Where I am From

Jonathan Fansler

02-12-13

Inclusive Classroom Practices

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Being a Culturally Responsive Teacher takes a lot of work to achieve, and has many different angles to do so. As teachers we have to be aware of everything that can affect the classroom and its students, and one of these things is language. Language is a powerful tool and those who use it the most affective are the ones that succeed. Purcell-Gates points out that people from lower economic status, whether it is from impoverished countries or other places tend to have more trouble with literacy than those from higher economic status.

Many teachers today that have students who don’t succeed at the rate at which the teachers believe they should get frustrated with the child. The teacher then begins to stereotype the children and say that the reason they can’t succeed as well as they should is because of where they are from or because of their socioeconomic status. These stereotypes are known the Cultural Deficit Model where the teacher sells the child short. The way to remedy this is to try harder to find or create ways to better relate to the child and then to also get the parents or guardians of the child involved because it will be hard for the child to learn at a successful rate without the help of people at home.

It can be difficult to overcome Cultural deficit problems in a classroom, but there are some ways to do so. Perhaps and approach could be like Hilda’s approach from the Moll study and build units around what the students interest are because students learn better when they are interested in something. Therefore the key concept that jumps out at me is making the students interested. When they are interested they are more engaging.

The Where I am From project was a very meaningful and helpful project. It allowed each person to see where people come from and get a general idea of what the person is like and therefore provides a reference of how to relate to them. Therefore if we as teachers were to use this in the classroom it would provide a good resource for community building in the classroom. Perhaps divide into small groups and play the videos in that group and allow the activity to be an icebreaker so that students can learn about each other. Also as teachers we can use these videos as a way to know where the student is coming from and can learn enough about them to be able to better relate to them in the classroom and provide a more meaningful learning experience.

I believe that in the classroom Standard English should be the standard. However, I don’t believe we should dismiss students who don’t. We should work with them and bring them along until they can write Standard English proficiently. Students will not learn properly until they can write and speak the language proficiently and it is our job as educators to make sure they can do this.

The Story of Me

I am from a the base of the Sauratown mountains, the only chain in the U.S. to start and end in the same county, and from trees so beautiful in fall that you forget everything and just stare.

I am from the small white house in the back of a small development.

I am from the place of beautiful trees and good weather year round.

I am from competition and from the idea that hard work will always pay off.

I am from Fansler and from Amen, from the concept of always finishing and never accepting losing and from always putting God and family ahead of everything.

I am from the food lovers and sports fanatics.

From a family that will always be there for me and from friends whom I can trust my life with.

I am from belief in God and faith that His plan will always shine through no matter what the storm.

I'm from Foothills of the mountains and from 4 generations of North Carolinians, and from Mac and Cheese and big juicy steaks.

From a family where sports have traveled up the lineage for years, and from many afternoons and nights of working on Baseball with my dad.

I am from the South, from warmer weather, from people with warm hearts and from a family that spent their time on me!

Best and Worst WebQuests

The best to me was the Ice Cream Webquest because it had a great color scheme and it grabbed my attention very well; also it is a very fun topic that will make it intersting in itself. Also the oricess is mapped out well with the steps explained well. The next best one was "Where is My Hero." This one was interactive and had a fun topic. Also, the topic itself promotes good people skills. The worst were would have to be "Grow Schools Green" because it is bland and it isn't very appealing to make students interested in it. The next worst would be Underground Railroad because it isn’t interactive enough and the way it is written just seems like it was thrown together and not enough thought was put into it. The best and the worst just simply mean to me which ones have the most thouoght put inot them and which ones jump out at me and are appealing, are interactive and have good links to the necessary information, and the ones that are written well for the students to understand what their task is.

Worksheet for Webquest

Social Networking for Sex-Offenders

This article talks about the law passed in Illinois that put an end to registered sex offenders from having social network pages such as Facebook and Twitter. Magid uses very good evidence to support his argument; he says that only very few cases where adults have sexual relations with a teen, and he also says that most of the kid online behavior is kid-to-kid. Magid, the writer, chose a very touchy subject to write on, and to most people it would seem absurd to even write about much less support, but he does both. I commend him for his resolve and he uses very good evidence to back up his argument. While he does present good evidence for his position, I have to disagree with his position. I think that the more access to minors you take away from a predator the better society and minors will be protected. In the past week we have seen through Penn State that sex offenders need to be stopped and limiting their social media access can aid this.

Wikipedia, Good or Bad?

When I began to read this, one thing that stuck out to me was that no one ever really praises the idea of a free encyclopedia so that people will be able to learn better. Almost all of the feedback is negative and talks about how uncredible the articles are because anyone can add things to Wikipedia. Another thing that I learned is that people actually post innacurate information just to prove that Wikipedia isn't a credible source, and they call this "Wikiality." Another thing I learned is that the one of the ways teachers might be able to use Wikipedia in the classroom is by using it as a starting point to jump into more intersting topics. A fact that really entrigued me is that Wikipedia is constantly changing and evolving and it also is a great tool to get to credible sources because of the Hyperlinks to credible sources when the Wiki article has its sources listed. Another intersting topic that I took form this is that there are some areas where a Wiki article is better than a is better than a regular encyclopedia because it is better research because of the hyperlinked footnotes and the debatable topics referenced right below it for essay access to learn about it. The one question I do have is How do you totally get rid of false information while still allowing open access to anyone?

This sight here What is Research? is a grea sight for to look at. It talks about the crediblity of Wikipedia from a guy who has wrote on Wikipedia a few times.

Citations

Crovitz, D. & Smoot, W. (2007, November 21). Wikipedia: friend, not foe. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/archival/EnglishJournalArticle2.pdf

http://whatisresearch.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/wikipedia-criticism-and-why-it-fails-to-matter/