As per our certification requirement, we are required to visit schools and observe the students, the teacher and the techniques used in the classroom. I think it's safe to say that the most important thing we have to "look for" is diversity. In fact, if we don't write up an accurate and legitimate summary of diversity in the classroom, our grade suffers. How we define diversity in the classroom is usually by how the kids are seated, what's on the posters hanging up, or if examples of math problems include names like "Juan" or "Mohammed." Why don't we, as observers and future educators, ever question the assigned books for English or Language Arts classes?
The House on Mango Street was one of the books in high school that I always wanted to read, but just never got the opportunity to do so. I decided to put my adolescent wish to rest and read this first. What a great read! Since I already knew this week's theme was multiculturalism, I kept an eye out for that while reading. I really liked how the diversity was there, but the struggles that the characters dealt with was a bit more subtle. Not only was it subtle, but the problems weren't described in grave detail. It was treated more as observation. I liked this, but I felt like it put the character's story in a bit of a pickle. She wasn't getting enough credit in the text for what she actually had to experience. Also, there are multiple instances in the book where the characters speak Spanish, simply because they cannot formulate any English. This adds to the theme of multiculturalism, obviously, but it also connects to one of the articles we had to read: "Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard?
In this article, the author retells the story of her own childhood experience with English. More specifically, she writes how her English teacher in high school put her down for the way she spoke. The teacher does this by comparing the students in the classroom. Let me be honest here: if I was 15 years old and my teacher decided to classify me in the classroom based on my father's position in society, I reallllllly don't think I'd put up with that. The author stated something that made me think: "The real version of the melting pot is that people of diverse backgrounds are mixed together and when they come out they're supposed to look like Vanna White and Dan Rather. The only diversity we celebrate is tacos and chop suey at the mall" (100). From reading that, I got the overall impression that diversity stops when you get into the classroom. I'm sorry, but no. It shouldn't be that way, and as future teachers, we need to do everything we can to keep our classrooms diverse.
When comparing The House on Mango Street with this article, I found a lot of common ground. Between the two of them, it's important to recognize that the characters and the students alike are being punished for not speaking English. Even more than that, they're being taught to completely rid themselves of their inherent culture. I really appreciated how the author of the article allowed her students to write their own stories, complete with culture. The reactions of students to their peers' stories was incredible. That is kind of reaction we need to witness when we teach our students.
As teachers, we need to keep personal biases at the door and respect each of our students for whatever culture they represent. Having the students reach inside and write stories that retell their life experiences can help you connect to them and help them connect to the class. Since school is the place where these students will mold and shape their views of life, we need to make sure they're comfortable once they're out of the classroom. It's important for the teacher to help the student find their voice and hold it for years to come.
In a country that is constantly increasing in diversity, it is no surprise that classrooms are the same way. As teachers, we should appreciate this and consider it a great opportunity. We are able to learn from these students as well as teach them. What more could a teacher ask for?
Isn't it interesting that we need to make sure that our classrooms are diverse? Aren't they already diverse? Why don't we celebrate that rather than labeling differences as "diverse" and making them our focus. Maybe if we all just tried living together, working together, learning together, there wouldn't be a need for a word like diversity anymore. Our classroom would just be a classroom full of people with no labels where multiple cultures were represented naturally because we recognized people for just being people. I really hope we can get there one day. America has alot to learn!
ReplyDelete" . . . but the struggles that the characters dealt with was a bit more subtle. Not only was it subtle, but the problems weren't described in grave detail."
ReplyDeleteYes, I noticed this a lot, too. I think she left details vague because that was the life she use was living, what was normal to her. So she never really thought to scrutinize anything, because nothing that happened seem abnormal to her, really. Just the way if we write about a day-to-day experience in our life, and we just briefly recap a certain situation, somebody from another cultural background may read that and be like: "wait, what? how could he have said that so nonchalantly?! does he realize the possible implications tied in with that?!" -- or something to that effect.
I thought she was effective in her style.
I'm with Greta. I'm all for reading different things by writers who look different from us, but I think the fact that we're forced to focus on "diversity" in the classroom is beyond ridiculous. We should be looking for the different personalities, not the different appearances. We should be looking for the kid who doesn't want to learn, not the kid who has more pigment.
ReplyDeleteI think that diversity presents itself in many different ways and finding how each student is different will be difficult, but rewarding at the end of the day (or week, month, year...). I like how you bring up questioning the diversity of the literature that we study in our classes. I believe there is value in studying works that are written by authors of different backgrounds (whether it be racial or social) and that present themes that are also diverse. All of this is so fascinating and definitely makes me think more about being a teacher and how soon the future is.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your fifth section about the importance of a teacher's influence shaping a student. I can pick out a few teachers from high school that really encouraged me to find what I enjoyed and to not just follow the crowd, or be intimidated by what I did not know. In some of our students cases, it could be relating to students from different backgrounds and asking them to share their stories could be great ice breakers and lead them into finding connections in areas no one would have known.
ReplyDelete"The House on Mango Street" was one of my favorite assigned books in high school, however on a second read I picked up on things that I did not before. Yes, it is a multiculturally rich text; but doesn't it also introduce the exact stereotype that we are trying to avoid in our schools. An example of this is the chapter that tells the story of Esperanza's neighbor's cousin, who steals a car. So is this chapter signifying that all people of Esperanza's race steal cars, or that they live in run-down homes? Not quite, but to a 13 year old or even 15 year old reading this novel, it does. We really have to be careful and age appropriate with what multicultural texts we choose for our classrooms.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Greta. I'm all for reading different things by writers who look different from us, but I think the fact that we're forced to focus on "diversity" in the classroom is beyond ridiculous. We should be looking for the different personalities, not the different appearances. We should be looking for the kid who doesn't want to learn, not the kid who has more pigment.
ReplyDeleteI agree that our focus on diversity should be a focus not on skin color or language(s) spoken, but on individual differences. I wrote in another blog response that Harper Lee does a good job of stripping away racial differences in favor of character differences. There are good and bad characters, not black and white characters - for me, anyway. But the subtle differences in humans: the ways in which we interpret things differently, or learn differently, or remember differently - these are infinitely more interesting than the surface differences in appearance. They are what make our job more difficult - we have to teach to the very diverse student body we have in front of us, and even in an all-white or all-black school, those differences are there. But so are similarities, and this is actually a part of our job: to find those similarities so that the students engage one another and enjoy the material they are working with.