Entry # 4 3-2-1 on Principles and Frameworks

3 Ideas to Ponder

As someone with little classroom experience as an educator, I am wondering how much room is there in the curriculum in school today to apply the ideas we are learning in graduate school? Is there opportunity to put our own stamp on our teaching and on the school communities or are there pre-determined curriculums and methods that are required?

How do we overcome the deficit language in education when students are required to meet standards?  I have heard teachers refer to students as "low." In Chapter 2 of "Cultivating Genuis," Gholdy Muhammad (2020) discusses the danger of using labels. How do we meet standards and school expectations and avoid negative labeling?

After reading Chapter 1 of Tompkins' "Literacy for the 21st Century," (2017) along with "Cultivating Genius,"(Muhammad, 2020)  I am questioning how we can take all nine principles, the various education theories, and Gholdy's framework and combine that into one way of teaching.  I imagine for experienced teachers a system develops over time but as an education student it seems overwhelming.  

  2 Quotes of Inspiration

Culturally responsive teaching acknowledges the legitimacy of all children's cultures and social customs and teaches children to appreciate classmates' diverse heritages." (Tompkins, 2017, p.8) I found this quote to be relevant because culturally responsive teaching has been a part of every course that I have taken in graduate school and has risen to the top as one of the most important ideas to focus on as a future teacher. As humans we all want to be validated and for a student whose culture and primary language are different than the mainstream at school, demonstrating that they are valued must be the first step for them to be able to learn. I think that this also applies to any student who isn't part of the majority weather they are Black or Latinx and attend a majority White school or have mostly White teachers.  I have learned that as a White teacher, I have to recognize the privilege that comes with being White and be sure that I am making the effort to seek out the differences in all of my students and recognize the strengths that they bring to the classroom community.  In addition, as Dr. Ladson-Billings (2013) discusses in her lecture regarding culturally relevant pedagogy, for the students who are part of the majority, it is just as important that they learn cultural competence as well. 

"Nothing about cultural competence speaks to eradicating, replacing, or denigrating students' home culture." (Ladson-Billings, 2013)  After listening to Dr. Ladson-Billings and Gholdy Muhammad, I recognized the important nuanced difference between teaching everyone according to mainstream standards and teaching students how to be successful in both their family and home community culture and the mainstream world of school and business. Teaching a class of diverse students by seeing the value that each student brings and encouraging them to share who they are will improve the education and self-worth of every student as well as equipping them with the tools they need to thrive in a multicultural world. 

1 Commitment for the Future 

The most important commitment I can make to my future students and to myself is to be open to learning.  If I am able to recognize and be honest about what I don't know, then I will have the opportunity to learn from my students and other members of the school community and I will have the confidence to seek out those who can provide me with what I need to be a supportive and effective teacher of English Language Learners.  I have learned a lot over the past couple of years both from the awakening in our community about racism and from the engaging discussions in my education classes.  Once I am in a school environment on a regular basis, I hope that what I have come to recognize will be enhanced by my experiences in the classroom.  As I learned about how important it is for students to have teachers who look like them and are able to speak their language, I questioned if my becoming an ESOL teacher was the best thing for my students.  In talking with one of my professors who also works as an ESOL teacher, I came to recognize that a student who walks into a school where they have a teacher who cares about them, recognizes their value, and is open to learning more about them, is walking into a school where they can grow to feel safe and be successful.  

Entry #3 - Early Literacy and Me

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Entry #2 - First Experience with SQ4R

How did SQ4R help you to be aware of not only what, you were reading, but how you were reading?

Using SQ4R brought me awareness of how I was reading by requiring annotation. I was able to catch myself when my mind was wandering because I would get to the end of a page and realize I didn't use any sticky notes. This would force me to go back and reread the section and look for the main points.

By reviewing the article using SQ4R prior to reading, I had an idea of what was to come before I began. After surveying the text, the questioning step also gave me concepts to look for as I read. In addition, by using sticky notes as opposed to underlining or highlighting, I retained more information because I was writing it out which helps me to recall information better. I normally take notes in a separate notebook but by writing on the text itself, my notes were more connected to the actual text so I could easily find the section in the article that related to my notes when I was looking for more details. It also helped me to focus on one section at a time rather than looking at the article as a whole.

In what ways did using SQ4R help you be ready to participate in the Forum discussions with your peers?

The notes that I took as part of SQ4R prepared me for the Forum discussion by highlighting key ideas or points that stood out to me during the reading. I was also able to look back through the relevant sections and easily find the key point and the text that supported it. By having the notes right on the page as a reminder, it was easier to recall information from the text.

Moving forward, what habits might you need to build in order to help you have more ownership and become a more purposeful and creative reader of texts? What habits might you need to build in order to be prepared to engage in discussions with classmates about the texts you read?

Since I often have a limited time to spend on reading, I typically would skip some of these steps on my own, however by building in extra time prior to, during, and after reading, I think I will actually save myself time from having to go back and reread a section of text. By taking these extra steps I will retain more of what I read. Some of these steps initially felt a little awkward but should feel more comfortable as I practice the SQ4R method of reading.

I am interested in hearing from the class as to what others think being a creative reader means.

I have often felt that reading the questions that I will be expected to answer prior to reading helps me to know what to focus on. On the other hand, I also like to do the reading without looking at the discussion questions so I go into the reading without any preconceived ideas of what I will be expected to know. I think that SQ4R would support reading the discussion questions prior to reading the text as it would help define the purpose for reading.

Prior to responding to discussions, reviewing the questions created from the headings and subheadings and the notes that I took will help to have all of the content fresh in my mind as I engage with the material and my classmate's comments. I will also be able to quickly access information needed from the text as I participate in discussions.