Monday 10/25/10 My First Breakthrough (prompt #5)

I went to the Down City Center today to tutor for the fourth time. The students are getting use to me and even though there is a language barrier we are beginning to communicate. Today two girls needed black pens to do their math assignment. I normally tutor in English and History but the boy I was assigned was promised half an hour of Facebook time before his tutoring session so I was free for a bit. The girls asked to use my pens and I told them they could, if I could look at their math homework. The assignment was pretty easy... on their worksheet there were several triangles that related to each other (isosceles, right, equilateral) the girls needed to pick one color and circle all the triangles that matched. The next part was to break down larger triangles into smaller, congruent triangles, by drawing only a certain amount of lines (2,3,4,6) and then to write an expression that explained the process. I knew I could handle this kind of math so I asked the girls to stay with me. Another tutor from Brown University saw that I had engaged some students and came to sit with us. Together we worked with the girls. It took a while to explain the directions because of our language barrier but with a little scrap paper and a series of pictures the two of us explained the objective. I think I built some trust with these two girls because they continued to work with the English speaking Brown tutor right next to me until almost six o' clock.

I was proud of my breakthrough so when Martin, the boy who needed English help came over, I was excited to dive in. He hands me his English assignment. He has to read the first act of The Crucible and breakdown some dialogue. He also needed to explain "who was speaking" from dialogue context clues. The second part was easy because the dialogue was on the ditto along with a description of the characters so we started with that one. I asked Martin if he understood the instructions and he said "yes, but you need to write for me 'cause I can't spell in English." I refused and explained that he simply had to copy the character's names next to each dialogue box and the character's names were on the top of the paper. He was angry. I think he is such a trouble maker that other tutors do his work for him so they don't have to deal with him. He insulted me a lot "you are a lazy tutor" "Juan said he got an 89 on his English paper with you because you actually helped him. Why won't you help me?" I just kept asking questions "can you describe any of the characters in The Crucible?" Do you understand how the characters are related?" He finally stopped trying to scare me away and in a last ditch effort to free himself said "I can't do this 'cause I don't have my book." I was ready for this so I told him The Crucible is public domain and we could download it on the Internet. In five minutes we had printed the character descriptions and the first act. We worked together for an hour on the two dittos that I felt most students could have completed in twenty minutes. If he had stopped complaining about the length of the first act (16 pages) and worked hard it would have gone much faster but I refused to let him make me angry enough to start giving him the answers. When his Mom came to get him I introduced myself and told her her son worked hard today. She looked impressed.

After Martin left, Rob, the director of the Center told me he has never had a single tutor willing to sit with Martin that long. In fact he rarely finishes an assignment before he makes a tutor or another pupil so angry that Rob has to ask him to leave. This kid has learned how to waste time and cause problems but when you don't react to his childishness he actually is very bright. The program is mandatory and Rob reports the weekly time attended per student to their schools so Martin can not get up and leave. If Martin is there next week on Monday, Rob said he is mine again. If Martin's mom comes in again I think I might invite her to come in early some Monday so we can work with him together. I think seeing how they interact might help me make more progress with him.

The Make-Up of My Service Learning Group (Prompt #1)

I am completing my service learning project hours in an after school mentoring program that we will call "The Down City Center". The tutoring facility is made up of mainly spanish speaking students. After speaking to the instructor I found that many of the students are from the Dominican Republic. These students are offered this program through their high schools which are less than a hundred feet away. We will refer to the two high schools as "Purple High" and "Crimson High". Students and parents sign an agreement to enter this tutoring program. Parents sign their children up to attend a certain number of tutoring hours each day. After school the students come to the Down City Center and sign in. If their parents have requested they attend the full tutoring session they must be at the center from 3pm until 6pm but most students attend from 3:30pm until 5:30pm. Volunteers come to the center to offer tutoring in all subjects but the number of volunteers differs daily and the supervisor does a great amount of tutoring on days with few volunteers. The make up of students on my visits have so far consisted of 1 Purple High student and the remainder of students all being Crimson High students. The State Learning and Achievement Assessment rates these schools very differently.

Purple High: making "adequate yearly progress" and has hit 19 out of 19 target standards. Purple High has no ESL program and less than 1% of the students are receiving special education services. White and  Hispanic populations are roughly the same size at 35% the rest of the students are 20% Black and 11% Asian. Only 50% of Purple High Students are eligible for free or reduced price lunch. In grade 11 all students are above proficiency standards in mathematics, reading, and writing when compared to all other Rhode Island high schools. The population of this school is not mobile at only 3% but 99.3% graduate. This school has an entrance exam.

Crimson High: making "insufficient yearly progress" and has hit 20 out of 24 target standards. Crimson High is rated below all other Rhode Island High Schools in mathematics, reading, and writing. 63% of the population is Hispanic, 20% is Black, 10% is Asian, and 6% is White. 81% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch. 5% of students in ESL and 8% identify as bilingual. Crimson has both self-contained and supported special needs classrooms. Crimson High has a highly mobile population at 33% and graduation rate of 72.8%.

Crimson High benefits from the tutoring done in the Down City Center far more than Purple High. I interested to interact with students that are trying to improve themselves but I wonder why the tutoring center is not packed everyday considering Crimson High's failure to meet standards. The structure of this program makes it ideal for Hispanic students as they receive additional ESL class on Tuesdays and Thursdays from Brown University students. I look forward to reporting more about my service learning project at the Down City Center.

Thinking about activities that embrace difference....

When I was growing up I was fortunate to attend many culturally diverse schools. My Elementary school was the most amazing cultural melting pot I have ever encountered and the teachers there changed my life. I believe I learned respect in those walls. I want to be clear, not just the concept of not “making fun” of others, I learned to embrace difference. I realize funding has changed but many of the activities my school offered made me want to become a teacher. Some examples of what I participated in…

1.     A Native American Pow Wow in the fall every year.

2.     We read culturally diverse books about Jackie Robinson, the Holocaust, Poverty, Powerful Woman etc.

3.     In fifth grade my class hosted a talent show where we delivered a speech in 14 languages about all the work we had done in class that year. 

4.     We learned Latin and were given special Latin nicknames that followed us all through school.

5.     We went to Alton Jones and participated in the “The Outdoor Classroom” project.

6.     We learned to write in Chinese with brushes and ink and had Chinese pen pals.

7.     We wrote a short story every year that we illustrated and the school had bound like a real book. This was displayed for parent day and then given to us to take home.

8.     We had potluck suppers in the school gym with dishes from around the world.

9.     We ran a mock political campaign and then a mock election where we voted on the Governor of Rhode Island.

1   We had an Earth Day celebration every year where we grew plants in classroom greenhouses and then brought them to the Children's Hospital.  

An Indian Father's Plea

 

In the Delpit piece it is clear that Wind Wolf becomes an outcast because he grew up in a completely different culture from the rest of his classmates. Wind Wolf values nature and earth and his views do not neatly line up with the classroom curriculum. The teacher sees him as distracted and like many teachers looks at a distracted student as an affront to their teaching style and ability. I have always known I would have to get to know my students as individuals because I always expected to teach in the same environment that I went to school in, which was incredibly diverse. I expect to have to research the cultures of my students and use classroom activities to learn about them so I don’t make the kind of mistakes that drive them to silence. In second grade I was the only white person in my classroom besides the teacher and even we had little in common. To get to know the students she brought in a hippo stuffed animal. Every weekend a student would take home the hippo and a diary. The instruction was to write about all the things that you and the hippo did. After writing you had to do a creative activity, write a poem, draw a picture, make a word scramble, etc. By doing this project she learned who went to church, temple, played sports, liked reading and so much more. Looking back I think it was great.