Wow what a class! Thanks for all the great discussions, reflections, ideas and stories. I went home very tired but it was a good kind of tired. I hope you all felt the same. For this week's reflection take a global approach and discuss what gained from the presentation, readings, and class conversations. Remember to try to apply your learning to your classroom practices. Thanks again,
Skip
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Hi everybody,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Skip that last night was full of great presentations and discussions. I am going to buy the book that Ray mentioned and obviously uses a lot in his classroom, 99 Ideas and Activities for Teaching English Language Learners. Melanie really helped me understand some of the frustrations that ELL experience on a daily bases. I also appreciate her honesty of experiencing prejudice comments first hand. The SIOP model that Jill presented is very interesting. I think the teaching suggestions can also be applied for kids with learning disabilities. The article that I read is called” Understanding Prejudice, Tips for Elementary School Teachers” http://www.understandingprejudice.org/teach/elemtips.htm - Google Search (I’m sorry this link won’t be active). Watching the OLPC video really inspired me. My husband has a solar start-up business and this video gave me some good ideas of how we can do mission work in the future. Seeing how the little lap-tops really do translate into education gives me a lot of hope. I hope that technology can help bridge the gap for ELL students and create a better awareness and acceptance of multiculturalism.
Have a great week. -Diane
Hola a todos,
ReplyDeleteI think I just said, “hello everyone”
It is amazing how much I am growing, thinking and learning. Tuesday’s topic, multicultural classrooms, was something I always worried about while living in Bend.
When planning my kindergarten “themes” I see that it is vital to look at the whole world and not just our white, western ideals. The presenters did a great job and I enjoyed hearing about SIOP and realizing that I can’t do this for every lesson, but I can begin to build this into some of my plans. I want to personally thank Melanie for bringing this reality home freely offering her personal reflections! I also want to thank Skip for always bringing it back to technology and making me realize I have the power, if I am not afraid.
Today in my classroom I read an African Fable. After I orally read the title (while they viewed the cover) I asked thee children where they though the setting was and about the main character (as I do with all books) and only one child was able to guess Africa. They seemed puzzled and yet very interested.
I personally spent almost 4 weeks in Africa (not your normal honeymoon) and began to understand and appreciate diversity!
Have a great week and I on Saturday I am going to take my twin to the third annual inter-cultural exchange held in Redmond.
Amy
As Skip stated in his post, I too went home tired. It was a night full of thought-provoking information. There are many ideas to think about and our discussions were very inspiring. One of the things that I did today, after tweaking my original plans, was to hook Google Earth up to my presentation station and my kindergarteners and I traveled the world. Of course we had to go to Madagascar, because of the movie, and one of our other stops was China. I have four girls who were adopted in my room so China as been a frequent reference point for us.
ReplyDeleteWe started our day by reading the book Whoever You Are by Mem Fox (an idea inspired by Melanie) and tied it to some writing we did about how we could help the Earth. One of my kids wrote. “I can help the Earth by helping people when they get hurt.” Then, totally coincidentally, we had a doctor come to our neighborhood, for community time, and show pictures about his travels through Congo a few months earlier. My kids were completely interested because of the discussions that we had earlier in the day about helping the Earth and all the different people. It was awesome! Some of the pictures were very gory plus the doctor was very specific, but with the groundwork we did on the computer, the discussions from our read-aloud about people and the writing of the kids, we were enthralled and it was excellent eye-opening learning. It was a great day.
Like Diane said, I will be purchasing the book that Ray talked about. It appears to be an excellent resource. I believe the methods of SIOP are Best Teaching Practices and I am positive that Ray’s resource will be very helpful in the classroom. I really would encourage everyone to take the SIOP training. Here’s the website for more information: www.siopinstitute.net
Ray, thank you also for making me think about Interactive Writing again. I know that sometimes I get into a pattern about how I do it and you’ve given me some more good ideas. ☺ I appreciated the photos of your class. That is always fun to see each other’s classrooms. Thanks for sharing yours.
Melanie, I appreciate how you shared your talent in Spanish. It was so beautiful to hear you read the story. I will think about the books that I purchase for my classroom and boost my multicultural collection. I love to buy books and now I have a new reason. Thank you for sharing your passion for multicultural classrooms. Your passion is contagious and I am glad to have caught it.
I look forward to next week and while all the discussions are exhausting and somewhat draining, I am thankful for all of you taking this class seriously. Every week I walk out thinking, “Wow! That was amazing!” Followed closely by, “How can I use that tomorrow?” See you all Tuesday!
<3 Jill
I left class Tuesday night, my mind whirling with thoughts and ideas. I have to say, I am really getting a lot out of our discussions. Each of you bring to class your own unique perspectives and experiences. It has challenged my own thinking. I also feel like I am getting to know you all a little better. It was fun to see the picture of Ray’s little girl, and I appreciate the honesty and openness of Melanie’s own personal story. Don’t you think that if we would truly take the time to listen to, and appreciate each other and our students in meaningful ways, we might avoid some of the pitfalls of cultural misunderstanding? Sometimes I get so busy with all of the assessment, planning, preparation and management, that I forget I have unique little people in my class, with their own special stories and perspectives.
ReplyDeleteSee you soon,
Jessica
Ciao a tutti! (Hello everyone in Italian!)
ReplyDeleteThat was a great class on Tuesday. I would like to thank everyone for being so willing to share their thoughts and experiences. This going to be a fun two years. I really liked what Melanie said about encouraging her students to speak Spanish in class and also how she encourages parents to read to their kids at home in their native language. Research shows that learning to read first in your native language really helps with learning to read in a second language; basic reading skills transfer easily into the “new” language. On Tuesday during my presentation, I am going to talk about an after school, native language literacy program that a teacher is doing in Redmond. She really feels that this literacy program is a major factor in her students’ success. I look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday. Enjoy the nice weather this weekend! Caitlin.
I had such an honor to present to you all on Tuesday and share my passion with you, thank you for being such a great, open group of professionals in which I feel free to be honest and open.
ReplyDeleteIt was fun to revisit and review the multicultural aspects of a classroom. I enjoyed getting a great review on SIOP. I encourage all of you who are new to SIOP to take little steps in trying it out! Ray thank you for sharing your classroom and ideas with us. I love how excited you get when talking about educating your students.
I have really been watching my students this week and the way they interact with each other and notice their differences. My challenge is to embrace those kids who hear and see that they are different from their peers and celebrate that with them. It is always saddening and hard when comments from home and parent opinions come into our classroom communities. I hope that together we can change the opinions of yesterday to new thinking, a greater future for our students.
-Melanie Kent
As a delightful side effect of our class, my mind has been racing with many different thoughts and ideas about working with ELL students, learning disabled students, and multiculturalism. As I mentally work through and process the information we’ve been learning and relearning through presentations, articles, books, and our conversations, I love thinking about overarching themes of effective teaching. What really are the nuts and bolts of a master teacher? (Clearly, sharing and caring are a few of them.) Below are just some of my thoughts and conclusions:
ReplyDeleteMelanie’s presentation and sharing is a point in fact of why it is important to share. If we didn’t share, how could we learn? It is so much harder to “reinvent the wheel” for a solution to each problem, rather than building upon one another and improving the “roll of the wheel.” In our flattening world, expanding population, and increasing speed of our daily lives with technology, we have to work together to survive. (It’s a no brainer.)
Thankfully, at the heart of families and schools are our children and their future. It doesn’t matter what learning profiles students have in our schools. What matters is that we do our jobs and make connections with our students, as well as, include them on our teams. I think that it is awesome that using techniques such as SIOP, Multiple Intelligences, Bloom’s Taxonomy, etc…benefits everyone in the classroom, not just the ELL, learning disabled, or TAG kids. It shows these strategies are effective and motivating.
In one of my 4th grade classes, they just read “The Thief Lord” by Cornelia Funke. The kids loved it. This round I decided to let them choose an historical fiction book to give them some control--like we discussed. They thought that was great, and have picked some good books. Plus, they’re now getting non-fictional books to learn more about that time period.
I’ve really been enjoying their enthusiasm for their stories. They love telling me what’s happening in their books and have all kinds of great questions. One student is reading about life in the 1960’s. She was telling me about the assassination of President Kennedy. I told her about how people, who were alive at that time, always remember what they were doing when they heard the news he had been killed. We talked about how tragic and shocking it was for the nation, and why your mind remembers things like that. She of course turned it back to me and asked me what I was doing when he was killed. I told her I wasn’t born yet, but to ask her teacher if she was alive then. She came back the next day to tell me her teacher did remember. Her teacher was in sixth grade and her principle came into the room and told them.
Thanks Jill for going over SIOP. I was curious about what it is. In CA all teachers have to have their CLAD certification. It’s like having an ESOL. Obviously CA is one of the four states that are now requiring that type of education for all their teachers. I have my CLAD since I was originally licensed in CA. Being multicultuarlly cognizant in your classroom and in your communications with families is huge. I like the SIOP methods because they’re clearer, we learned a lot of the SDAIE when I went through my training. I’m going to look into doing the SIOP, or at least check out the books you and Ray had. Thanks Ray for sharing your book and your class pictures.
Take care,
Thora
First of all, thanks for all the thanks. I love sharing teaching strategies and ideas. All the great “stuff” that I have done in my classroom came for other wonderful teachers. I just usually modify or adapt their materials to fit my personality and classroom. Then I pass along what I have learned.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of that check out rethinkingschool.org They have phenomenal material addressing equity issues. Remember that handout Skip gave us on population distribution for the planet. Well, that information was used by a teacher at rethinkingschool.org. to develop a unit on understanding world wealth. I took the unit, and tweaked it to fit my math classroom. From the material I was able to teach exponents, ratios, scientific notation, percent…But the real important part was having my students actually feel what I might by like to be born in Africa, or Asia. I turned my classroom into the world. They were “born” into a country.
A short synopsis: We discussed the concept of sharing, students were then given blocks that represented people and world wealth. We discussed what constituted wealth. Next ambassadors were elected to plead for blocks (wealth) for their poorer countries. Student said things like, “I’ll let you build a base on my country if you give me some blocks, or “ you can have the resources that we discover in my land. When they saw the wealth of the United States (1 person in a class of 30 with 12 wealth blocks) they said things like, “let attack the United States, I want to be born in the United States, That’s not fair. When I traded the wooden blocks in for candy the concept of sharing took on a new meaning. Students who were so willing to share wooden blocks, who believed in equity… suddenly hoarded their candy. (For brevity sake I’m giving a snap shot of this lesson). Suffice to say it’s an extremely powerful lesson on so many fronts. This is one of many lessons from rethinkingschool.org.
As a side note my class organized a fundraising event at Cascade and raised over $800 each student donating only $.25/month for an African Chief’s village (Whose name now eludes me). At any rate he was featured on the cover of Bend Living.
The SIOP material is essential. In fact I would go so far as to say that it shouldn’t be a means to address ELL learners in your classroom, but it should be standard practice for all learners. I believe that teachers that have to deal with a variety of learners in their classrooms and have taken workshops/classes to educate themselves and are willing to implement what they have learned, these teachers have many more “tools” in their bag of tricks to engage students and promote authentic learning.
Jill, I’m glad that I helped to remind you about interactive writing. That happens to me all the time. I will be in a group of teachers and hear something that I used to do, or that I let slide and then I am reinvigorated to go back and restart a useful technique. The article is from: The Reading Teacher Vol. 62, No. 2 October 2008 Here is some more information from that site: For a related lesson plan, visit ReadWriteThink.org
and click Lessons to find
4 Teaching Audience Through Interactive Writing
Enjoy,
Ray
I am reading all the previous blog posts and smiling just thinking about all of the exciting things going on in all your classrooms this week! The children of our community are so blessed to have teachers like you who care so much about the whole experience of learning. Appreciating our differences and celebrating them makes life so much more interesting and fun! I was subbing in a first grade classroom this week and enjoyed singing "All the Way Around the World" and "We All Sing With the Same Voice" with the group. Both songs are a part of their daily routine and they never get tired of singing the words and looking at the bright pictures with all different cultures represented. Music is a great way to integrate culture into the classroom. My kids love to listen to the Latin and African Cd's we have around the house, the music transports you to another place and opens up their imagination to picture themselves surrounded in a much different place. I wish I could have made it to the multicultural festival this weekend, but I was out of town. I cant wait to chat with Amy on Tuesday and ask her how it went.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone check out epals.com yet? I am curious to know if it is user friendly and a valuable use of class time.
See you all Tuesday,
Donna
I really enjoyed our discussions and presentations. I believe that teaching children to embrace diversity is crucial in today’s world. As part of my Undergrad, I earned an ESOL Endorsement. An underlining theme throughout all of my course work was to create a classroom environment that was founded on being aware of our differences and embracing them, for they are what create a unique and colorful classroom. I find myself telling my kids frequently, how boring life would be if we were all the same. There would be so little to learn about each other and so much less to celebrate. Melanie, thank you for sharing your personal experiences that you and your family encounter. It is so disheartening to hear about how such a beautiful family can receive such harsh ridicule over something that should be valued and appreciated. Hopefully, as educators our love for diversity will be contagious, and we can change at least one child or one family's perspective in our lifetime.
ReplyDeleteMelissa Weller
I hope everyone had a great weekend! It sure was nice seeing the sun! I am thoroughly enjoying class on Tuesday nights. Last week’s discussion regarding multicultural education was very informative. I’m going to order the book that Ray uses, “99 Ideas & Activities for Teaching. . .” I appreciated his comment, “Just do one thing to start until the activities become a regular tool in your classroom.” I tried out the 4-part vocabulary builder activity that I saw while borrowing the book in class. The kids loved it! I was shocked to hear from Melanie that there are 25 different languages spoken in Bend. (Did I really write that fact down correctly?) I completely agree with her comment that it’s a “love for books that they need”. Also, the reminder that “teachers have power and should set the ground work” is very valuable. Jill’s keynote presentation on SIOP was very helpful. The statement she made regarding telling kids what you want them to know ahead of time is so simple, but effective. I tried it this week and was amazed at the response. I think this approach empowers the students and brings them on board with the goal. I’m anxiously awaiting Caitlin’s presentation and I’m glad the computer was repaired and that the information was all retrieved. See you tomorrow evening!
ReplyDelete-Darla Linn