Learning About the Diversity of My Students

When I first read this blog prompt, I immediately thought of the Maples article we read, Opening Quality Lines of Communication: Seeing My Students through the Eyes of Their Parents, and the "In a million words or less, tell me about your child" assignment. I really think that this is a great idea and found it amazing that this particular teacher received such wonderful feedback from it. I realize that not every attempt at this "assignment" may get the same amount of response, but I do think that any response would offer a much deeper and more thorough evaluation of students and their cultures or personalities than could be gained right away by the teacher alone.

Another good way to gain multiple perspectives on diversity in the classroom is to just listen to the students. Discussions, and not just recitations, could possibly allow for a teacher to obtain a lot of information about the students' cultures, beliefs and personalities. We read in the articles about discussions that if the teacher is not just asking questions that require yes/no answers and instead asks questions that require the students to think before responding, that the answers will often include information that can aid the teacher in learning more about her students personalities and cultures. These types of answers will also be more abundant if the teacher is not monopolizing the bulk of the conversation and allowing the students to take the roles of facilitating and evaluating the conversations.

All of the readings for this weeks seemed to focus on conversation. In Weinstien's book, about classroom management chapter 10 talks about recitations and how classroom talk in unlike any other conversation. while this kind of conversation can be good for assessing students knowledge about facts it has a judgmental tone and is somewhat shallow in my mine. In the Gambrell article entitled Response-Centered Talk: Window's on Children's Thinking, it presenting the idea of open discussion where authentic dialog between the students and adults were taking place over the topic of certain books that the class had read together. The teacher still led the discussion but there was more critical thinking taking place instead of question and answer.

In applying these concepts to teachers learning about the diversity in the classroom, it seems that the best approach is not just through questions but through genuine conversations with the students about their background, hobbies, home life, family value and traditions and personal beliefs. These authentic conversations centering around a variety of topics can help teachers gain a clearer picture of the who his/her students are .

My goals for this course is to learn more about and put into practice technology for helping children learn to become better readers without loosing the basic fundamentals of children knowing what a book is. I also want to learn more teaching strategies for spacial/deaf education students that sometimes cannot hear the sounds and words being pronounced. I am interested also on how these self assessments will happen and hope that they will give me an accurate idea of what I need to work on to become a better teacher.

I have to admit that with all my other classes and the amount of reading for this class and the others combined I am a little worried about completing all of the reading assignments.

Course Goals for TE 402

While looking over the syllabus for this course, one word seemed to jump off of the page at me quite a few times: technology. Technology and the use of it in the classroom tends to make me a bit anxious; but I am looking forward to learning more about it and how I can incorporate it in the classroom.

Another course goal mentioned that I know I need to work on is ongoing self-assessment. Last semester was mostly a chaotic blur for me and I never really had (or made) the time to take a look at myself as a learner or a colleague. This semester I intend to pay more attention to myself as a learner and a colleague, as I am sure it will help me be better at both.

After completing the first readings, I find myself even more excited about this course. I am very interested in exploring literacy and all of its aspects.

Goals for TE 402

In reading the goals for the class, I agree that I want gain experience covering the required materials based on educational standards. I also want to continue to acquire positive and effective teaching, curriculum building and class management skills; and I want to take an active part in my learning in order to be able to benefit my students as much as possible.

I know for myself that in order to accomplish these goals I need to make other goals such as not filling my schedule so full that I do many things OK and nothing well. also I need to take the time to read and reflect on resources given in class not in order to check it off my list but for understanding. Writing down questions and using my instructors and peers as resources will also me helpful.

This semester I also want to build better relationships with my classmates as they will me my colleagues in the field of education. there is much to be done this semester but also much to learn. I am looking forward to this class and hope that travelling to my afternoon class will not cut into my learning.

Thanks

I just wanted to say Thank You to Dr. Sharon Pajka-West for answering my email about this project, sending me information for my article and allowing me to use her interviews with some of the authors in my reviews. I know this is linked to my blog site but it bears repeating, if you need any information on this please visit http://pajak.blogspot.com.

Review of article "Perceptions of Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature"

After reading Perceptions of Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature by Sharon Pajka-West, I think that I will need to find the rest of the books that she mentions and read them for my self. I also need to keep in mind the insider/outsider debate for most of the positive feedback from the study showed that the hearing authors created more interesting and numerous deaf characters in their novels. Where as the deaf authors created only one or two deaf characters, usually the main character was deaf and the rest of their small world was hearing. Pajka-West gives a possible explanation for this by stating “With fewer deaf characters, it is nearly impossible for the various ways of being deaf to be included in the book. Thus, the preference for the books by the hearing authors may be connected to the preference for a variety of deaf people represented.” (p44) Having read Deaf Child Crossing and Nick’s Secret I did notice this to be true. There was only the main character Nick who was deaf, and signed some with his mom and then read everyone else’s lips. The same goes for Deaf Child Crossing, the main character Megan is deaf but the minor character of her friend at summer camp Lizzie is Deaf. If you are looking to show your full Deaf students’ characters in books that are the same as they are it will be more difficult to find in deaf author books, especially if the characters are female. Many of the male characters got positive comments if several of the books but the female deaf characters were said to be “weak and, at times pathetic.” (p42) Most of the deaf adults that read the books for Pajka-West’s study claimed that these deaf female characters “could be seen as positive role models for their numerous successes; yet, their behavior appears as outliners and makes them unrealistic and unbelievable.” Overall, after reading Pajka-West’s article I think that she uncovered a central theme in many of our studies in multicultural literature and what teachers should put into their classroom libraries; to read the books and look at all the criteria, not just is this written from an insider perspective, but to make sure that the story and characters are shown in a realistic light. I could not agree with Pajka-West more when she says “If an important purpose for dear characters in fiction is educational and informational, then I suggest there is a need for the characters to be presented as realistic models of deaf people. If not, the readers of such fiction gain inaccurate information about deafness including reinforced negative stereotypes, as can occur in any other literature portraying cultural minorities.”(p40)

I you would like more information about this topic and a reading list to get you started with deaf characters in teen’s literature then please go to Dr. Pajka-West’s blog site at

www.pajka.blogspot.com