Regardless, the readings for this week were quite interesting. For this post I would like to take some time and comment on three of them. Two of the assigned articles and the one article I chose for the jigsaw.
Maples
The Maples article that we were assigned gave me an insight into a very cool idea to do for my own classroom. I would love to take her idea and have the parents write a letter (in less than a million words - ha!) about their child. Being that the parents are the supreme authority of their children before they step into my classroom, their insights into the child will be immensely helpful.
Maples talks about how she didn't want to buy into the stereotypes of urban families; most notably about how parents seem to be lacking as a strong support system for their children. She says: "However, the power of parental involvement has been shown to contribute to improving a building’s psychological climate for learning as well as children’s academic performance." (pg. 1)
Having parents become more and more involved allows the child to see how important they really are. Also, setting the precedence early in the classroom that the parents insights into their children are valuable allows the parents to feel warm and welcome in the class and gives them the feeling that their child is valuable to their teacher.
Scott, et. al
This article seemed kind of like a retread for me of many articles that I have already read in the college of ed. While it is never unimportant to read about the struggles of urban education, I feel like most of the articles I read about them usually have the same spin. There were, however, a few quotes that I liked that I thought I would share.
"It was interesting that in their responses these educators talked as much about the needs of urban teachers as they did about urban learners…"(pg. 1)
"From the teacher perspective, Mona considers one of the gravest unmet needs of the urban learner to be teachers’ failures to take into consideration who their students are…"(pg. 2)
"Finally, what changes are needed to move us toward a pedagogy of success for urban learners? The message that came through loud and clear from all three was teacher professional development."(pg. 4)
I especially like the last quote which implies that an initial education isn't necessarily enough. It is a stepping stone but continued professional development can only increase the success of teaching in urban areas as teachers continue to grow with the times rather than stay inert from what they have learned, in some cases, 20+ years ago.
Breitfelder
"As teachers, we know the best ways students with special needs learn is by having adaptations and accommodations that can be used for that specific child, to meet their needs, so they can be successful in the classroom." (pg. 3)
While this article might not seem to have much in common with the two articles above since it is not about strictly urban area teaching I thought that one of the interesting issues it brings up is the idea of consistency. Many homes, urban or otherwise, suffer from a lack of consistency and your classroom is one area that you can help these children have a consistent part of their day at least five days a week for the duration of the school year.
I think you had some very good thoughts for this weeks readings. I really wanted to focus on the Maples article because that was one that really stuck out to me. I also really enjoyed the Maples article and honestly think that the parent homework is something that a lot more teachers should start doing. I mentioned in my blog that I think it would be nice if teachers could start that at a younger age and put it in the students file to pass on to the next teacher so they could see the progress of the students and also to know their students better. One thing that really stood out to me though was trying to figure out how far is "too far" when trying to reach out to parents? Where do you draw the line and just realize that some parents have such strong negative feelings about schooling (possibly from their own bad experiences) and will not become that involved in their child's schooling? I would never want to say that a teacher should give up, but I guess I'm asking in your opinion where you think the line needs to be drawn. Other than that, good thoughts for this week!
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