Finding Ways Article

As I read this article, I found myself feeling both optimistic and depressed all at once.  Over my long tenure here studying music education at UMass Lowell, I've often read about progressive methods for teaching, and the struggles teachers face in implementing these progressive techniques.  We tend to fall back to what we know and how we were taught even though we may have found it boring when we were being taught the material.  I've even caught myself doing it with my students, for which afterward I kick myself, thinking "I don't even think these students retained any of that information it was so dry..." and I teach music, a subject that is supposed to be fun and exciting!  Humans as a species are afraid of change.  This being said I was less than surprised by the challenges faced in progressing schools for the Southeast Asian population in New England.  Even still it was saddening to me that change was such a slow process for these students, despite my knowledge in that change is such a slow process not only in creating resources and programming for this population but in methodologies in teaching in general.

What I found to be optimistic however was that change was occurring and developing.  I was happy that it wasn't faltering like a lot of school programming tends to do (based on various reasons such as funding, space, and understanding from the population this programming is supposed to provide aid and resources for).  I've seen programs in the schools in which I've been working in begin to fall apart (mostly music programming, but a lot of other specialist programming was cut in the last two years there), and some of these programs (like engineering programs within schools) are ones that could potentially help a student that is struggling.  What will be next in these schools, the ESL and ELL classes?  Special Education?  As it is in the district I'm teaching in the only behavioral and emotion programming that is available is in two of the schools, and they are the schools that are known as the "trouble schools" in the district.  These students have to be driven to school in a school they aren't zoned for just because the richer schools do not want to fund such programming for students.  I do remain optimistic however that ESL and ELL classes will remain, and that these summer programs for Southeast Asian students (wherever they are located) can remain in place to help aid these students.

I definitely found this article to be an interesting and eye-opening read into Southeast Asian culture and its differences to American culture.  I also wish more schools would find ways to engage more students, rather than assuming that all students have the background in order to succeed in these schools.  From reading this article, it has been made apparent that this is not the case right now, and that things are changing awfully slowly. 

Blog #9 The Dream Keepers

Many things stood out to me while reading The Dream Keepers, but one of the biggest was the discrepancies between disciplining African American students vs. other students.  It seems strange to me that teachers would discriminate based on the color of their skin in schools like that (expecting students to not meet standards because of their ethnic background), but you definitely see it in schools even today.  The teachers in my school sometimes make comments about the Hispanic students and their behavior in terms of the cultural differences between the white students and the Hispanic students (the school I'm teaching in is 52 percent Hispanic), but from what I've noticed, the majority of the serious behavior issues in this school are from the Caucasian students.

Either way, I think that these teachers do not even realize they are holding these different cultural groups to different standards, and this topic was something I had not thought of until I was sitting down and reading this text.  What also sort of appalled me was the distinction one person made between "White backs," or students from 'good homes', and "black blacks," or students from 'bad homes'.  I think if someone is raised in a bad home they're more likely to be bad, regardless of race, and that distinction was assinine because they were only using one race to make that distinction.  It does not really have anything to do with race at all, from what I've seen.  Students from bad homes have more issues, regardless of race.  Perhaps what they're seeing is actually students in that particular district or school who are of a particular race happen to fall into a specific socioeconomic status that lends them to a "bad home," rather than it being an issue of culture or ethnicity?

Noah Rubin

Having Noah Rubin presenting last week was a great experience.  He is so enthusiastic about what he does that it was really fascinating to hear him talk about social-emotional learning.  He was really sensitive to everyone's needs as well, and was able to turn almost anything into a positive, which was a nice breath of fresh air coming from a teacher; to see that new(ish) "progressive," idea of social-emotional learning. 

I was also so embarrassed at how upset I was and became during class.  I do not like to cry.  I turn all red, blotchy, and puffy, and I really didn't want anyone's pity last week.  I was just having a really hard week of student teaching and couldn't contain it anymore.  I have to hand it to my class though; everyone was really nice about it.  And Noah gave some really nice suggestions, like to write a letter to my cooperating teachers.  I wasn't able to do that, however the whole class and a cross between my classmates, Professor Uy's kind emails, and Noah's nice suggestions really helped push me through the rest of the week and gave me the guts to talk about my personal struggles with student teacher with my cooperating teachers.  It turned out they were really supportive and said "That's what we're here for!" and were able to help me out a lot. 

I know we're supposed to post about our readings and experiences at Teen Coalition, however, last week was such a pivotal week for me, and such an emotional experience, that I wanted to post about how touched I was by last class.  It really gave me a glimmer of hope for my student teaching and my pending professional future.

On Being Hardcore

I always find it interesting when students decide that they want to try to act like someone they are not.  I know I've done it in my youth.  I pretended to act like my friends from the "rough neighborhood" of my town, and dressed a certain way when hanging out with them, and a different way when I was hanging out at home.  I don't see how it is any different with other adolescents.  They want to be respected, and in any community, you dress and act the way that's going to get you respect.  In this article, it just happens to be acting.  Peer pressure keeps kids in trouble rather than out of it.

And not only that, but looking at what is on television and in the news doesn't help either.  Violence is glorified day in and out.  Between that and social pressures to be "hardcore" and "tough," it's no shock to me that students are turning to violence.  I do find it sad, however, that students continue to make destructive decisions despite all of the school resources that some schools have available.

Perhaps as educators there is more we can do.  Maybe in classes, laws on gang violence and destructive behaviors can be addressed and discussed, like in a health class.  Clubs and after school programs can be devised to help promote healthy, low-risk decision making, similar to LCHC's Teen Coalition.  Keeping students busy, giving them an outlet and helping them through their teen years. 

I suppose we should only hope that these teens who are "at risk" for such behavior will join these organizations, and that more areas of the state/country can provide such services for America's youth. 

APIASF Scholarship Application Readings.

I spent the better part of last week reading the APIASF Scholarship applications, and I have to tell you, I'm not so sure the parameters of the scholarships clearly defined what was expected of the students in their essays and recommendation letters.  That, or the students were unable to follow directions.

There were a good amount of decent applications that I read, but an overwhelming amount of applications that surprised me with how careless they appeared.   There were a few things that really get me going in terms of reading an essay.  I like reading essays that appear to be well thought out, and for me, I can tell pretty quickly if an essay is going to be good or not, or whether it follows the criteria. 

In terms of the essays, I felt that many of the applicants were unable to find something that really set them apart.  "My family is Asian and struggles to support themselves," while valid, didn't feel like a great essay to me.  I wanted the students to find something that set them apart from the other applicants, because all of the applicants were of some form of Asian descent.  Also, the third essay question was not looking for, "My family could use financial support and this scholarship will be beneficial."  The essay question clearly wasn't asking applicants to beg to give them money, it was looking for well thought out responses to specific prompts.  I even read an essay that the student had very clearly copied and pasted into the window.  With the 500 word cap, the essay just cuts off in the middle, as if they copied and pasted the essay in without doing a word count to make sure it would fit first!

I was also disappointed in the recommendation letters.  The applicant's resume was one of the first things we saw, and a lot of the accompanying recommendation letters were just reiterations of that resume.  I felt that a recommendation letter should have a more personal touch while still remaining professional.  I know I didn't give my resume to my teachers when they were writing my recommendation letters...

I'm sorry to rant on and on, and I don't know how many of my classmates did the APIASF scholarship readings, but after 9 hours of pulling my hair out while reading essays, I felt the need to step up on my soap box.  Maybe it's because my 12 grade English teacher had us spend weeks perfecting how to write a good college essay and not all teachers do that...

And this isn't to say that I didn't read any AWESOME scholarship applications... because I read some phenomenal candidates applications... it's sort of like in Band, when one person plays out of tune but everyone else is in tune, you hear that one person who's not in tune stick out like a sore thumb. 

I'm glad I read the applications, however.  It gave me a much deeper understanding about what goes into a scholarship application and how much detail can be given in just 500 words or less. 

Blog 03.05.12

I read about Nini Rostland, in chapter 7 of Affirming Diversity, and I felt like it brought up a lot of issues about people of mixed heritage that plague American history.   What makes someone who has an African parent and a Caucasian parent less able to identify with a particular group?  Moreover, why is it that particular group that makes it seem like the biracial person does not belong?  It's really unfortunate if you ask me.  Sure, there are commonalities between people of like ethnicities or heritages, but if someone identifies with a certain heritage but doesn't look the part, why exclude them?  It seems kind of sad that race still plays such a large part in things sometimes, even with the strides that our country has made.  Stereotyping and profiling are still such large problems, just in different ways.

Now, Nini was from a fairly well-adjusted home and had parents who really helped her to see both sides of her heritage, but what about homes that are not like that?  What about single parents of biracial or bi-ethnic children?  How do those children come to understand both sides of their heritage?

And what does this all mean for schools?  We have a set curriculum in a lot of schools that makes learning about heritage fairly limited, I think.  Should we occasionally stray from the curriculum to try to help our students understand the differences between people?  Maybe we should fight for it to become a part of our schools' curriculum, rather than just "Black History Month," or other commemorative months.  Schools are not like the summer camp that Nini attended, where it was geared toward Multi-ethnic children. 

Another thing that disconcerted me in this "Snapshot," was when Nini said her other classes (other than art, that is), were boring because it was all memorizing facts.  When did school become solely about memorizing facts?  I remember having a history teacher who was always able to somehow make school and concepts we were learning interactive and fun.  Students will perform well on tests if they've been properly taught the material... memorizing facts has never been effective for long term concept learning and development.  As a music specialist my field is a little bit different in that I have to teach interactively, but even music can be taught in a boring manner, and wouldn't you want to try to make a boring concept more interesting?  I know I would have paid a lot more attention in grade school if that were the case...

Masculinity as Homophobia

As I was reading the Kimmel Article, once I came back from my vacation, I found it interesting that the article hinted that masculinity is an effect of nurture, rather than nature, and that it is changes in social ideals that have marked the behavior as appropriate or inappropriate... masculine or feminine.  Those ideals change over time.  There was a time where identifying as bisexual was completely normal.  Shakespeare was bisexual!  Then somewhere down the line, that became taboo, and now we seem to be on an upswing where being GLBTQ is slowly becoming more and more acceptable.  I suppose even though sexual orientation is not something that is a choice, that the social ideals of masculinity are a result of nurture.  How do we incorporate this kind of diversity in the classroom?  Through acceptance of students of all walks of life?  By pointing it out or treating them all the same.  I like to treat them all the same, regardless of orientation.  A zero tolerance bullying law within the school seems to help as well.  I think in the light of all the suicides due to bullying, school's have become more hip to being more open minded about their student body's differences from student to student.

In the Walters article, I found it highly intriguing about the dynamic between the second generation of children of immigrants to the identities of their immigrant parents.  The immigrant parents identifying with flaunting (in a way) their racial and ethnic background to set themselves apart from "Black Americans," when the children of these immigrants have American accents and cannot stand out as a member of their own ethnicity as well.  Where does that leave them?  How does that effect their ability and time in school?  Do their parents realize they are alienating their children?

Week 3: Affirming Diversity

This week I attempted to go to Teen Coalition, but apparently instead of being able to go from 5-7 they want us to go from 3-5.  Oops!  3-5 is going to be a significant difficulty for me, as I'm normally in school until 3:15.  I guess going from 3:30-5:00 would be acceptable (or that's what Lola said anyway) but it's still a stretch.  I was sort of bummed that I didn't get to work with the LCHC teens.  Next month, I suppose, once all the confusion has cleared up.

In the blogs I noticed that a lot of people were writing about the Model Minority book, however... I'm going to focus on the Affirming Diversity book.  I read a couple really interesting stories from immigrant students and children of immigrants, and I'd like to share my thoughts on those:

I read about Liane, the Eurasian girl with a French-Polish father and Chinese mother, and the support that was received from her school in her learning Chinese both in school and through her mother, and how that support helped her feel closer to her mom and her heritage.  I thought it was very cool that her school offered her home language, but I had to think about the reality that in public school settings, at least in Massachusetts, that there are very few schools who offer or are capable of offering a language like Chinese or other languages that aren't English or classes that are ESL/ELL.

I do know that there are some schools in Connecticut that spend a week speaking and doing work in English and then the next week will be in Spanish.  They zone the students dependent on whether they feel that would be helpful for them (i.e. my half brother goes to an English only speaking school because he does not speak Spanish but some of my mom's neighbors go to one of the English/Spanish speaking schools. 

I also read about Manuel, who was from cape verde, and how Massachusetts had to scramble to cater to the Cape Verdean population.  While I do think it is nice to have classes in Crioulu, and other languages to cater to every student, I think it would be just as productive to have ESL classes that have people schooled in these different languages to better serve immigrants in learning the predominant language of the United States.  Not to discredit other languages, and perhaps I'm thinking of it backwards and it should be the English speaking population learning more of these other languages, but I think it would be helpful to help the students gain English language skills, rather than have classes that function under those foreign languages, which teach these academic skills but not the English language skills that they would need to excel in American Society as a whole. 

My mother and I were having a conversation about this very topic as she was explaining how the English/Spanish speaking schools in New Britain, CT work.  All I kept thinking was, "But how are they improving their English language skills with such a disjointed method of teaching?  Wouldn't they forget the English skills in that week they're speaking entirely Spanish?"  I thought about the schools I'm teaching in and how the students are getting ESL classes and it's an important thing to remind the Hispanic students to speak in English "We speak in English in __________ Class, boys and girls," and how those students even still struggle with the language skills they need to excel in the English speaking school.  If we aren't enforcing constant practice of those language skills, how are they to improve them?

Week Two: Children of Immigration

I particularly liked that this book clearly defined the difference between "immigrant children," and the "children of immigrants," wish such detail.  I also thought it was interesting to see the different considerations that need to be given to children immigrating from one country to another, the different possible scenarios, and the consequences and hardships associated with immigration and the anxiety it could cause.  Chapter 3 was particularly illuminating in describing the many factors that could be at stake with a child that is moving to another country.  They could be living with relatives, with a single parent, waiting back in their home country while one parent comes to the other country to work and come back for the rest of the family... the list goes on and on...

Looking at the statistics of the different scenarios, it made me think about my student teaching and what kind of students am I teaching?  Maybe a student is checking out because he or she is adjusting to a new environment and new educational customs?  Or they're possibly just unable to understand what's expected of them, among several other possible reasons.  It makes me think again about some of my students and how they are behaving.  Perhaps they have no parental unit at home, or perhaps they have just been reunited with their family.  I thought it was interesting to add another layer to my understanding of students who come from other countries, and now easy it is to assume that their parents don't care, or that they themselves don't care, when either, or neither could be the case, and it could just be a matter of circumstance for them.  But how do you cater a lesson plan to a student in that sort of situation without excluding them or holding back the other students?  These are the dilemmas that face teachers day in and day out.  Perhaps we need to take a look at what resources we could give our students before writing them off.

Blog Week One: 01/29/12

In regards to the readings assigned last week, I found it interesting that we started with an article on "White Privilege."  I will be quite honest with you... I really don't enjoy discussing or talking about white privilege, at all.  As a former orientation leader at UML, I went through "diversity training," during our 2 week training period, and thankfully, we did not discuss "White Privilege," but I heard many stories about it from the year before, and experienced the topic of conversation during a diversity group I was a part of on campus post-orientation.  How everyone felt it was either not applicable or designed to make "White people feel bad: it's all their fault."  This article sort of dredged up all of those feelings... why is there "White Privilege?" and why is it "our fault?" If you ask me, these views on diversity often come down to one topic: race.  I think it is highly unfortunate that there are these supposed privileges in place that denounce the importance of one person's ethnicity over another person's.  I'm not trying to deny that they exist, as they definitely do (although I do feel they are a bit exaggerated in this article), but I just think it's unfortunate that they're still around and that "White Privilege" is still a hot topic in regards to diversity.

It particularly bothers me that people still have these preconceived notions of people of different races and ethnicities, and that it's even a blip on the radar regarding any hiring process drives me crazy.  If you're qualified to do a job, you should be hired for it, regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity.  This brings me to the Omni article, in which it described how the government is getting in its own way regarding being "diverse."  It has regulations regarding "Equal Opportunity," however, those regulations put even more emphasis on race and gender in the work-force, and why does that need to be highlighted?  I actually had a conversation with one of my cooperating teachers about this.  He had a friend who was of Puerto Rican descent who was applying for a job, and they offered him the job over someone that he himself had felt was more qualified.  He flat out asked if this was about his ethnicity, or if they thought he was the most qualified for the position.  They were honest and admitted that "equal opportunity" had a hand in the hiring process.  So, he declined the position.

When I heard the story, I applauded this man for sticking to his beliefs.  I would not want to be accepted into a program or given a job because I was a woman, or because I was white.  If someone was more qualified to do a job than I was, then they deserve the job more than I do and should be hired, regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity.  When you start placing regulations on who can and cannot be hired, you take away the need to be qualified to do a job, and how is that helping the government or company?  I guess the young idealist in me wishes race could be taken out of the equation...