Stress - Students', Teachers', Parents'

This past week has been crazy with so many art projects and essays due. Now that I look back, I wonder how teachers, who have their own teaching and family worries, deal and work with students who have stress on their academics and at home, too. There's also the parents, who may stress over their income, putting food on the table, buying necessities, etc. So then, how do you relieve some of these stresses?

One of the many things that I learned from this course was to be more open-minded. I don't recall ever seeing my teachers so stressed that they couldn't teach a lesson properly. Everyone always seemed calm and was ready to teach everyday, which was helpful to us students because we were already stressed about learning new content and taking tests. Study is students' main priority. However, when it comes to teacher, when he/she is in the classroom, the students are his/her priority. And, at home, personal situations are a priority.

So, as a future teacher, I need to be prepared and to understand that while I may be stressed with many other unrelated-to-school problems, I need to put my students first whenever I'm in the classroom. Students need to feel that their teacher and school cares about them so that they will be comfortable in the school setting and work on improving their studies.

As for talking with parents, teachers need to be aware of family situations and understand why students behave the way they do, what teachers can help with, what they should not interfere with, and always try to keep the parents updated even if it is just an email.

Instructional Plan

In order to apply what I have learned from the class and the readings as well as my visit to Newark, I have decided to come up with an enormous project for the Culturally Responsive Instructional Plan. The plan will be for 10th graders in my graphic design class and the focus/topic will be on Port Newark. The students in my class will simultaneously learn about the history of the port in Brian’s history class, and they will learn about the soil changes and pollution that occurred over time caused by the port in Alex’s earth science class. In my graphic design class, the main concept that I want my students to learn is how to research and apply information they learned in school in real life situations. Furthermore, being able to use acquired knowledge for the benefit of not only other students in the school, but the students’ community as well will give the students in my class a sense of pride and expertise on the topic. They will be able to contribute to their community and make a difference in people’s lives by educating residents about the environment that they all live in. People in Newark may have heard about Port Newark, but may not understand or be aware of underlying problems and influences.

Students will ultimately be working towards a fair, which will be similar to an information event that will address the history and environmental changes of the Newark Port. The audience of the fair will be for parents as well as all of the Newark residents. However, there will be two parts. The first part is researching for information; the second part is creating a book about how the port affects each student individually; the third part will be the making advertisements for the fair; and the fourth part is to prepare to present students’ knowledge, influences, and history about the port during the fair. Because this project is very big, I intend to use two marking periods. The first marking period will consist of learning about the port in the students’ two other classes and using the information learned to first create a timeline of events and to then think of how the information taught by Alex and Brian affects students. For homework throughout the first half of the first marking period, students will be asked to research more information about the port and how it influences/affects their community, neighborhood, and family. Students will need to post their responses on their blog. However, if students do not have access to the Internet after school, they may hand write their responses and then come to school the next day to post their blog entries. During the second half of the first marking period, students will begin working on their books. Book layout design principles will be taught and students will be able to choose the format, i.e. digital, paperback, hardcover, etc. In their books, students need to include the history of the port, how soil changes and pollution occurred over time as well as their own thoughts about the port, which will come from the blog responses.

In the first half of the second marking period, students will begin to work on advertisement design for the fair. They will be posting their designs on the school website, around the school, on their blogs, and handing pamphlets out to family members and friends in their neighborhoods. The second half of the second marking period will consist of preparing for the fair, which includes all necessary charts, timelines, books, decorations, information pamphlets, presentations, etc. It would be ideal to hold the fair at the port; however, due to safety issues, I believe it would be better to hold the event at the school gym. There will be four stations and the first three will be divided among three parts regarding the port: its history, its effects on soil changes, and its contribution to the increase of pollution in the city. The last station will have students’ books where visitors, parents, family members, friends, etc. can look at how the port influences the students and also view what the students have been working on for two marking periods.

I intend the project to be big. This way, students are engaged and have responsibilities to fulfill rather than spend their time on the streets joining gangs or skipping school. As mentioned in Delpit’s article, teachers should teach more to urban students (221). Assigning fun and self-satisfying responsibilities will show students that the school cares about their students attending school everyday, their creations and ideas. Students will have the opportunity to present and show all of their hard work during the fair and through their books. Attending classes where the teacher lectures during the whole class time could be very boring. Without the opportunity to interact with peers and have core responsibilities to follow through, students will be disinterested in school.

Furthermore, the project also addresses necessary life skills that all students should learn in order to become successful in school and in the future. The seven main life skills that the project allows students to develop and practice are: 1) research skills – from the first half of the semester where students need to discover how the port affects them and their neighborhoods; 2) blogging and literary/writing skills – students will be able to practice expressing their opinions, questions and comments in written form on their blogs; 3) socialization – students will need to talk to family members and people in their neighborhoods for more information; 4) critical thinking/problem solving/creativity skills – students will need to figure out what content best fits in their books, what info can be eliminated, and how the content should be placed and viewed from an audience’s perspective; 5) group work – students will need to work with one another to prepare materials for the fair; 6) presentation and public speaking skills – students will have the opportunity to speak in front of a real live audience, not just in front of the class; and 7) technology skills – students will learn how to use various programs for bookmaking, presentations, printouts, etc. These seven main skills, as outlined in the “21^st Century Student Outcomes and Support Systems” are necessary for students to develop so that they are well-rounded citizens, especially in their communities, and are prepared to face the real world.

I mentioned the seven life skills as a necessity for students’ futures. However, practicing those skills during the project helps students to connect with their community by researching other residents’ opinions about where they live, looking into detail how the port affects current times and students’ lives, and understanding what roles students play in their neighborhoods and how improvements can be made. Having students learn more about the community is essential to building bonds between the students and the community they live in. An example would be learning about family history. Perhaps a few students’ ancestors lived in Newark years ago and were marines on a destroyer that was docked at the port in 1945 (Destroyer History Foundation, 1) or the health affects of their parents, who work at the dock. There is so much information and family history that students can discover and learn about from the project.

Response to "Subtractive Schooling, Caring Relations, and Social Capital in the Schooling of US Mexican Youth"

     One example that stood out to me from the reading is the one where the school only provides Beginner and Intermediate-level Spanish courses. Out of the Mexican students that are second and third generations, most can still understand basic Spanish from hearing the language from their ancestors. So, without providing advanced Spanish courses, it is a no-brainer why students are bored and uninterested. Without any advancement in their Spanish-speaking skills, students lack the opportunity to fully develop what prior knowledge they have of the language and culture. Thus, students grow up only knowing the basics and are not able to fully apply what they know in conversations that need the higher-level Spanish language knowledge.
     Another example involves the ESL classes. Having the students quickly become fluent in English and employing mostly teachers who do not speak Spanish discourage students from being connected to their heritage and culture. In order to keep the Spanish culture as well as learn American culture, teachers should also be more dedicated in understanding and knowing their students, rather than solely focusing on the curriculum and how to address it effectively.

Summary and Own Thoughts towards Film Festival

I forgot to post this entry for the Film Festival...so here it is: 

The first clip that was shown is titled, “Jazz Hands.” The setting is at a dance audition, featuring Ms. Votan, Ms. Spina and Ms. Archbold, who has a prosthetic hand. While performing, Mary Archbold’s hand fell off onto the floor. The dance instructor was appalled at the sight of Mary’s missing hand, which is picked up by one of the other dancers. Throughout the audition, Mary screwed her prosthetic hand back on.

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The main screening that was shown is called “The Importance of Tying your Shoes,” which the story follows the main character, Alex. Alex was fired from his theater-acting job and has been unemployed for some time. His wife, Lisa, gets frustrated when Alex forgets to pick up their daughter, Josefine. Lisa kicks Alex out, telling him that he needs to find a job. Alex goes to an employment agency and reluctantly accepts a caretaking job at Paradise. There, he is employed by Anna-Lene, and he works as an assistant for Hanna, the human resources director. On his first day, Alex is twenty minutes late. He meets Katarina, Leif, Ebbe, Kristina, Kjell-Ake, and Filippa, the people that he and Hanna are taking care of. Alex learns that the group is consisted of people with disabilities and are taken on a bus, driven by Hanna, to work at Paradise, cutting and packaging lumber throughout the day.

            On the second day, Alex is still a little bit late. During the day, the group reviews how to tie shoelaces. Kristina hates doing the activity. Alex doesn’t understand why they have to keep on repeating the activity when they can just wear shoes with Velcro, which is much easier to fasten than shoelaces. Hanna admonishes Alex, saying that the group needs to learn control. In the afternoon, Alex takes the group out for a walk. They come upon a statue, and Alex encourages the group members to climb on top of the wood plank surround the statue. Everyone refuses, except Kjell-Ake, who is able to get on the wood plank, but is too scared to climb back down the stairs. Alex is unable to encourage Kjell-Ake to use the steps. He had to call the fire department to help get Kjell-Ake off the wood plank. The group’s parents are unhappy with what happened and with Alex. Back at the field where the group cuts and packages lumber, Leif feels suddenly ill from having a weak heart. Alex goes to get Leif’s medicine for him. At the end of the day, the group goes to Alex’s apartment and they listen to music.

            On the third day, Hanna is unable to come to work. Instead, Alex drives the bus and neglects to follow the daily procedures. He forgets to do the seatbelt check and is warned by the police. Rather than doing their daily chores of cutting and packaging lumber, Alex suggests that they play soccer, but soon ends when Alex accidently hits Ebbe in the forehead. They then go to a bar to watch a soccer game and orders ice cream, cola, and beer. As the group starts yelling at the soccer game, some customers who are also watching the game become angry. Alex defends the group when the other customers start making fun of the group. Alex and the group leave and go back to the working field. Hanna finds Alex and the group lounging inside the building rather than working. She soon orders them to go back to work.

            The parents are unhappy with Alex, but Alex is becoming closer to the group and questioning the methods that Paradise and the parents are imposing on the group. On the fourth day, Alex brings the group to a theater and Hanna gives them costumes to wear. They soon talk about auditioning on “Amateur Hunt.” Alex heard them sing the other day and realizes that the group, while having disabilities, has abilities as well. He tries to reason with the parents, but fail. Instead, the group goes to the auditioning alone. They manage to sing for a little bit, but have to stop because Leif’s heart. However, having seen their children on television, the parents force Anna-Lene to fire Alex. Alex secretly stays with Leif and the others at their apartment.

            Bothered by the strict limitations that the parents have for their children, Alex asks his friend, the bar owner, but also a musician, to let the group perform at his gig. Alex believes that his friends have more abilities than they are given credit for, simply because they are considered as disabled. His friend reluctantly agrees. However, that night, Alex finds Leif unresponsive in the bathtub. A funeral is held, and Katarina and Filippa sing for Leif. Leif’s mom thanks all of them for accepting Leif and being wonderful friends to him. She encourages them to continue to perform even if Leif is not there. She says that he would like them to.

The film ends with the group performing at “Glada Hudiks Dag,” where Hanna gives everyone in the group Velcro shoes. At first she was reluctant to be open-minded because she did not want to get fired. However, seeing them at the theater made her more aware of how much fun everyone was having. Once the performance is over, everyone cheers, and the parents realize how much their children can do.

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After the film, there was a discussion with two professors and Mary Archbold. They talked about visibility among the disabled and that being a part of the community means taking risks of being rejected, failure, etc. They pointed out how choices made for how people with disabilities should live are decided by people without disabilities. The question they asked was “What is the nature of the problem with disability? We learned how to tie our own shoes not how to be creative or be artists.”

This film and discussion made me think about my own impressions of people with disabilities. Similar to most people, I initially thought of disabled people as “objects of pity or charity.” However, this film made me realize that everyone has disabilities. At first, I thought Alex’s forgetful mind of his responsibilities was a disability, which it might be. But, it is something society thinks of as “normal” as opposed to Down syndrome. However, people with diagnosed disabilities are people as well. They, too, have their own abilities albeit different than others. But then again, everyone has different abilities. And, as a society we need to realize that no one is perfect. There is no such thing as a “norm,” because everyone has his/her own disabilities. However, we all have abilities and potential to succeed. This film really changed my view about life and people, as well as educated my limited knowledge about people with disabilities.

Culturally Relative Practices & Waiting for Superman / First year teacher

Some ideas of culturally relative practices toward my content area of art are:

1) Having students make a comic book based on cultures that they choose; one subject could be about family. The finished comic books will be shown at the school library, a local library and/or an art museum.

2) Having students pick their own artists to research. They will make an artwork based on what they've researched about their chosen artists. They will then present their artwork to the class describing how it is influenced by the artist and his/her works.

3) Working with students to make a class book on artists that is chosen by the students. They will need to research information about the artist they chose and will need to provide facts and visuals for the book. The students will have a section of the book to work on and at the end, everyone's sections will be put together. The book will be shown at the school library and enough copies will be printed for everyone in the class.

4) Going outside to draw nature. Have students draw their neighborhoods.

5) Designing their own game and setting up a carnival night for everyone in the school to attend. Posters and decorations will need to be made as well.

6) Having students walk around their neighborhood to look for artworks; i.e. graffiti. They will need to make a list with a description of what they saw, list any facts about the artwork, where it was found, and how the artwork impacts the community and him/herself.

For the second part of the assignment, we were told to watch a documentary about education. I decided to watch both Waiting for Superman and First Year Teacher. I didn't find many examples of culturally relative practices. In one part of Waiting for Superman, one of the teachers said that she found that her students responded with more interest in a rap song about math rather than just memorizing the information. In another part of the film, there was a video showing a teacher reading a newspaper at his desk while his students are passing notes and talking rather than being taught by the teacher.

One of the points that was discussed in class was that the documentary, Waiting for Superman, talked about "bad" teachers, but they do not explain how the teachers are bad nor how they can improve to become "good" teachers. If the Kipp schools are so much better than the public schools, why then can't the state make the standards for public schools the same as those for Kipp schools? Why do we need alternative schools where students need to go through a lottery process when public schools are already available? I mean, if public schools are mostly bad, then maybe it's better to just get rid of them and open magnet, charter and Kipp schools instead.

A comparison that I can make between the teachers mentioned in both documentaries is that the one in First Year Teacher put in so much effort to make sure she connects with the parents as well as the students. However, one of the teachers in Waiting for Superman didn't even respond to one of the parent's phone calls, and just said that her child was having difficulties reading without showing the effort that she would like to help him improve.

There's a lot to think about when it comes to "good" and "bad" teachers. But, I think that if we work together to clarify the distinctions between a "good" and "bad" teacher, we may see more effective teachers in the classroom.

Response to Articles

The four articles that I chose were:

1. "With 'angels' on her side, Newark principal fights for school's survival"
2. "Promise vs. Reality in Newark on Mayor's Watch"
3. "Unemployment in Black Cities: Newark, New Jersey"
4. "School Reform in Newark"

My analysis of these four articles has made me realize that it isn't enough for a group of people to be committed to changing their society for the better. In order to make improvements, the society as a whole has the responsibility of working together in order to make its community a better place. While culture may hold some people back from change, such as seeing other people of the same racial group not working and believing it is okay to do so, citizens of a community need to have the courage and strength to take risks in creating new ideals to make the place they live in better. I was bothered by one of the passages in"Unemployment in Black Cities: Newark, New Jersey"when it talks about one of the contributions to the two percent drop in unemployment is "the presence of numerous large white-collar employers such as Prudential Financial..." It seems as if this one section of the city is holding up and supporting the whole city. But, then when you try to ask what is going on? And, why can't education improve in the city, you run into situations such as those of in the article, "With 'angels' on her side, Newark principal fights for school's survival" where teachers want to teach their students, but cannot do so because of low educational fundings. Then, as in the article "School Reform in Newark" where teacher evaluation is being changed and looked over, I believe that it won't have much of an impact without fundings needed to support not only the personnel in the schools, but also the condition of the schools and materials necessary for education. So, it is not just the citizens of a city that can make change, leaders of a city need to work together as well in order for change to occur. If there is even a small group of people who disagree, such as in "Promise vs. Reality in Newark on Mayor's Watch" there will be setbacks and delay the process of change and improvement.

Response to "The Knapsack of Privilege" and "Chapter 7 of the Sensoy Reading"

These two readings made me think about the time when I was in kindergarten and thinking that I was the same as the blonde and brown-haired actresses and models on television. Sure, we had different hair colors, but we were still people who had a head, two arms, two feet and stood upright. It wasn’t until a couple years later when I realized noticing that there were no Asians on television. When an Asian would show up, I would be amazed. I still get a little amazed now, but not a lot. I think that this experience and observation support the two readings. Whites dominated the media and with so many audiences, the media had control over racism in terms of influencing people to think the same distinctions that the Whites in charge of the media made. For me, this was an interesting to read, perhaps because naively I always thought everyone was the same.

However, one concept that bothered me at first was questioning how stereotyping could be eliminated when people claim to have their own identities in the world. For example, countries populate the world. People identify themselves according to which country their from or are loyal to. People who agree with each other in terms of philosophy, life style, etc. are similar in those aspects. Then, there can be another set of people who believe in something else and so forth. With so many different groups, isn’t it obvious that stereotyping would occur? Group A would see that there is a difference in thinking compared to Group B and so forth. So, how is it possible to even eliminate stereotyping?

I tried to explain my thoughts to a fellow teacher education colleague and what she told me more optimistic about the issue. She said that the goal that we’re trying to teach students about stereotyping is to not judge a person on what he/she can or cannot do based on appearance. Her explanation made sense to me, reminding me what my former teachers have taught me. I had forgotten about the common phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” I was so caught up with the idea of different groups. For example, when it comes to medical issues, which racial group is more likely to be prone to a disease or live longer, etc? But, after thinking about it for a while, I came to two conclusions: 1) Genetics make us all into different human beings with some similar attributes. Thus, it isn’t stereotyping if you are told to get a certain test simply because others who have similar genetics needed to. It is the generalization of similar genes that produce medical findings; however, 2) it is stereotyping if someone were to tell you that you couldn’t do something because of a possible disadvantage due to a particular genetic make up in comparison to other similar ones. While you may share the same attributes as someone who is sick, you may not get sick yourself simply because you have other genes that make you different. (Hopefully, this makes sense.)

Thus, coming back to stereotyping, I’ve concluded that there will always be distinctions among people. Keeping an open mind to learning who other people are and not prejudging who they are and what they can/cannot do is crucial to not only teach students but for teachers and parents to practice as well. If we, teachers, cannot be open minded and not judge people upon meeting them for the first time or seeing others, then we cannot successfully teach this crucial lesson to students. They need role models to show them what is right and the most rewarding view on life. Teachers need to be mindful with their students as well, to not judge their strengths or weaknesses based on outward appearances. We need to truly understand our students in order to help them use their own strengths to become successful in life.