Prompt #7

The experience of being a tutor at an elementary school has helped to shape my teaching identity. First, I did not know that I like to work so much with little children. I was a little apprehensive at first, because I had never tutored children from elementary schools, with the exception of my nephew. Second, I enjoy seeing the progress of my students; that is something rewarding to me. However, it is even more rewarding to help the children who struggle the most. Although, “Pepito” does not like to work in and out of school; it was great to see him working on some math problems, most importantly “see him trying”.

I am a patient person, but like everyone, sometimes it challenging to teach when I am frustrated with the student. One day I was frustrated with “Pepito” because he was being a little rude to me and did not want my help. That day, I could not work with him as I wanted because of my frustration. As I could see my frustration affecting my ablity to teach, I decided to discuss the incident with the math coach to get her guidance as a more experienced teacher. I asked her how she deals with students’ misbehaviors; she said that teachers need to have tough skin. It is true; one cannot let emotions take over when teaching. Otherwise, one may lose the ability to teach well.

I wonder how difficult it must be for a teacher who wants to help every single student, and knows that teachers can only do so much. That is why I believe that teachers need to work in a network of support with other teachers, administrators, and principals to reach common goals. Some of those goals could be decreasing the problems with bullying, trying to get involved parents in their children’s education, or just focusing on teaching respect and citizenship.  

I do not have a personal experience with curricula, but I have heard that some schools have strict a strict curriculum, particularly in math and English. I believe that having a strict curriculum and many deadlines can inhibit teacher’s creativity. As a future teacher, through my teaching, I would like the opportunity to encourage children’s creativity, and teach respect and while teaching the required content.

I want to teach not only academics, I want to make a difference. I believe I have the power to make a difference by teaching students about respect, or encouraging them to follow their dreams. I know that I have to learn many things to be a great teacher, but as Mike said “one needs to have an open mind and also sensitivity” to help students.   

Prompt #4

My perception of my school is that there are many poor and middle class students in it. I can share my middle class experiences with the students. Something that I can tell them is how hard I have worked in this country to learn the language and adjust to another culture. Hopefully that will help encourage my students to work even harder. I know that for some students it is difficult school because of poverty, lack of food and clothing, bullying, etc.  Those are some of the challenges that I as future teachers might face.

I think that because I am part of the Latino minority, some students somehow identify themselves with me. In this service learning I once tutored a boy who was Latino, and my other students have been African Americans. One day my Latino student and his cousin talked Spanish with me for a few minutes. I think that they were excited to see a Spanish speaker tutoring them in Math. I believe that I have things in common with my students such as our foreign cultural roots, learning English as a second language, learning about the American culture, and specially trying to belong to the “culture of power”. I believe that those are some advantages as a future teacher. Some things I could use to relate to all students are likes, dislikes, the media, and music, among others.  

Before I started doing my service learning, I had a couple of misconceptions. I thought that because I was going to work with fourth graders, things were going to be easy. I was wrong. Although I like children, they can be tough sometimes. My student “Pepito” got me frustrated a couple of times because he did not have respect for people, and did not want to do his work. I am inexperienced at working with children with behavioral issues. I try to help all students the best I can. Another misconception was that I thought I was going to be helping some children in Spanish, due to the fact that there are many Latinos in the district. I was wrong; the Latino students at my school spoke English better than Spanish, which is great so that they can succeed in the US.
       

Prompt #5

When I go to my school, one of the first things the math teacher does is to check for homework. I see her frustration because sometimes half of her class does the homework. The teacher has a system where children can earn little gifts at the end of the month, by completing a certain number of homework assignments. It seems that now it does not have a significant impact, because many students do not do their homework. Perhaps this system did impact students at first.

I try to talk with students to find out why they don’t complete their homework. In conversations one child told me that he takes care of his little sister after school, and another child told me that he does not do much after class because sometimes his parents are not home. My impression is that those children do not do their homework because they have to do things that shouldn't be doing as taking care of their little brothers and sisters. It might also be happening because some students' parents have to work a lot and do not have time for their children, or because parents do not know how to help their children.

To help increase the at-home study time, the math teacher has done workshops to teach parents multiplication facts and other math procedures; so that they can help their children. Unfortunately, there has been one workshop this year, and from seventy five parents only eight parents went to that workshop. This is unfortunate, because if parents do not make an effort to learn how to help their children, these children might not succeed by themselves in school and life.

I might face these types of challenges when teaching. If I do face those challenges, I believe I would try to learn more about students, why they do not do their homework, or why they do not seem encouraged by learning. Perhaps that would give me the answers to help those students. One of my tools is the language; I could communicate with the Latino parents and students in Spanish. As the math teacher did, I would try to get involved parents into their children's education. It could be difficult to do all those things due to the fact that a teacher can only do so much.     

Teaching videos

I thought that these videos were funny and/or interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmVOZ8WJKp4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HG5HqRW6Xw&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G1L-YpTXWs&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCN9zlrVgHk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvFNtoQS7Uk

Another visit to my Elementary School

I am getting to know the children in the math class. Some of the children seemed to be excited to see me and others were not, and that is all right. It is easier to work with the children who already know me. The children who I have been working with are African Americans and Latinos. Most of the times I tutor "Pepito", he is a smart kid, but has some behavioral issues and does not like to do his work. The teacher had already told me about this, before I started working with him. I think that because I have tutored him three times he is getting more comfortable with me. The biggest challenge for me is to get him to stay on task. He likes to play with his pencils and do math practices slowly. I know this, because when I see that he finishes a problem, many times he erases it. He tells me that his notebook is messy, and that's why he does it. I encourage Pepito to work and explain to him why it is important to do his math assignments. I wish I could do more for him. I need to stay positive because I have to help other children as well. I could see some frustration in the math teacher. She yells at the children sometimes. I do not like that, children deserve respect. Perhaps, she does it because she believes that children need an authority figure, I’m not sure. I just take notes, and try to help the children the best I can. 

Story "Wind-Wolf"

I think that this story is about culture and power. In this story, one realizes that a person from a different culture or background has to adapt to the culture of power. If he does not do it, the chances to succeed in the the culture of power would be low. The main character did not know that the way of writing and communicating are very important in our society.
This story relates to our class discussions, because we have been learning about the privileges that some groups have over others; and how those privileges affect us. As a person who comes from a different country, I also have had to adapt to the culture of power. It is not easy, but necessary. I believe that we as future teachers will see how students from other cultures struggle to form part of the American society.

Demographics, Post #2

I have to say that I had a great first experience when going to the school. I did not get a trainning at this school, and that was something that I was expecting to have before being a tutor. Anyways, after spending a few minutes with the fourth graders and the math teacher, everything became fun. The children were taking tests and I was assigned to help a couple of students to read questions. I also had encouraged them to answer most of the questions. It was funny because they asked me "is this the correct answer?". I had to tell them that I was there, only to help them understand the question, not to solve it. It would not have been fair to say "yes", even though I wanted to say so.
I was having such a good time that I lost track of time, and ended up being there for three hours. The teacher had told that I could stay all the time I wanted to, so there was no problem with that.
Let's talk about the school demographics. There are 50,5% females and 49.5% males. There are 5.5% Asians, 27.3% Blacks, 35.4% Hispanics, 0.8% Native Americans, and 31.0% Whites. Interestingly, the class I attended seemed to have mostly Blacks, and some Hispanics. The school has an enrrollment of 509 students.

Interestingly, I have only seen about three or four white students in my classes; they seem to be very friendly. Those four white students always say hello when seeing me and do all their work in class. During my visits to the school “MYHM”, I have only seen a child who seems Asian; he is bright and work hard, but I do not relate that to Asian stereotypes.