Prompt #7 - Farewell to Pineapple Elementary

There is no doubt in my mind that this experience has shaped my identity as a future teacher. This was my first experience volunteering in a school setting and although I was nervous at first, I was lucky enough to have a friendly, caring teacher to work with each week. Through many conversations with Ms. Apple* I came to see that she truly cares about each and every one of her students. Even though she has to reprimand them from time to time she was constantly telling me “I am so lucky, this class is great, they really are great kids”. Her sincerity was clearly evident.
One of the main eye-opening aspects of this service learning experiment was how to relate to the students and guide them in the right direction so they can meet their goals independently. At the beginning of my time at Pineapple Elementary* I was quick to help the students with spelling and sentence structure, but towards the end I realized that with the right amount of suggestion and persuasion they were very capable of completing their work on their own. I was under the impression that students needed a lot more guidance than they sometimes actually require.
I loved getting to know some of the students and even began to be able to predict how they would act and what assignments they always loved to neglect! It gave me a real sense of connection to teaching and made me feel like I could have a space in this profession.
In some of my last conversations with Ms. Apple* she brought up the topic of keeping students back a grade instead of forcing them ahead when they don’t have the basic reading skills they need. She told me that the principal frowned upon letting the kids stay back in first grade, and the result was that students were coming to her in second grade way below level and she was left with the responsibility of getting them through two grade levels worth of material. She spoke with such passion and concern over the fact that her students’ educations were being jeopardized. She wasn’t concerned about the workload that was being placed on her shoulders, but instead was focused on the fact that her students couldn’t receive the extra attention they needed from her because there simply wasn’t enough literacy time built into the day.
No matter where I end up teaching I know that I will be faced with challenges that may weigh me down and cloud my vision with stress, but I hope I am able to maintain the same kind of commitment and enthusiasm that Ms. Apple* possesses.

Prompt #6

Each student comes to school equipped with a slightly unique set of vocabulary. Their early childhood surroundings shape the way they process information, how they express what they have learned and where they are have difficulty. In order to be able to respond to and reach each child the way you communicate needs to be altered.
I hate to keep quoting Lisa Delpit, but her article “The Silenced Dialogue” continues to be oh-so relevant to my service learning experience! When she explains that authority is expressed in different ways for children from African American homes than from White homes, I began to think about how a teacher might address both forms of communication. Ms. Apple*, the teacher in my classroom, uses a firm, direct command when she wants a student to get to work or stop their bad behavior. I think it is a successful way to communicate, because every type of student can comprehend a direct demand. Even though a white student may feel like the command is harsh, because they are used to indirect commands (as Delpit notes), they are still very capable of following the concise direction.
Sometimes Ms. Apple* uses students who are working quietly as a positive example to get her other students to behave. Pointing out and rewarding their good behavior by saying “Wow, I love how Billy* is working independently and quietly” sends a message to the other students that they should be doing the same. This type of communication may be indirect, but it is common in the Elementary school setting and is an important concept for each of the students to understand. They quickly learn that they should be doing the same thing as the “good” student if they want to earn the teacher’s praise.
Ms. Apple* uses another form of communication that is easily understood by each of the students in her classroom. A stern and steady glare at a misbehaving student is often all they need to quiet down and jump right back into their seats to continue their work. It basically never requires an extra verbal command and is an interesting transfer to watch. It still amazes me that authority can be exercised through just a look!
Occasionally there are words that come up in books or other readings that may be familiar to one culture but are unrecognizable to others. Earlier today, while I was monitoring the classroom and answering questions, Billy* asked me what the word “prairie” was and what it meant (he was reading a book based around a boy and his farm). If he had been raised in the farmland area of the United States he would have already come across this word, but growing up in a city, such as Providence, meant that he had not yet had an experience with the word. Little instances like that are clear indicators that we cannot assume that every student enters the classroom equipped with the same bank of knowledge. Students should feel comfortable, like Billy was, with asking questions about words or concepts they don’t recognize, even if their fellow classmates already know it.

Prompt #4

I am lucky enough to say that I have been blessed with the privilege of growing up in a loving, supportive family. Although my father passed away when I was nine years old, my mother provided for us, both financially and with the love we needed to prosper. Unfortunately, not all children are afforded the same luxury, and I have realized that I am responsible for taking any differences between my future students and I into account.
In my experiences at Pineapple* Elementary school I have seen students from a socioeconomic and sociocultural background that I was not previously familiar with. Many of the students are below the poverty line, and although I don’t know the specifics of their home lives, I have noticed that several students don’t come in with homework completed and sometimes appear to not have showered recently. Instead of judging the students and their parents for what I would have usually called “neglect”, I took a moment to think deeper about their situations.
Looking back on the article we read by Lisa Delpit, I began to think about the root of the issues that may have lead to the families’ poverty. The blame cannot be placed on the parents because as she points out, “if the parents were members of the culture of power and lived by its rules and codes, then they would transmit those codes to their children”(Delpit 7). Instead of focusing on what the parents could have or should have done to prepare their children for success, we should move on and focus our attention on helping the students understand the material in whatever way they can comprehend it. Even though I don’t understand what their childhood feels like or what experiences they have had to endure, I will know how to reach them and allow them to express their emotions through artwork. The students can easily integrate their own cultures into their artwork so that they understand their individuality is valued and respected.
I wouldn’t have classified my thoughts as “misconceptions”, but I realized I may have had some prejudice against the ethnicities of the students in the classroom when I found myself surprised at their diligence. I guess I expected that the majority of the students would be unfocused, perhaps slightly lazy, but I found that it had nothing to do with a particular ethnicity but with the individual student. I was happy to see one especially focused Latina girl whose eyes lit up when I mentioned her consistent hard work, and encouraged her to keep working hard so that should could go to a school like RIC one day. I realized that just because she may not live in a community with as much privilege as I grew up in, she still values her education and has solid goals. Each student has a unique experience and background, but school should serve as the great equalizer, where each individual deserves and receives the same amount of respect and attention so that they have the same opportunity to prosper.

Prompt #3

The teacher I work closely with has to assess the reading comprehension of her students on a bi-weekly basis. The process is extremely regimented, with testing results plugged into a Palm Pilot and sent off to be processed with the school’s official records. This technique makes it impossible for the teacher to adjust her assessments in order to respond to the linguistic, ethnic and sociocultural differences among her students.
The Palm Pilot testing leaves no room for a variety of learning styles, much like the standardized tests that have engulfed the world of education. I understand its convenience in terms of less paperwork and faster, easier grading, but it seems like a harsh approach.
After discussing these issues with my sister and mother (both teachers) I came to the conclusion that there are certain tasks that need to be committed to memory in order for any student to move forward and achieve a higher level of success. Much like Lisa Delpit discusses, there is a “culture of power” and we are responsible, as educators, for providing our students with the necessary tools to participate in this “culture of power”. One of the fundamental tools they need is a firm and complete grasp of reading and writing. Although the teacher I have been volunteering for doesn’t enjoy seeing her students struggle to meet the reading goals that have been set for them, she understands that they will be in far more trouble if they are not forced to learn the skill set. As she recently said in class, “I promise you, in third grade your teacher will not do the reading for you, so if you don’t get it down now you’ll be out of luck”.
Unfortunately in her classroom there is not much focus on the importance of their own unique dialects, cultures and, in some cases, the different languages that they speak at home. Lisa Delpit points out that we should not dismiss their rich and diverse cultures as useless, but incorporate their diversity into the basic skills they must learn. I believe even with the best intentions, teachers may find it difficult to find the time to explore their student’s diversity because they are so pressured to have their students on a certain level of achievement by a certain date.

A First Impression (Prompt #1)

Directly adjacent to the gated entrance of Pineapple* Elementary School is a low-income housing development. I must admit that this first impression shook my nerves and made the experience of my first visit to an urban public school a tension filled one. After pushing my nerves aside I was delighted to enter a clean, brightly painted elementary school lounge smelling of fish sticks, the special of the day. The empty hallways suggested a controlled environment with little allowance for aimlessly wandering students. The few faces I came across, both young and adult, were friendly and responsive to my warm “hello!”s.
Upon entering the classroom of the district’s Literary Coach, Ms. Apple*, I was greeted by the positive sounds of one of my favorite dub reggae artists, King Tubby. Ms. Apple was in the middle of a meeting with a few of her colleagues and was playing the music quietly. I immediately felt more at ease, a feeling that grew as soon as she introduced herself to us (several other VIPS volunteers had also met in her room) with a big smile. Her enthusiasm and gratitude about our participation in the Reading Buddies program showed me that she truly cares about the education of the students she helps.
During Ms. Apple’s brief explanation of the Reading Buddies program, the principal of the school dropped by and also expressed gratitude at our volunteer work, which further affirmed my idea that this school was invested in the intellectual growth and success of their students.
Once I was introduced to the teacher and classroom I would be working with, (Mrs. Banana’s* 2^nd grade class) I sat back and observed the group reading/singing activity they were doing. The students sat, legs folded, in rows on a carpet and followed along with a large book and sang the words accompanied by an audio tape. I noticed that the students sitting towards the front of the carpet, closest to the teacher and the book, were most attentive and actually sang along, while the students in the back barely sang and began to lose interest. Mrs. Banana asserted authority when the kids got rowdy by positively reinforcing the behavior of the students who were seated calmly. “I love how nicely Joey* is sitting quietly and I didn’t even have to ask him” she would say, which quickly prompted several other students to follow suit.
Throughout the rest of my first day (which involved mostly observation) I noticed that Mrs. Banana continually went back to commenting on the behavior of certain well behaved students when she wanted others to quiet down. She sometimes resorted to warnings of recess being removed, but most often her positive reinforcement alone led to the improved behavior of the rest of the classroom. I can tell that Mrs. Banana values order and wants her students to remained focused so that she can effectively teach her lessons. After speaking privately with Mrs. Banana about the specific intellectual hurdles some of her students face, it is clear that she has passion and is genuinely interested in helping her students’ progress. Her reluctance to have her students split up into other classrooms (based on their reading level) for the Reading Buddies program reaffirms her sincere affection for her students and her concern for their development. I am lucky and thrilled to be placed in a classroom with an enthusiastic and caring role model.

*names have been changed in order to ensure privacy

All about me!

My name is Christine Woolbright, I'm a sophomore here at RIC and hope to be an art teacher in the near future! This semester is going well so far, I'm in two studio art courses and two education courses. My passion is ceramics, but when I'm outside of class I love being in the gym or swimming, preferably in the ocean! Hope to get to know all of you better as the semester progresses!