prompt #7 Two things I will use when I Teach

This experience has been very rewarding. It is not completely helpful because I am not in an elementary school but I have learned a lot about two elements of teaching I had never really given thought to.

The first important fact I learned is that group work is a great tool. Often we do not see how beneficial it is for students to solve problems as a team. Whenever I tutored two or three students they were willing to share more with me and ask more questions. I now understand that that is because they felt better knowing they all were confused by the same assignment. Often I think students do not speak up in class because they do not want to be singled out, a group shows you that you are not alone in your confusion. I also think group work generates more that one solution to problems. This is important, especially in English and History. The students learned more when they disagreed and than discussed their answers.

The second way tutoring this has prepared me to teach in a Providence is that it exposed me to ELL students. I have never worked in an environment where I had the chance to create fun opportunities to share language. We used translators, we spoke slower, we looked up definitions together and used pictures. I looked up idioms on the computer with one girl because I didn't know how to explain them but I realized the definition was not enough. Some of the words she had never heard before so I had to create better examples with English words she had already mastered. It was challenging. It reminded me that I cannot take things for granted. Just because I eat asparagus does not mean it is an appropriate choice for a lesson in my classroom. I need to be organized enough to pole the students before the lesson I want to relate to vegetables. I may find that I learn about cool fruits I have never even heard of. The last day during tutoring I tasted a fruit from Laos I can't even pronounce but it was delicious.

When I began this semester I did not see how multicultural my classroom was destined to be. I now realize that is not enough to just learn a little about the ethnicites of my students and have black history month. I want to emulate the set up of the DC Center where there are pictures of ordinary kids doing extraordinary things. I want to put up pictures of woman like in Peggy Orenstein's article and be seen as extreme simply for including woman in my curriculum. I want to stop calling a school "diverse" when my students are made up of fifteen black kids, five Dominican kids, one Chinese girl and two white boys. That is only a fraction of the ethnicities in our culture. Like Kozol points out, my class will not be that diverse because most students will share a similar trait, they will be poor.

I enjoyed this experience. It reenforced that I am built to teach. Rob told me as he signed my evaluation form that he forgot what it was like to have tutors who were not afraid of the students. These kids are great despite the challenges. I really enjoyed working with them. Next semester I hope to complete my last 10 hours there.