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Model Integration Paper
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What I Know and What I Believe About the Developmental and Learning Needs of Adolescents
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Journal 5
Respond to the following prompts:
Looking back on your teaching last semester, what did you discover about the needs of students in your classes? What kinds of "needs" surfaced that surprised you?
Looking back on my teaching, I discovered that students need far more than academics. In my case, they need much more than just my English content area. One of the most surprising needs I found is the need for acceptance. I feel that students need to be re-afffirmed often. They sometimes need to be reminded that their thought process is valid, that their opinion is valid, that their questions are valid, etc. They seem to be at an age in which they are barely starting to become self-confident and still rely on the views of others to define them. This kind of need, a social need at its core, reminded me of what it felt like to be a high school student. I take my confidence and self-assurance for granted now even though I can remember being very quiet and shy all throughout high school.
To what degree do you think you really understand the needs of your students? How wide is the "gap" between them and you?
I feel that on a scale of 1-10 (1 being nowhere near understanding the needs of students and 10 being I am the student-whisperer), I am at a solid 7. I feel that different students have different needs. Teenagers are simple to understand but they are also surprisingly complex. They so close to adulthood that they want to feel independent, important, and mature, but they are still rooted in childlike habits or modes of thinking. Some of them are more responsible than others, while others need a teacher to keep a close eye on them. I feel that I am at a 7: I feel that for the most part, I understand the needs of students. I am in no way an expert on them, however. They constantly surprise me in both positive and negative lights. As part of my learning process, especially this CP II, I would like to continue growing in this respect. CP I taught me a lot more than what I initally expected, so I hope that CPII continues to open my eyes.
What might have surfaced in the reading or in your teaching (about the realities of students' needs) that triggered a negative response in you? Try to identify why this response was triggered and how it relates to your biases.
I identified with beginning of the article "A Teacher's Story" by Wendy Zagray Warren. When describing how uninterested she was in the Indian Education For All (IEFA) law when she first heard about it, I realized how similar my mentality would be to Warren's if I faced the same situation. Especially as a new teacher, I would probably feel overwhelmed and negatively react to a law that would actually help students in my class. In Warren's case, the law would meet her students' needs. It would help American Indian students see themselves in the classroom and would also help other students become more aware and knowledgeable about their communities. I would probably respond negatively becuase of the bias towards my own education. I may resent knowing that I have to educate myself over again and re-work a curriculum. However, like Warren mentioned, the law is worth every effort. Even know, we face issues of ignorance and prejudice in our school systems. HB 2281 is a perfect example. It outlawed ethnic studies courses in Arizona, an area that has currently shown an increase in anti-immigration and racist legislation. Issues like these remind me that our teaching is a reflection of our values and biases. I must assume the responsibilites that go along with this if I do want to create change with my students.
Journal 4
Respond to the following prompt: What are your biases and how do you mitigate your behavior when working with students?
Our society is driven by labels and categories. We love organization, accessiblity, simplicity, and convenience. We do not like to waste time going through lists of unknown information. We would much rather prefer to organize and to tag information for easy access and less effort. In some aspects of life, these sytems make living much more manageable. No one wants to spend hours locating one file on the computer when we can reduce that time into seconds by organizing our files into folders in the first place. No one wants to start afresh everytime we begin a task; we like to know what to expect before a test, before going to an event, etc.
But this same system of convenience and classifying is also a negative aspect of our society when we try to apply it to people. We meet and we judge. We see someone and we like to pretend that we are smart enough to have them figured out--they don't even have to say a word, that's how good we are. In these cases, stereotypes and prejudices are our database of information. We pull up the appropriate categories based on physical appearance or mannerisms and begin our computing. For example, I have often times been asked about myself:
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| Biases Are an Ugly Thing |
-Are you Mexican? Are you black? Why is your hair curly if your are Mexican?
-Do you have kids? Good for you, being a good example to other Latinas out there. Most Latinas get pregnat so soon! But I am sure you have a boyfriend, right? He is a cholo, isn't he?
-Do you eat spicy foods all the time? All Mexican girls know how to cook, right?
-You are in college? Cool, so you go to Palomar? No? CSUSM? Oh, good for you. You want to be a teacher? Wow. High School? That's so...different. Hmmm...
We do it all the time but we don't like to admit it. It is embarrasing to admit it. It is shameful because we like to think that we are different, the exception to these practices. And yet we do it all the time. I am the first to admit that, even though it makes me mad to experience this, I do it all of the time to others. It's almost as if we are programmed to bring up all of these biases automatically because they seem to pop into our minds before we know it.
For example, I will judge a student based on his mannerisms before even hearing them speak. Common high school stereotypes are my database in these cases. These include: dumb jock, smart nerd, ambiguous loner, ditzy popular, lazy metalhead, possible druggie, etc. Popular culture has created a multitude of stereotypes that high school students can fall into. As a teacher, I find myself making these calls before getting to know the kids. It's an embarassing habit and frustrates me when I catch myself making assumptions because of them. For example, I had a student who would fall into the "ditzy popular" teenage archetype upon first glance. In reality, he was everything other than that. He was a popular kid because he was so friendly to everyone. He did his homework, he participated, he kept up with the classrom activities. In other words, he did not fit that stereotype at all! As a student teacher, the moment I realized this was frustrating. There I was, a college-educated individual who wants to be a teacher, judging a kid just by looking at him. How in the world should I expect kids to not do this when I catch myself doing it all of the time? This question stayed with me during my CP. The conclusion I have come to is to address these matters openly and without fear. We are always so embarassed and scared to admit our shortcomings, but I feel that a classroom would benefit from frank, realistic conversations on biases in our daily lives. We can't pretend and say that biases don't affect us because they do. We can try to get to know people before judging them and will apply that same rule to our students. But we can also try to get our students to understand why we are trying, what it means, and how it really affects us. High schoolers are much smarter than we give them credit for, so approaching them with honesty and sincerity will hopefully help every person in the classroom.
Journal 3
To what degree do you think you really understand the needs of your students and what they need for the 21st century? How wide is the "gap" between them and you? In what areas are the gaps? What can you do to make connections?
I
believe that I have only begun to see the needs of my students. Things really
clicked for me when I began to observe classes at my current Clinical Practice
placement. My last placement had a strict cell phone policy and I would rarely
see students taking out their phones. I would see them itching to use netbooks
and to produce their own materials in creative ways. My current placement does
not have a cell phone policy and I have noticed that students are constantly
taking out their phones and playing games on them, texting, looking up websites
during class and their free time. They are also experts at multitasking. I have
begun to see that the classroom does not mirror the route that these students
are taking in terms of thinking processes and approaches to work. They have the
world at their fingertips and learn more and more each day, but classrooms
sometimes don't allow them to hone these skills.
I am
amazed to see how fast things changed from my own high school experience and
the kids going through high school now. Their needs for the 21st century are
changing and evolving, and I feel like I am behind and need to catch up. That
"gap" is one that I feel I can close with the help of my students. I
want to see how to incorporate their interests into my classroom, what
technologies they are currently using, etc. My aim in closing that gap is to
teach students that education is not an antiquated notion--that it's important
and relevant. Perhaps students nowadays don't believe that a relevancy exists.
Like Pink's concept of how right-brain thinking will be dominant, I want to
also show students that education appreciates creativity and original thinking.
One cool way I saw a teacher do this at my old CP site is that she asked
students to create a fake Facebook page for a character from The Grapes of Wrath. The students had to
think of the character, include quotes, drawings, and could give the character
a modern look and way of speaking if they chose. Students loved the assignment
because they were able to draw on their own resources for it. Projects like
this are interesting for them and also accomplish what the CA Content Standards
ask of them. Therefore, closing the “gap”
might be done through more projects and assignments that allow them to bring in
their unique insights and knowledge into the academic realm.
Journal 2
Quote from
the text/video
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What it
Means
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Deeper
Thinking
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“For example, many kids have trouble finding the words
to tell someone what’s the matter or what they need. This can present a big
problem; life’s a lot easier when you have the linguistic wherewithal to let
people know you “don’t feel like talking,” that “something’s the matter,” …
The reminder “use your words” won’t help at all if a kid doesn’t have the
words. It’s the lack of words that often sets the stage for challenging
behavior” (164).
From:
“Kids Do Well If They Can”
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Greene posits that one of the reasons behind difficult
behaviors in challenging students is a lack of skills. In this quote, he
emphasizes that many students have difficulty verbalizing and understanding
what their own issues are.
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I believe that Greene’s reasoning, paired with other
adolescent issues like self-esteem and self-confidence leads to the lack of communication
and understanding between a teacher and a challenging student. If a student
does not know how to verbalize a problem or his/her issues, they may not want
to admit this vulnerability in front of their peers. During CPI I was surprised
to see how different students act when they come to see you during lunch or
after school unaccompanied and when they are in the midst of the classroom environment.
Some challenging students more readily listen and actually respond in private
dialogue when they will not budge in the classroom. Perhaps investing time in
developing a relationship with those challenging students may help them find
some of the words they are looking for.
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“For businesses, it’s no longer enough to create a
product that’s reasonably priced and adequately functional. It must also be
beautiful, unique, and meaningful, abiding what author Virginia Postrel calls
‘the aesthetic imperative.’” (33).
From: A Whole New Mind
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Pink emphasizes how times have changed in terms of
business and daily life. Aesthetics have now become legitimate reasons to participate
in the purpose or the support of services and products.
|
This quote resonates with me because I feel that the
same statement can be made about the education field. Beyond teaching students
through rote memorization and from textbooks, I feel that we also have to apply
creativity to teaching. With so much technology available for students via
their cell phones, their computers, and the internet, teaching has to become
creative and engaging so that students take away from it as much as they can.
One way to bring meaning to class could be through essential questions, which
we learned as part of the UbD planning model.
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“Many students must juggle
different responsibilities, are the first in their family to attend a
post-secondary institution, or have been out of school for an extended
period. This imposes unique demands on the education and training system, and
an adequate student support service system is another element of effective
post-high school education and training programs” (18).
From: “Jobs of Tomorrow”
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Students struggle in post-secondary education may not
only struggle because of factors that are directly linked to them. That is
why schools must offer support systems that will help students succeed.
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I enjoyed reading this section of the report because I
feel that this helps me remember that the lives I am helping shape will face
many different educational struggles in the future. Students’ paths will lead
them in very different directions, which mean that students need to learn the
skill sets necessary to succeed in any of those paths while they are in
school. Even when they do have those skill sets, I think this quote is a
reminder of the attention we should also pay to the emotional/mental health
of students.
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“What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be
wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. If you’re not prepared to
be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that
capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong.”
-Sir Ken Robinson
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We live in a society that equates being wrong with a
kind of shameful failure. We are scared of being wrong, even if it means
inhibiting our innate tendencies towards originality.
|
I feel that I am both a student and a teacher. When I
am in classes, I still suffer from the fear of being wrong. I sometimes
prefer non-participation because I like feeling in control. Being wrong feels
embarrassing—it feels like failure. When I am a teacher, however, I try to
tell my students that there is no wrong answer or right answer in literature
and writing (an even then, the message never really sank in). Perhaps, in
order to include this in my classroom, I have to first acknowledge the same
behaviors in me, both as a student and a teacher.
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Journal 1
1. Reflecting on your CPI teaching, respond to the following questions: What is it like to be a student in my class? What is it like for a student to move through classes in a day at our school?
Time: 8:05 am
Place: San Marcos High School
Classroom: American Lit (11th grade English)
The school
bell rings at 8:05 am. Students rush into the classroom and take their seat. No
one wants to be the unlucky soul who walks in at 8:06 am and faces a period of LOCKOUT,
which means sitting in the library for the remainder of the period as
punishment for being late.
Once the
bell rings, I usually start class with the usual “Good morning students.” I am
standing at the front of the class and look out into a sea of a little less
than 40 students. I read the journal question of the day to the students and
ask them to answer in their journals. After students finish, I ask them to
share with a partner and may call on volunteers or randomly call a student to
share with the class. After the journal question of the day is done, I explain
what we are doing for the day and answers questions.
The
activities for the day may range from reading Inherit the Wind out loud as a class, working on grammar, reviewing
vocabulary, etc. In general, students in my class are encouraged to
participate. I do not like silent classrooms. Being a student in my class (hopefully)
means learning to feel confident enough with classmates and the teacher to
express any doubts, questions, or insights.
San Marcos
HS has short periods and two days of block scheduling a week. Students find
themselves quickly moving from period to period during the school day, perhaps
sharing about 1 or 2 classes with another classmate. Although English and
History are taught as a joint Humanities department, I do not know if students
immediately see the connection between the time period they are learning about
in History in the material they are covering in English. Nonetheless, the size
of the school allows the students to know many teachers and other classmates. Often
times, students are on campus longer than some of the teachers. Many students
participate in sports, are involved in after school club activities, or stay
for Knight Zone (tutoring/HW time in the library). They proudly identify as SM
knights.
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