prompt 5

If I were the teacher in the classroom I tutor in, the language barrier between the parents and myself would be a big challenge.  The majority of the students in the classroom have difficulty speaking English, which is an indicator that the parents probably speak very little English if any at all.  I believe collaboration between teachers and parents is very important and furthers the students’ success in school.  In order to demonstrate respect for the families' culture and language, I would have an interpreter present during meetings and send letters home in the parents' language, but these are only temporary fixes for this dilemma.  To try to overcome this challenge long term as a teacher, I would attempt to learn the language as best as possible.  This can be done by taking classes or participating in or organizing an in-service.  For example, when I was a director for a school-age daycare, the majority of our families were Spanish-speaking.  My position required a great deal of collaborating with the parents, including tuition collection and a source of communication between the school and parents.  My colleagues and I took a class at CCRI that was organized just for my organization.  It was a five-week program to teach us business and daycare oriented Spanish.  Instead of the proper and grammatical aspects, this class focused on language we could actually put into practice, such as common phrases used to describe a student's performance and so on.  Participating in something like this would be very beneficial for teachers who don't speak Spanish and it could aide in collaborating with parents.

Prompt 3

As I mentioned in earlier blogs, I tutor in a sheltered english bilingual support kindergarten classroom.  I'm only in the classroom during reading time, so I've only observed how the teacher assesses the students for this subject.  Since the focus is on letter recognition, phonemic awareness, site words, and blending (reading by sounding out), the teacher assesses the students in a one-to-one manner on a 1-5 scale (1 being lowest level and 5 is excellent).  This approach is very effective for this type of skill content because the teacher has the opportunity to really see how the student is progressing and where the student needs more attention.  Many of the students require extra support and one-on- one time with the teacher, especially the students who are still learning english, and the teacher certainly makes time for those who need it throughout the day.

Prompt 2

According to infoworks, 78% of the students at Lillian Feinstein elementary school are Hispanic and 33% of the school's students receive ESL or bilingual education.  The kindergarten classroom I do reading buddies in is called a sheltered english bilingual support classroom. Both the teacher and teacher's aide speak spanish, along with the majority of the students in the classroom.  I believe all the students in this classroom, spanish speaking and non-spanish speaking, benefit from being in this type of classroom.  I feel that not only does the "bilingual support" help the spanish speaking students, but the non-spanish speaking students benefit from the interactions that take place in the classroom.  They learn different sociocultural characteristics and being introduced to the spanish language in connection with what's taking place around them, benefits these students greatly.  Living in such a diverse society, students in this classroom are already starting to develope the cultural capital required to succeed in our society.

Prompt #1

I was assigned reading buddies in a kindergarten class at Lillian Fienstien Elementary School.  The outside of the building is typical for a Providence school,  a beat-down brick building that doesn't appear too inviting for a child, but at least it has all it's windows in place. :)  (We'll ingnore the fact that it takes me ringing the doorbell several times before I can actually open it because it doesn't always unlock right away when they push the button.)  When you walk in the building, all you see is blue, blue floors, blue walls, etc. It looks kind of depressing. I think an elementary school should be more colorful and cheery for the students, but this school is not.  In their front corrider, the school has a wall to recognize their students. They post the student of the month from each classroom on it with the students picture, along with the entire class photo, which I thought was pretty cool.  On the other walls, there's sea life painted on them, such as a beluga whale and painted next to each creature has their name in english and in spanish.  In fact, every sign in the school has both english and spanish.  The classroom itself is set up how a usual kindergarten classroom is, with "stations".  For example, a circle table for puzzles, rug with bookshelf for reading area, another circle table for academic games, etc.  The classroom appears busy, meaning the walls are covered in signs and posters, but it doesnt seem to be really organized.   For instance, there's two alphabets posted (the kind with the letter and a picture of an object that starts with the letter), but they're on different walls. Maybe the teacher had a rationale behind doing that.  I just have always experienced designated areas on the wall for a particular subject so the students know where to look if they need help like a "word wall" and a "math wall", or something to that effect.  In the classroom and school itself, you can tell the students' ethnicity is well respected.  All the secretaries and assistants are all spanish-speaking.  The classroom I am in, the teacher and teacher's assistant is spanish-speaking. In fact, the classroom is called a "sheltered English bilingual support" classroom. And according to infoworks, 33% of the students in this school are recieving ESL/bilingual education.  The students even have a hard time with the fact that I don't speak Spanish.  If you think about it, they haven't had much experience in school only being in kindergarten. And with the faculty and staff speaking spanish, it must be odd to them that I don't.

Bio

Well what can I say about me... I currently work full time at Bradley Hospital on the Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities unit as a milieu therapist. As a milieu therapist it is my job to maintain a safe and theraputic environment for our inpatients, who are admitted to us due to aggressive and/or self injurious behavior. So if you see me in class with any bruises, scratches, or bites you know why. lol My job is very challenging and is definitely not for everyone, but I love what I do. I'm also taking classes at RIC to pursue a degree in special Ed, which has been taking me a long time, but, hey at least I'm still at it.