Challenges that I may face with parents

If i were the teacher of this classroom some of the challenges that i may encounter would be that some of the parents may not speak English. According to info works twenty-four percent of the students are bilingual, which means that is a possibility that the parents aren't able to speak English. In Goldenberg's article he says that eighty percent of parents were born outside of the united states. Some of the problems I may encounter is not being able to communicate with some of my students parents. Seeing as Goldenberg states that the majority of EllS are Spanish speakers. I could learn Spanish as a second language in order to be able to communicate with certain parents. I'm interested in learning a second language because I think it will benefit the child if the parent is able to contribute to his or her education. Not only will it get the parents involved, but I will be more successful in teaching ElS students, because learning a skill in their first language helps them learn a skill in their second language. Another challenge that i will encounter is that fact that some parents don't take interest in their child's education. I need to be able to figure out a way that i could get these parents involved. Some way that I could get the parents is involved is by sending notes home. If that doesn't work I could call the parent and request that he or she comes in to discuss their child's progress in the class. During my experience as a tutor, I spoke the the classroom teacher about a child's behavior. He was usually always misbehaving, but one day he was excellent. I was so happy with his behavior that I told his teacher how good he was. After I had told her this she said "well he better be behaving after the stunt he pulled yesterday." She went on to tell me what had happened. The student walked out of the building without permission and walked home before school had ended. The fact that the school allowed this to happen was awful, but once they noticed that he was gone they immediately called the mother. The mother was not at all upset with the school. Her response was oh hes already home. She didn't seem to care that her five yr old walked home in Providence by himself. I was shocked that she wasn't upset with the school. I think her reaction showed that she didn't show much interest in her sons well being. When I asked the teacher why she thought the mother reacted that way her response was half the time she doesn't show up to pick up her son. After hearing this from the teacher I realized that the student probably doesn't try hard in school because hes not getting the support from his mom at home, which is why I think it is so important to try to get the parents involved. I think that by sending notes home to the parent or by calling every month or so would be a great way to demonstrate any concerns that the parents may have. I will try to make an effort to call parents if their child is having a hard time in school, or just to inform the parent how well their child is doing. I think that by involving the parents in whats going on with their child will make a huge impact of the child's learning experience in a positive way.

My Teacher Identity

This experience has been more than what I had expected it to be. At first I was worried if i was going to like it or if i was going to be good at tutoring. The first few times I visited my school, I just observed the classroom and helped the teacher if she needed it. It took a while for the walk to intervention to start because the reading coach was absent for the first couple of weeks. At first I felt like everything was really unorganized, but once the reading coach came back everything seemed to fall into place. She gave each of us our reading buddies. She said that the the groups usually werent this big, but she had no choice because there wasnt as many tutors as their usually is. I have a group of five students. Each time I tutor the kids I have to do a poem with them first, then an activity of my choice, and sight words. The first two times I tutored the kids, I didnt feel that confident. I felt that they seemed bored with the activities that I was doing with them. The second time I tutored was aweful, I think it may have been because it was the day before Halloween, but the kids were just completly out of control! During the first two weeks I was also having trouble with one of the little boys. I knew that he knew the answers, but for some reason he refused to participate. He constantly put his head in his shirt and wouldnt pay attention at all. I figured he wasnt trying becuase he was so bored with the activities because he already knew all the answers. I tried giving him more challenging questions, but he still didnt want anything to do with the lesson. The next time I tutored I decided to try and make the activities more interesting. Instead of just reading the poem to the kids, I read it and then had them do an activity with it. I brought each child markers and I had them circle all the words that rhymed. The kids were so excited about using markers. At first I wasnt sure if it was a good idea because they're only in kindergarden. I was worried they might just color rather than use the markers for the activity. I told them that if they used the markers the correct way then I would bring markers for them again next week. Then for the activity I brought in a paper snake and each child got one with a card. The card had some kind of object on it. The children had to find other cards that rhymed with their original card. The person with the most rhymes won. The kids really enjoyed this activity! They kept asking to play it again. It was nice knowing how much they enjoyed the activity. They all seemed to learn so much more by doing a hands on activity rather than me just telling them hat rhymes with cat etc. Then for the sight words I was taught to say the words and then show the the card and have the children repeat after me. I decided to try something new. Instead of doing that I passed out the cards evenly to each child. I told them to pretend to be the teacher and when it was their turn they got to tell the students the word and then have them repeat it. All the students loved this game. I feel that this experience has really shaped my teacher identity because Im starting to learn what works and what doesnt. Not only am I learning different methods on how to teach certain subjects, but I'm getting the general experience of interacting with children. I've realized that somedays are going to be better than others,but I've also leanred how to get my students to pay attention. I think the students have come a long way, and so have I. In the begining I felt like I had no idea what I was doing, but I fee a lot more confident now. Also, the little boy who never wanted to participate, is doing much better. This experience has made me realize how much I really enjoy doing this. Im not looking forward to the end of my tutoring experience. I plan on continuing to tutor till the end of Janruary if its possible!

4 The culturally component teacher

I have been tutoring for about eight weeks now. Im a reading buddy and Im working with kindergarden studets. Last week I had the most amazing experience. I got to work with my usualy group of students, but this week one of the students that usually gives me a hard time was excellent. I have a group of five children so the reading coach sugjested doing whole group activites with them rather than some of the more complicated activites. The first few weeks that I was tutoring, I felt that the kids were bored with the whole group activies. I decided to try some of the more complicated activities. I also did a few different things with how i presented the poem and the sight words. The kids were much more interested and I felt they actually learned more. I was able to get the students more involved. The little boy that I had mentiond usually refuses to participate and he puts his shirt over his head the entire time I'm tutoring. The past two weeks he has been participating and he has made such a great improvement. Next week we will be testing the kids again. I think four out of the five children that im tutoring will move on to the next level. I love the group I have, but im so happy that their improving. They have all come such a long way.
As I walked into the school for the first time, I was defenitly surprised that there wasnt many white students in the school. I think the reason that I was so surprised by this was bcause when I attended elementary school, the school consisted of mostly white students. Once I got into middle school, the school was much more diverse than my elementary school. My middle and high school had a variety of different races.There wasnt a specific race that was the majority. I think that Kozol would have been please with the diversity in my middle and high school. I think the main reason i was so shocked that the majority of the students at the school im tutoring at are black or hispanic. I was so shocked becuase I was never exposed to that. Some of the things that also surprised me was how the parents interacted with their children. Not all of the parents are like this, but some of them seem to just be in a rush to drop off their kids. This morning I saw a little boy who just wanted to give his dad a kiss goodbye and the father seemed annoyed by that. I heard him swear under his breath, and instead of kissing his son goodbye, he told him hurry up go to school. I feel that some of the parents dont show an interest in their children school work, which is very different from how I grew up. The teacher in my classroom had told me to keep an eye on one of my students because he had walked out of school five mineuts before it was time to go home. He is only five years old and he walked home from school in Providence. When the school realized that he had left, they called his mother and she didnt seem upset at all. I cant imagine the mother being calm about her five year old walking home. Knowing that i feel really bad for him. I feel that that is why he usually acts out in class because he probably doesnt get enough attention at home. Some of the challenges that i think I might have as a teacher in this classroom would be that Im not fluent in spanish. Iv taken a couple classes in high school, but defenitly not enough to communicate with a spanish speaking student. I would defenitly like to imporve on that sooner or later. As much as I feel that I believe that all students are equal, I made a judgement that I shouldn't have on one of the little boys that I tutor. I thought that the little boy who came off as being a trouble maker wasnt going to know as much as the other students. To my surprise he was ahead of all of the other students. Parts of me wondered why he was even in this group. I think the reason he ended up being in this group was because he probably refused to participate during testing time. After seeing how smart this little boy was, It made me realize that I was being biased. Everyone is going to have a personal biased, but hopefully I will learn from that mistake, and it wont happen as often. This experience has shown me that it doesnt matter what race or culture you come from, as a teacher you need to learned how to put personal bias aside and give each student an equal chance to learn.

Cultural Diversity

The school that I'm tutoring in is very diverse. For the first couple of weeks of my tutoring experience I was able to observe some of the different classrooms. I was very surprised that there were more Hispanic and African American students rather than white students. I think I was surprised because when I was little I hadn't gone to an inner city school, so I was never exposed to this. I think its wonderful that the school is so diverse. From my observations most of the students were able to speak English, but some students were also bilingual. In the school they have things on the wall that are written in both English and Spanish. I think its great that they have it in both languages. Not only does it help the students who don't understand English well, but it also exposes children who only speak English to another language. According to info works only seven percent of students are white. Fifty-eight percent are Hispanic and thirty percent are African American. Only four percent are Asian and one percent of students are Native American. I wasn't that surprised by these statistics. I was a little surprised that the percent of Hispanics was larger than the percent of African Americans. Also in 2006 twenty-four percent of students were bilingual. I think its amazing that children are able to speak two languages fluently at such a young age. I know its much easier for children to learn a language rather than adults, but i still find it very impressing because learning a second language can be extremely difficult. The cultural capital that the students bring to the classroom is very different from the cultural capital that a suburban school students would bring to the classroom. At a suburban school the majority of children would most likely be white which means that the majority of the students would share the same cultural backgrounds. Seeing as the children would share the same cultural backgrounds, they probaby wouldn't be as open to new ideas as children from a more diverse school would be. In the school that I'm tutoring in the children come from many different cultural backgrounds. The students are able to learn how to cope with other types of cultures unlike students in a suburban school. The assets that this school offers will strengthen our society because students are less likely to become racist because they were taught that everyone is different and that its ok to be different. Not only will these students grow up to be more accepting, but I think the more schools that become diverse the better chance our society has on improving on having more than just white privileges. Hopefully in time there will no longer be a specific race that has more privileges than another. I think that having schools be so diverse is the first step in the right direction in order to change how our society treats people that are different.

1) My first experience in a teaching enviorment

I had my first experience as a volunteer in an elementary school in Providence. The school that I'm volunteering at is Edmund W Flynn Elementary School. I wasn't too surprised by the looks of the neighborhood because I've been in that area before,seeing as the school was right near Rhode Island Hospital. When I first got there I was a little nervous, but once I went to the office I started to feel more excited. I had the opportunity to observe a kindergarten classroom. When I first walked in the classroom I was so intrigued by just watching the children that I didn't really pay attention to the atmosphere. Once the Children were working on their coloring project, I started to notice how congested the class room was. The children sat at little tables in groups of three or four. Some of the children looked like they didn't have enough room to spread out and do their work. I noticed that the tables were also very close together. I found this experience to be absolutely wonderful, but also sad at the same time. I was shocked at some of the children's appearance. One of the little girls looked like her hair hadn't been washed or brushed in days. I couldn't believe that parents would send their children to school like that. After sitting in a kindergarten classroom, I also realized what a handful they can be because they have so much energy. I found it to be such a wonderful experience because of the way the children made me feel. They were all very welcoming and seemed to be very interested in why I was in their classroom. I thought the teacher was an outstanding teacher. She really got down to their level in order to help them learn. I wasn't as impressed with the assistant teachers way of dealing with the children. The teacher had to leave to get more fruit cups for the kids because they ran out. In the five or ten minuets that the teacher was gone, all the assistant did was yell at the children to be quiet. I thought she could have gone about it in a different way. I cant imagine how children can concentrate on learning if they are constantly being yelled at. I feel she didn't make it a very comfortable atmosphere for herself or the students. I feel that this school values trying to get the kids to the level that they should already be at at their age. One of the teachers had explained to me that ninety-five percent of the students that come in can't even write their name or understand what letters are. They have tons of different programs and activities to help the students get to the level thats appropriate for their age. Overall, I loved every second of observing a kindergarten class and I cannot wait to start tutoring them next Friday!

Introduction

Hi, My names Samantha Im a transfer student from CCRI going for elementry education with a concentration is special ed. My first day at RIC was very overwhelming. Parking is nothing like at CCRI. My second day has been much better than my first day. When I'm not at school or doing homework I'm usually working. During my spare time I enjoy going to the beach and shopping.