Teaching Tolerance

Multicultural Education 2120

            Personally, I will be using manipulates in my classroom all the time.  I am in a math class that shows us how to teach elementary and middle grades math.  The teacher makes sure we use manipulates every day and I have never been great at math now I understand everything much clearer because of the manipulates. I know I am a kinesthetic learner; I like to use my senses and work with my hands to figure out a problem.  I know when I am teaching these elementary students how to add and subtract integers I am going to use the manipulates for them to understand why they get the answer they do.  I know when I was being taught math my teachers gave us a rule and we memorized it and that is why we did it that way.  With the manipulates the students actually see and understand why the answer is what it is.  The Teaching Tolerance website has a lot of good magazines and books and I did find one teaching kit that I would really like to have in my future classroom.  The kit is called Starting Small and it is “designed for in-service programs, it is a training tool for early grades educators and its guided theme is peace, equity, and justice” (Teaching Tolerance, 1992). 

            In my classroom I want the children to be engaged at all times.  I had teachers who assigned book work just so we looked busy and it was absolutely miserable.  I want my children to want to learn and have fun while they are doing it.  I think this website is a great tool to find run and creative ways to engage my students and keep learning fun. 

Bibliography

Teaching Tolerance.  Southern Poverty Law Center.  1992.  http://www.tolerance.org/about

Obstacles within the Classroom

Multicultural Education 2120

           As teachers we will have students in our class who face all kinds of adversity and risks in their lives. It is our jobs as their teachers to make sure they health and taken care of.  Just a couple of risk factors they can be experiencing are individual, family, or problems within the community.  Some individual problems they could be facing is “parents lack of understanding the child’s needs, child maltreatment, substance abuse or mental health issues, parental characteristics such as young age and low education and nonbiological caregivers in the home” (CDC 2012).  Some problems a child might be facing within the home could be “social isolation, family disorganization, dissolution, violence and parenting stress, poor parent-child relationships, and negative interactions” (CDC 2012).  The last area they could be facing risks in within the community and some examples of that would be “community violence and concentrated neighborhood disadvantage like high poverty, residential instability, high unemployment rates and poor social connections” (CDC 2012). These are all just a few factors that can affect how our students grow up and act in the classroom. 

            In my opinion one issue that teachers are faced with now more than other generation is gang violence.  As a teacher you could have students involved in gangs and may not care about school work or think that it is important to get an education.  Also you could have students who are involved in different gangs and they may try to fight each other or prove which gang is the best.  Either way it is your job to be aware of the obstacles and know how to reach out to these kids even if they seem unreachable. 

Bibliography

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Violence Prevention.  April, 10,2012.

 http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childmaltreatment/riskprotectivefactors.html

Appalachian Region

 Multicultural Education 2120

For this week’s blog post I chose to look at a state in the Appalachian region, West Virginia.  Some of the stereotypes that are in the Appalachian region are names like hillbillies and mountaineers.  Some of the unique physical characteristics of states in the Appalachian region are it is very mountainous, hilly, and out in the country.  West Virginia is known for not maintaining the same amount of progress as the rest of the country educationally.  There are also states in this region that are known for being severally poor which also effects the type of education the children in this area will receive.  The schools receive a substantial amount of financial aid because this area is known for being so underdeveloped.  Schools in the Appalachian region also have some of the lowest school attendance records than other parts of the country.  The average teaching salary in West Virginia starting out is “$34,410 and it is ranked 44^th in the country for average salary (National Education Association, 2011).

If I was a teacher in this region the first thing I would focus on is getting the students attendance up.  If kids are not attending school it could mean they are not being engaged or challenged in the classroom. I would go over my lesson plans and make sure that they are having fun and also participating and hopefully that would solve the problem and make the kids want to come to school.  Also with it being severally poor you could have students who are not getting enough to eat, come from a broken home, or do not feel safe being at home.  As their teacher it is your job to get to know your kids and also know the needs they may need in their life and be there to help anyway possible. 

Bibliography

National Education Association. Teaching Portal. 2011.  http://www.teacherportal.com/salary/West-Virginia-teacher-salary

Religions

 Multicultural Education 2120

I chose to do my research on Buddhism because I have never met anyone who practiced this religion.  Buddhism was founded in Northern India by Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, and has spread into much of the far East.  It is also said to “currently have 376 million followers and is generally listed as the world’s fourth largest religion after Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism” (Robinson, B.A, 1996-2011).  One of Buddha’s major teachings is called the four noble truths.  The four noble truths are “there is suffering, there is cause for suffering, there is cessation of suffering and there is a path leading to the cessation of suffering” (Robinson, B.A, 1996-2011).  The main purpose of Buddhism is the attain enlightenment.  Siddhartha came up with eight things that will help you attain enlightenment.  The eight ways are “understand wholesome and unwholesome deeds and Karma, the intention of non-greed and non-hatred, abstaining from malicious speech, abstaining from killing and stealing, abstaining from corrupt means of livelihood, sustaining a wholesome state, the four foundations of mindfulness and abandoning the five hindrances.” (Robinson, B.A, 1996-2011) 

  Having students in your classroom that believe in different religions comes with many challenges and benefits.  One challenge would be that the child may be picked on for being putting his faith in something different.  Also there could be fights or arguments break out because the students do not agree with what he says is right.  However a benefit could be the students may have never heard of Buddhism and he could teach the class something new and interesting.  If I had a child who was Buddhist in my class I would accommodate specifically for his needs. If there was a certain activity he could not participate in then I would find something else that was also pertaining to our lesson but that he do

Bibliography

Robinson, B. A. (1996). Religions of the world. [Buddhism, based on the teachings of Siddartha Gautama]

Languages

Multicultural Education 2120

               1. In my opinion these programmatic decisions should be based on what the children’s needs are at the school.  If there is a school with a majority of Hispanic kids then they should be put in a program to where they can learn the material for they need for class and also learn English.

               2. Some of the attacks on bilingual students are justified.  I know where I went to school even if some of the kids were in an ESOL class they would speak English in the class but throughout the rest of the day they would speak their native language.  Also test scores for immigrant children are low and the dropout rates are high.  These are some of the reasons why people think are ESOL and other programs should not be part of our curriculum.  In my opinion I still think these programs should be in our schools maybe we just need a change in how they are run to make a difference in the test scores, grades, and students themselves.  

              3. Even though I think that these programs are needed in the schools some researchers would tell me I am wrong.  An article written by Education Week states that, “Nationwide, only 12 percent of students with limited English at or above proficient in mathematics in the fourth grade on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress compared with the 42 percent of students not classified as English language learners” (Editorial Projects in Education, 2011).  If we still want these programs to be part of the schools then there needs to be a serious change in how we teach these kids because if the test scores do not get better they may get rid of the programs all together. 

Bibliography

      Editorial Projects in Education. (August 4, 2004). English-language learners.      www.refworks.com/refworks/