Holiday Believes

Holiday Believes

My mission in this Holiday Season has been to educate my students about the major Holidays in December: Ramadan, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas. By educate I mean I have tried my best to explain what each holiday is and the traditions behind it. I always look for books, videotapes, and creative arts and so on in order to teach my 1st graders the meaning behind the Holiday. I enjoy having the freedom in the school that I teach at to be able to educate my students about variety of cultures and believes, which I believe is very important for all students.
Recently I had a very unique experience at my after school program with the 3rd grade group that I teach. We were talking about Hanukkah and after I was done reading a book about it, we were getting ready to move on to a Hanukkah activity I had prepared for the class. While everybody was engaged in his or her activity work, I saw that one girl sitting on her chair and trying to scratch off the Star of David out of her activity paper. I asked her why she is doing that and she said that her family would not be happy if they saw the Star of David on her writing paper. I was very surprised by her answer so ask why that is, she said that it is because of their religion. Then I asked what religion she is and she said Mormon. I felt like I had to say something to her about being able to except all people and having an open mind and willingness to learn about cultures and so I told did. But then I thought to myself that it was not her fault that her family was close minded, she was just part of the family and she was brought up with certain values, which might be racist and discriminatory but she was just trying to protect her family from being upset; or she was just trying to protect herself. I also told her that she could decide whether or not she would like to take that paper home or leave it in the classroom before she goes home. She made the decision to take it home.
I feel very proud that the education system in America is doing their best to teach children about variety of world traditions and celebration. I am proud that I was able to educate a student like the girl in my 3rd grade group that would have not been exposed to Hanukkah and Jewish believes at home.

Poor Schools vs. Rich Schools Achievement

Poor Urban School’s Academic Achievement vs. Suburban Rick School’s Achievement

Our in class discussions on Tuesday night has led me to think more about poverty in our school system. I am not talking about the background of the students who attend our schools, I am talking about the poverty within the school district or particular school building.
I remember watching a special on Oprah in regards of the reasons behind low test scores in Urban Schools and the reasons behind Urban student’s lack of preparation for college. I remember she compared the test score of students who attended a poor Urban Chicago High School to the test scores of students who attended a rich Suburban Chicago High School; the schools were located within miles of each other. Oprah stated that the graduate rate from both High Schools was pretty high. She also stated that the rate of students who continue on to college from both schools was very high. The only difference was that students from the Urban Chicago school did not feel prepared for college and were failing their Sophomore year in college.
Oprah took a group from the Suburban school students and brought them over to the Urban school for a day. The camera crew and the students went inside the Urban School and filmed how the school looked and functioned within the school day. The Suburban High School students were amazed to see the condition that the school building was in. The painting on walls was falling; the ceiling was cracked; the bathrooms were dirty and not taken care of. The school did not have a computer lab nor did it have gym. The Urban school students were using very old textbooks and the teachers were the once providing the reading materials for their students.
Then Oprah took a group of the Urban students and brought them over to the Suburban School to see how a school day goes on there. The students got teary when they saw all of the privileges the Suburban students had. They had three different computer labs, with bright new computers and software. The school had a large gym, with separate swimming pool and basketball courts; tennis courts; football courts. The students were using new materials and technology was available for each classroom.
When I watched the show I couldn’t help but wonder why is there such a big cap between those two schools? The reason behind the differences of student preparation for college were obvious to me. The Urban students had less resources available to them and that is why their preparation for college in comparison to the Suburban students was lacking. The question that remains is why our government allows such differences to exist? Why are our Urban students left behind? Is there a way out or are we letting our next generation suffer because of our ignorance?

Steps for learning a second language

Steps for learning a second language
This past week we had an awesome in school training about English as a second language teaching strategies and English Language Learners myths vs. truths. One of the myths that we discussed was that the process of learning a second language for a child is the same as the process of learning their native language. We argued and discussed that the steps for learning a second language as a child and even an adult are the same as the steps everyone of us had to take in order to learn our native language. The conversation got headed up because my co-workers and I were thinking beyond the spoken language; we talked about the learning of the English language grammar, phonemic structure as well as the pronunciation and reading.
English is my second language, I speak fluent Bulgarian which was my native language, but in the same time right now I am in the process of learning Spanish which would be my third language. Based on my language exposure and experience I felt like I can speak about whether or not the steps for leaning different languages have been the same or different within my personal experiences. I have noticed that as I am learning Spanish right now the steps that my brain follows tend to be similar to when I was first learning English. First I was able to understand English before I could speak it, I am noticing the same pattern with Spanish now; I understand Spanish better than I could speak it. After I learned to understand English very well than I felt more comfortable speaking it and eventually I was able to lean the grammar and structure of the written English as well. I am noticing that learning Spanish now comes in the same order for me. I am starting to slowly feel comfortable understanding Spanish and I am hoping to soon get to the point of being able to talk back in a conversational Spanish. I shared that experience with my co-workers and some of them disagreed that the brain follows the same steps for each language.
The point of that ELL training was to understand what kind of struggles and steps our ELL students are going through in order to be able to learn English as their second language. I thought it was beneficial to know that learning a language take five years and that there is no way for us as teacher to speed up the process, even though many of us might want to try to do so.