a connection with them, then they will be more apt to follow me, when I try to teach them something new.
Since I teach second grade, I thought it would be a good idea to introduce other cultures through picture books, which I had mentioned in one of my posts. I think this is a way I can open my students’ eyes. But, before I can introduce them to other cultures, they have to know their culture and family discourses are accepted in the classroom. Again my eyes were really opened when I read the Perry article about storytelling. It made me realize I want to know even more about the world around me. I feel I get so caught up in my classroom that I totally block out what is going on around the world. It is as if my classroom is literally a protected box. I think if I opened it up to what is going on in the world and expose my students to other cultures, then they will be able to make connections to their lives like I have been able to make. In the Perry article Ezra, the Sudanese boy, was trying to use his culture of storytelling to relay a message that we need to learn to get along and realize that there is not just one way to live. My goal is to relay this message to my student next year and I think the use of storytelling about their lives would be a way to get it started.
Making a connection between home and school is very important. In the Noll article Daniel and Zonnie did not feel accepted at school and this affected their literacy learning. Both of them kept school and home separate and were very confident when they were not in school. I learned that just like Jake and Laurie’s home discourse with working-class values needs to be connected to school, so does culture. I had a Hispanic girl in my class last year who struggled with literacy practices. Looking back, I now see many of the discourses and culture issues that I have learned about through Hicks and Henry. She was a “good girl” who was dealing with working –class discourse and cultural differences. She reminded me of the African Caribbean girls in Henry article in which “black girls are expected to adopt female roles of passivity and complacency.” In her writing journal, she would always write about her baby brother. Little did I know at the time that her writing was a glimpse inside her home discourse. I learned how Hicks learned more about Jake and Laurie through their writings created at school. I also did not do a lot with her culture in class last year, which I am now learning that I should have.
I also learned from Delpit and Dowdy about how important it is to keep ones “mother tongue”. Dowdy felt like she didn’t fit in her native Trinidadian or the Standard English dialect. We don’t want our students to feel this way. So, we need to make sure students feel accepted by how they speak. If they do then they will be more apt to learn the dialect of Standard English and they can code-switch between the two. I have realized for me personally, I code-switch all the time and I don’t think anything about it. For my students it may not come as easy as it did with Maya, so I may need to model it more. It is important my students learn how, because whether we like it or not being able to code-switch will affect success in the future.
I have been able to look at race, class and gender from different angles through the readings. If something puzzled me, I went back to reread. Then I would think about it and mull it over in my head. I would even jot down notes as ideas popped into my head. I found these ideas would lead to other ideas. By doing this I was able to reflect on my teaching practices. Reflecting is not something that happens quickly and ends. Reflecting is an ongoing process.
Trish Edwards