Finding Myself

I thought that chapter 14 was really interesting and the part that really got me was the section about knowing yourself and examining you before you can reflect on you as a teacher and before you can learn about your students. This section really hit home for me because I feel like that is a large part of what I learned this semester through my coursework and my experiences in my internship. I never really thought that my culture, my ethnicity and my views were important but I have learned that in order for me to be the best teacher I can be I need to figure out those things about me and make sure they are where I need them to be in order for me to become the kind of teacher who can reach every kind of student in all kinds of learning communities. It was a huge revelation to me because I always felt like I knew who I was but this is a part of me that I never thought was important in defining myself. That is until now. This lesson has been invaluable and I am so glad that I am learning it now while I can still pursue this knowledge and know myself in this way before I have students.

Kids and Science

It was so fascinating to talk with the 4th graders at Dwight Elementary School. The two students I spoke with had interesting ideas and varying levels of experience in science. One student hadn't had much exposure at all and had trouble talking about what science was and what topics are included in science. She could only talk about the unit that they were currently studying and couldn't recall or had never had previous experiences. When I did the experiment with the salt dissolving in water, she thought it disappeared into the air and that it would never come back. She didn't know how or why, but she was certain it was up there. This was fascinating to me because kids think in such an interesting way that it would make it possible for them to believe that things can just disappear like it is a normal thing. The other student had done a similar experiment in second grade and had remembered it. She knew that the salt dissolved and she said the dirt didn't dissolve because it was heavier, which I thought was interesting. I was impressed that she had remembered what she had learned and could apply it.

The part of the interview that I found interesting was that neither of them really had much exposure to science outside of school. This was evident in their ideas of what science was and that they didn't seem to have any background knowledge to pull from. This was sad because when I asked them if they could learn about anything or do anything in science what would it be...and they couldn't think of anything except what they were already doing and basic things like growing a garden filled with plants. It really shocked me that this was what she chose because to most people this is something that is easy to do and most kids in the suburbs get the opportunity to garden with their families or in school. In urban districts this isn't always the case especially because at that school and at the school I student taught in in Willimantic, there wasn't even grass around really. This is really a disservice to kids because they should get to be out in nature, to learn and explore, just like most kids get to.

I think what I learned from this is that I don't think most kids have enough exposure to all multitude of science in our world. Science is about questioning and investigating and exploring and I think all kids should have a lot of practice in all of those things. I think it is our job as teachers, especially in areas where kids aren't getting exposure at home, to introduce students to as much as we possibly can by bringing in things, by taking trips, and by using multi-media resources.

Black English

Sonia Nieto's article was very interesting and made me think about a lot of things, but what really stuck out to me was her section on "black English". I found this so interesting because in some areas this is the language that the students will speak and will know best. I accept that and think that it is a wonderful part of their culture, however I am torn. I want my students to be able to use their culture and their native languages, whether black english or spanish, however the reality is that they will need to use "proper English" when they apply for college or jobs. I find it hard to conceptualize how I will be able to allow students to bring in these aspects of their culture, but also emphasize they need for them to know the English that the country will expect them to come out of school knowing. I really have no ideas about this. I don't want my kids to feel stifled into being cookie cutter English speakers, but that really is so important to their future when that is how they will be talked to, that is how they will make impressions on people, and that is how they can get ahead. I feel as though not everyone in the world outside of education is as open to allowing other cultures and other languages to be expressed. Then I come to the problem of what is okay to allow in the classroom and when should I maintain correct English be produced? Could informal assignments and discussions be conducted in both and only produced assignments for assessment be asked for in correct English? I wonder if this would confuse kids or if they would understand why sometimes it is appropriate to use different aspects of themselves? This is an issue I think is relevant to a lot of topics associated with ELL students and different cultures that are represented in our country.

Yes We Can - Changing our early childhood education

I found the entire article fascinating because so often I hear about how it is the families fault for not speaking English or not doing their part, but this article is examining other aspect of failure that we, as teachers, can change. It was also nice to see the article site examples of success within schools with high minority and low income populations, because the media is always focused on how bad some of these schools are doing and not on the schools in the same situation who are making the changes and succeeding in getting their kids to read, do math, and graduate.

The part of the article that I was most interested in though, was the part that talked about the decifict in pre-k that many children are a part of. Too many people do not realize how critical early childhood education is and that is evident in the fact that the people who teach this age get even less respect, less pay, and less acknowledgement then teachers do, and we all know teachers aren't highly respected either. I have seen and discussed this issue a lot while I took some early childhood ed. classes at Uconn and while I worked at a daycare in a preschool program this summer. The program I worked at had a secondary history teacher as the head teacher. This is ridiculous to me because secondary majors have no classes in child development and are trained in a much different age group. This is sadly a problem in many programs. People are hiring anyone with a degree to be a teacher to this young kids for the most crucial learning time in their lives and they sadly being given much less of an education than kids at preschools with more qualified teachers. I often wonder why Neag doesn't have early childhood ed. as part of its program considering how important those early years are to students development. In the article they talk about how this is one major difference that disadvantaged students are facing and there is not enough being done to compensate. While programs like Head Start are meant to help disadvantaged children, I have met numerous people who have worked in this program who can attest to the unqualified nature of the teachers who are supposed to be getting these kids ready for school.

Preschool is costly, but critical and I think that if we are to send all kids to school on an equal playing field regardless of class, race, or ethnicity than we need to have high quality preschools with highly qualified teachers that are available to all kids. Until that happens I think that the deficit entering kindergarten will continue to be large between low income and higher income families and it will continue to be hard to overcome.

Teaching Science

My most recent experience in science was student teaching and unit I did on the states of matter. This was the first subject I took over and I was the most nervous to do this because my scientific past has been inadequate and traumatizing. It was very uncomfortable for me to be in front of the class trying to teach them something that I feel like I never really learned to the full capacity. It is also uncomfortable knowing that I may not know all the answers no matter how hard I prepared. I used to think that I had to know all the answers in teaching science concepts. I used to think that I had to be a science expert on everything. I used to think that science only came from books and pictures. I also used to think that kids didn't like science, because in my experiences kids didn't have good role models for how to teach science. I realized, though, that I can take what was a negative for me and turn it around for my kids so it would be a positive. I realized that I can learn with my kids and experience a whole new science as both a teacher and a lifelong learner. I learned how important it was for me to connect the science concepts I needed to teach to what they were curious about. It was amazing to see the kinds of questions that 8 year-olds have. They loved science and I, inturn, loved teaching it. I realized that teaching and learning are whatever you make them and as a teacher I have the power to invigorate science in the eyes of my students.

web link

http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/teachingscience