Chapter 10!!! - Kathleen

Creative Connector

Pg 175 Yesenia to Mr. Michie about graduating the 8^th grade. “It’s not the same, Here I have friends who care about me, and teachers who support me. Out there – I cant do it. It’s going to be so different.”

            She’s right it is going to be different, and she has a right to be scared. Graduating college for me felt like that, uncertain of future, not knowing what will be coming down the line for me, knowing, as she did, that no matter how hard I’ve worked that I have to start all over from scratch now and once again prove myself to a new group of people. I was struck by how similar Yesenia’s story was to my own story of school life: getting sick and crying every day because of nerves, not liking school. She progressed faster than me, it took me until about freshman year of high school to be excited about school and eat breakfast before I went. I can imagine the thoughts flying through the heads of these graduates just like they were in mine at my college graduation. How far they’d come, how far they still have to go, what’s next, and how will I deal with it. In many ways these eighth grade students are more adult in their experiences than I am now, their worries for life are very warranted.

Pg. 177 “It had probably been one wrong answer that had been the difference between a 6.8 [failing] and a 6.9 [passing], between this kid watching his friends file past him and graduating along with them.

            How can it be that this student who works through his entire middle school career and be held back by .1 of a point. It doesn’t seem right. I look at the score 6.9 means that the student  was, according to the test’s makers who are never actual teachers but professional test makers,  performing at a level equivalent to the ninth month of sixth grade. I don’t know if I’m more upset that passing eighth grade is equivalent to over a full year less of work than the kids have done, or that this random, arbitrary number can determine a student’s future.

Pg. 186 “Teachers should be encouraging students, telling them, “You have this gift. You’re very good at this.” Then kids might see school in a different way.

            Its our job to not only teach students but create life long learners. It’s the difference between those who can say I learned this, and those who can say I learned this and here’s how I will use it, how it will help me, and what else I want to learn because of it. If we don’t encourage our students to see their unique talents, as we do, then no matter how hard we push them students will never achieve more than they think they can. Some may call self esteem, or a positive self image, “touchy feely” stuff and not see the value. If you look at students in a classroom and compare those who do well and enjoy learning and those who struggle often there is a correlation between how a student performs in a classroom and how they feel about themselves.

Essence Extractor:

It is important to celebrate positive milestones in a student’s life in order to encourage them to succeed again in the future.

End of Book Reflection:

Through this class and the exploration of this book I’ve come to be analyze my own teaching practices. I am challenged to face my thinking of urban schools, and address that since I have no direct experience in an urban setting that I do have misconceptions about schools like Quincy. I know that the experiences I’ve had with students in an urban setting are almost identical to those I’ve had in suburban settings, and I know and completely believe that kids are kids no matter where they come from. Whether about urban education, learners from various ethnic or religious backgrounds or students with disabilities I need to approach teaching, not with a deficit model of thinking, but rather asking what can students bring to the table.

I don’t know if my views have been changed, so much as cemented. I have no real experience teaching in an urban setting so many of the things discussed in Holler if You Hear Me I have never experienced first hand but the themes, the major thoughts brought up in Michie’s chapters easily relate to experiences that occur in every classroom. The more I read and the more I learn about other classrooms the vision of what I want to create for my own classroom becomes more and more clear. I want to teach my curriculum with relevancy to student experience, I want to give students a voice in class, to allow them to be teachers as well as learners. My goal is to create a space where students want to learn, where they feel valued and able to share their experiences and participate in the class learning. I understand that I come into the classroom as biased and that I need to continually challenge these biases, and work to create a classroom free of bias so that my students are learning material not my opinion. No matter who they are and what challenges they may face a student is a student and deserves my respect, attention and my concentration as an individual.