Chapter 8, post5 : Susan Schuler

In the epilogue  Mrs. Starr expressed her concerns of how she had taught the class in the past. I appreciate that she didn't become defensive as a lot of people would and deny that the way she taught was anything less than perfect, she actually thought about the way she had done things and was willing to change to improve her future classes' experiences. It would be interesting to follow two of her students in her 'after' classroom to see how the changes affected them. To show what the changes were and if they really did improve the experiences for minority children.
It would also be interesting to have some other teachers in Mrs. Starr's school read this book to see how they react, to see if maybe it will help them to realize why Mrs. Starr is doing what she is doing.
Does anyone else think that these are good ideas? Why or why not?

Blog #6 Idea Illustrator - Elizabeth Francescotti

Our World is a diverse place and with technology and news information about other countries and The U.S.'s involvement in the affairs of other countries I think it is fair for us to talk about the world we live in, and not just the country we currently live in. More than fair, I think it is important. We cannot ignore differences without inadvertantly saying a message about being different!

Every classroom should have a globe. Students should be able to identify continents and places and I really liked how Mrs. Starr implemented the use of the globe in her class and students really responded to it and enjoyed seeing it. If we show them, their minds can grasp that the world is bigger than our small town, or our hometown.

Muticultural Crayons! These come with a wide variety of skin tones so students can draw pictures that look like them. Raji loved to draw and see representations of himself...why wouldn't the other teachers make use of these in their classrooms?
It seems like such a basic tool for the classroom and one that makes sense if we have our eyes open...people come in a wide array of colors.
I was disappointed that Mrs. Starr bought these and they all came back un-used from the other teachers.
I was also dissapointed that she was put down, as forgetting American Cultural when she decided to celebrate Spring in the variety of ways it is celebrated around the world. It makes me think about how or current school calendar is still based on an agricultural society...students don't need all this time off to leave school and pick crops...we don't live that way anymore. But, I think it says a lot about how CHANGE happens slowly in the school system!

Change in the school system. Chapter 8 Blog # 6 Elizabeth Francescotti

In reading this final chapter I kept thinking that as teachers we are in the business of service. We are servants to our community and to our students. When I reflect on that I think it means that we need to be willing to take the extra time and energy to go the extra mile. I think I was thinking like an assimilationist when I started to read this book and didn't even realize it. I grew up and though of America as a melting pot and then there was a global studies class in high school where we learned about other countries, but more in a political and historical sense.

When it comes right down to it the best way to serve students with bi-culturalism as their way of life is to not ignore it. Mrs. Starr thought ignoring it would just magically lead to assimilation and things would work out. What we saw was two children with a lot of potential, end up struggling because they had to live a dual life. They potential sucess as readers and learners was being damaged. Their self-images and their ability to learn through social interacts were non-existant.

So to best serve all your students you can't ignore differences. Teaching about the differences means that young learners can see that different is not wrong, it's just different and we can appreciate what is different.

I am lucky that the classroom I am observing in has already had a Mexican Festival day as many of the students are Latino and there is one class that speaks only Spanish. All the students in that school got to play games, sing songs and eat food from Mexico. And I got to see how much they enjoyed it.

Even if the first step you can make is to not ignore the cultures that are in your classroom...you are already making a difference! Reduced drop out rates, being literacy learning, potentially ingraining students at an early age to embrace diversity...these are all worhwhile reasons to break out of an assimilationist way and teach children about diversity. We are to enter classrooms of all types shapes and sizes and we are becoming a smaller world by the minute so global awareness seems just a normal as having computers in Kindergarten classes to me.

Imagine if all you learned and did in school was so opposite to you, so foreign. Would you feel like you, your life, your family ways must be wrong somehow?

I think that message gets sent to kids whether we realize we are sending it or not.
What do you think?

Struggles for change (Chapter 8)

I was both sad and happy with the epilogue. Mrs. Starr really has learned a lot by having someone from the outside stepping in to observe her class. When Mrs. Starr "spoke to other educators and found that they had experienced the same difficulties when working with language-minority children (p. 125)" she took the important first step and found out what problems were out there and how other teachers dealt with the problem. Conversation with fellow teaching professionals is key in my eyes to developing new ideas and new educational tactics. Peley and Raji should have had a wraparound program to help them and their families deal with the problem of being a language minority and culturally different. Much of what Mrs. Starr is attempting, like discussing other cultures, sending notes home and forming the steering committee, will help provide the base for these programs.
I am a little upset though by the reaction of some of the teachers when it comes to these programs. I understand how difficult it must be for teachers in older grades to have parents who have never gone through all these new ideas and processes, but to just totally give up? The older teachers could take small steps, like just talking about another culture or making some kind reasearch project to open the children's minds. Does anyone else think that this problem maybe because of the close mindedness of the other teachers or maybe fear?

Karen Paine - Epilogue - Blog #6

One thing we had begun to discuss in our Literature Circle was the purpose of this epilogue. The early edition of the text appears to be a doctoral dissertation by Ruggiano-Schmidt. One of the subjects, Mrs. Starr, was in process of completing a masters dissertation and immediately after the study, created her own text. In turn, Ruggiano-Schmidt made an additional "post-script" study of Mrs. Starr's study. What would have been of more interest to the read is a post-script study of the student subjects, Raji and Peley. Unlike Mrs. Starr, they did not have their own reputation to protect and would not use the post-script to defend, refute, explain, amend, etc. their own situation within the study. The incestuous nature of the studies worries me - how is it possible to remain objective during the process when each participant's role is mutually beneficial?

Karen Paine - Epilogue - Rigorous Researcher

In the epilogue, the "Faltis four level approach" is mentioned as a reference for developing communication with multilingual parents (Ruggiano-Schmidt, page 129). As rigorous researcher, I looked into Christina J. Faltis to better understand the reference. The four step approach is from a book published in 1993 called "Joinfostering: Adapting Teaching Strategies for the Multilingual Classroom." According to the Faltis, joinfostering is "the organization and implementation of conditions to promote two-way communication and social integration within the linguistically diverse all-English classroom" (Faltis, page 1).

The four levels include:

I: early stages of teacher-parent informal contacts in the home and school

II: how to proceed to small informational meetings

III: examples of ways to encourage parent participation and sharing in the classroom

IV: parent empowerment when they are included in curricular decisions

These levels correspond with the more general Faltis framework, designed particularly as a guideline for native-English speaking teachers working in a multi-lingual classroom environment. The framework involves:

1.) two-way communication

2.) social integration

3.) second language acquisition principles

4.) parental participation

Karen Paine - Chapter 7 (Classroom Community)

"Appreciating similarities and differences in the world around us is an important first step in the creation of inclusive social settings" (page 107).

Recently, I read a children's book by Rosemary Wells called "Yoko." She is a girl from Japan whose classmates ridicule her sushi lunch and as a result, becomes emotionally detached from school. The teacher notices and tries to remedy the situation by creating an "International Food Day." All the children bring in dishes from around the world with the instruction from the teacher that they are to try "at least one bite." At the end of the day, Yoko's sushi plate remains untouched, and this is unnoticed by the teacher. Only one students tries the sushi and becomes Yoko's friend.

Sharing food is one of Ruggiano-Schmidt's suggestions for increasing international / multicultural awareness. However, I think the book about Yoko is accurate - this tactic may not automatically increase appreciation of different cultures, but at the very least, it will increase awareness. Creating a climate of welcomeness may not make everyone feel included, but it will get the message across that inclusion is important.