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...