Three activities

Salish course

Pow-wow

Challenge course

Getting in touch with the real world

We ´ve just come back from Pullman. We participated in two workshops there. They were about engaging students in the classroom through technologies and social justice.

Anyway, I thought it is a good chance to make a quick overview of all the places and schools we visited in the last three weeks.  We don´t often know where we are exactly going, what we are going to find or who we are going to meet. But, that forms part of the adventure. We just get on the vans knowing that something new for us will be on our destination.

We´ve been lucky enough to meet people holding very different positions related to education: from the migrant/bilingual coordinator in Olympia to a couple of Salish teachers in Spokane.

I especially enjoyed the panel discussion we had with immigrant parents in the offices of Catholic Charities in Spokane. It was a unique opportunity to know from first hand their experiences and the barriers they found when they arrived to America. It was also interesting meeting Jennifer, one of the volunteers in Global Neighborhood, a non-profit Christian organization, which seeks to provide services to all refugees in Spokane through close relationships, creating programs focused on education and community development. I was actually touched by these two visits. I became a bit more concerned about the pain these families feel. They lose many features of their previous culture to acquire others from a culture that they couldn´t understand.

We also had the chance to meet the person in charge of the assessment for Special Populations in Spokane, the migrant/ bilingual coordinator for Washington State in Olympia and the coordinator of Home-School connections in Central Valley School District. I consider their job is essential to provide equality as it has an effect on every school in the district or the state. From these meetings I´ll bring with me two main ideas. Firstly, it is necessary a detailed plan of action to help students who speak a different language other than language. Secondly, it is essential an appropriate teacher training to put those policies into practice. These two facts are usually forgotten in Spanish schools. It is a field in which we still have to work a lot.

However, visiting actual schools is the activity that was more linked with my personal interests. We have visited Great Northern School District, Holmes Elementary School in Spokane and Domino Preschool. It is very helpful listening to teachers and principals talking about the challenges they have to face day after day. It is very inspiring getting to know the creative ways in which they solve those situations.

All the visits let me have a taste of the challenges of American education, which are somehow very similar to those we have in Europe, such as, promoting home-school connections and meeting the needs of minorities.

Assistive technologies

Case study: Picture Writers: Journey Through the Writing Process with Eric Carle

Context: Marylin Evanston is a third grade elementary school teacher working with her students on a picture book about wild animals and habitats. She is collaborating with a reading specialist, Juanita Long.

Content: She wants to integrate three different subjects in one project: science, literacy and art with topics that are respectively wild animals and habitats, story maps and collage.

Disabilities: Oscar is student with visual impairment. He has difficulty to read print and usually requires the assistance of a transcriber.

Accommodation: - Helping Oscar following the entire process by providing a one-on-one relationship. A There is always a special teacher with him.

Modification: -Targeting books of different levels to students.
                     -Tiered assignments.

Strategies: - Cross curricular activity
                 - Constructivist method
                 - Create a small group of four peers
                 - Guided reading

Technologies: - Books and art
                       - Video player
                       - Speech synthesis

Understanding our students

1)Do you think educators hold different expectations for minority children?

2)How should we honor students’ personality, family, culture, and religion in the learning environment?

3)To what extent do you recognize students’ background and emotional baggage?

We can find much evidence that demonstrates that educators hold lower expectations for minority children, as Nieto (1996) states. Teachers usually have a lack of faith in students from socially subordinated groups. In my opinion, students can easily perceive this fact through common events that take place in the classroom. For instance, minority children are usually less likely to be called in class and they are required activities that demand the use of lower-order thinking skills. As a consequence, they can believe that they are less able than other students.

To prevent this from happening, teachers ought to be socioculturally conscious. This means, they are aware that every student learns in a different way depending on his or her previous experiences of the world. Therefore, teachers have to adapt the strategies they use in the classroom to their students and their background. However, it is important that those children still receive meaningful input and they have an active role in the classroom.

Personally, I haven´t been still working as a teacher in a school. However, I can recognize some concrete ways of being socioculturally conscious, such as: getting to know children´s families and environments or taking into account student´s background and emotional baggage.

Seattle in 10 snapshots

We spent last weekend in Seattle, city where it was born Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks and Jimi Hendrix. 

    It was a great overview of a big American city. We really enjoyed it in spite of the rain. 

On our way to it, we could enjoyed some beautiful landscapes 

and two very interesting meetings in Olympia. 

It was a busy, amazing weekend!

Podcasts: a useful resource to learn a second language

Gina, these are my podcasts suggestions for you to learn Spanish. I looked for some of them that could actually help you to acquire some new Spanish words and expressions. I will introduce them one by one and write why I think they will be useful for you.

This is the first link: http://radiolingua.com/2008/10/lesson-01-coffee-break-spanish/.  Radiolingua offers this Spanish course aimed at beginners through to intermediate learners providing weekly 20-minute lessons covering the basics of Spanish. This is an ideal course for anyone who wants to go further than learning phrases off by heart, and will allow listeners to develop their confidence in the language. I´ve found, this podcast meets the following optimal conditions for learning a language:

•        Interaction/ Negotiation: in this podcast we can find an ongoing dialogue between two people. One of them represents the teacher and another represents the student. It is a good example of negotiating meaning through dialogue.
•        Feedback/ Time: the main speaker poses several questions to the listener so that he or she can collaborate in what he is saying. The speaker always lets the listener some time to think and answer. He also provides feedback after each of the questions.
•       Comprehensible input: the speaker uses the English language to clarify what he is saying most of the times so that the input is always meaningful to the listener.

 The second link I want to suggest for you is this one: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/talk/age/. This podcast meets many of the conditions for optimum language learning:

•        Authentic language/ Task: the videos show very common situations which take place in our daily lives. Native Spanish speakers show how language is actually used.
•        Creative language: the videos show different people fulfilling a same task. Consequently, they provide many different alternatives to express a same meaning. They use language in a creative way. It´s not something scripted.
•        Comprehensible input: the images in the video help the listener to understand what they are talking about as well as the words that appear on the screen as they are talking, which can help visual learners.

I hope they are being useful for you ;) Finally, I´d like to introduce you my favorite one: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/mividaloca/. It´s called Mi vida loca and it consists on 22 episodes. Each episode is a combination of real-action video with language teaching and practice, focused on developing communicative skills. It´s an interactive mistery involving you: a drama in which you will be the main character. It sounds fun. Besides this, there are many reasons why it provides optimal conditions for learning the language:

•        Interaction/ Negotiation: I consider this is the most interactive kind of podcast I´ve ever seen as it makes you a character of the story. Furthermore, you can also negotiate new meanings with real people in the section Intrigue in the website. There, people right their guesses about who is suspicios and why.
•        Authentic audience/ Task: the actors and real people with whom they interact use real Spanish. What´s more, you will also have to interact with them.
•        Creative language: throughout the story we can find a Learning Section within each episode. In the Learning Sections, the eight key words and phrases and main grammar point are presented. These chunks of information allow the student to express himself in a creative way. It doesn´t consist on repeat sentences but on create your own questions and answers to interact with the characters.
•        Feedback /Time: listeners of these podcasts can listen to them as much as they like. There are options available to stop them and repeat the parts listeners are struggling the most with.
•        Comprehensible input: input is very well clarified through the images that appear on the screen as well as subtitles and translations.

 I hope they will be helpful. Enjoy them! ¡Que los disfrutes!

Role Play Scenarios

This is a typical case in which many members of the educational community are involved. Although all of them have their personal opinions, they must come up with an agreed solution.

I consider these situations are hard to deal with, over all, if many measures have already been put into practice without any results, such as, talking to him, talking to his parents or even suspensions. However, I can spot a positive feature in Pedrin´s attitude: his desire to graduate. Consequently, I would take advantage of that. We could create an action plan in which Pedrin´s disruptive behaviors would have an effect on his marks. For example, Pedrin would be asked for an extra project, piece of writing on his subjects or a specific task to help the school community each time he was disruptive with partners, teachers or other staff members. If he didn´t work on them properly, his marks would be lowered. On the contrary, if he really worked hard on them, he could even obtain extra points.

This plan should be assessed in detail on a weekly basis by his teachers and support staff members, so that likely drawbacks and missteps could be corrected as soon as possible.

Language group

Personal identity - Cultural Identity

For this activity we were handed in a list of one hundred and twelve values. This list covered every kind of values that a person can consider important for his or her life: from leadership to obedience, from passion to relaxation, from being the best to humility and many, many others. At the beginning, each of us had to choose ten of those values. After that, we were told to highlight three of those values. Finally, we could only keep one value.

As you can imagine, this process was not easy at all. It is hard to decide what values play a more important role in one´s life. Justice or love? Happiness or generosity? Certainty or spirituality? I reckon everyone selects the most important values regarding his or her own experiences, the environment and the culture where one has been educated.

This activity didn´t finish here. We had to go further and discuss with the whole group what two values we all shared. I learnt with this activity that beyond cultures and different backgrounds, there are some universal values which are appreciated by all of us. After some discussions, we agreed to choose happiness and love. After all, everybody seeks to being happy, and somehow, loving the others, what we do, what we know, what we hope is a way to reach that happiness. 

The Melting Pot vs. Tossed Salad

Melting the Pot and Tossed Salad are two metaphors that have been used to describe the result in the United States of the process of assimilation and acculturation by immigrants and minorities. On one hand, “melting the pot” refers to a process in which every new cultural group brings some values and costums to the dominant culture but, at the same time, acquires some cultural influence from the mainstream culture. The result of it would be an only American culture for all the citizens.

On the other hand, American culture has been also compared to a “tossed salad”. This idea wants to mean that every group of people conserves their original culture, ideas and flavor but they are also in touch with the others and enhance their flavor. Consequently, there is not an only American culture. Therefore, American culture is the living together of many different cultures. With this last metaphor, we can see the challenges of multiculturalism. Two ingredients in a salad not always match with each other. In the same way, cultures can be very different and it is sometimes difficult finding the common points between them. However, we must believe common points always exist. Respect and open-mindedness are the basis for it, as well as the knowledge of the others, which is just a starting point to love them.

In relation to this, I have to say I really appreciate my mates´ diverse backgrounds. I consider they actually enhance the flavor of culture in our classroom.

The clown´s suitcase

As far as I´m concerned, teaching strategies are for a teacher like the equipment clowns and magicians usually carry with them to show their tricks. Teaching strategies are that hodgepodge teachers use to introduce new chunks of knowledge to their pupils. When well used, teaching strategies are, like in the circus, surprising, engaging, playful and meaningful.

Good and experienced teachers know how to show the contents to their students in many different ways regarding their learning styles: visual, auditory or kinesthetic. According to this, there are many teaching strategies that can be used in primary classrooms: songs, rhymes, board games, riddles, problem solving activities, cooperative games, role play, discussion, guessing games, discovery activities and many others, which vary from one subject to another.

I especially like guessing games to introduce a new topic in my English lessons. For this, I use the mysterious bag. It consists on a cloth bag which always hides an object, a tool or a picture of a character. Children take turns to ask yes-no questions about the mysterious thing, for example:

Is it an object?                 Yes

Is it big?                       No

Can you eat it?                  No

Can you play with it?            Yes

Is it a ball?                    Yes. Can you specify a bit more?

Is it a ping-pong ball?          Yes. That´s right!

With this easy strategy, we can attract children´s attention to the new topic. Furthermore, it´s a good way to refresh the vocabulary they have previously learnt and the structure of questions. Moreover, it will be a good starting point for a conversation about what sports they practice.

Teaching in America - Course reflection

How is that of teaching in American? How do Americans do it? Is it as it looks like in movies? What is special about them that they want to share it with us?

Those were some of the questions I wondered about before coming to America. We have already finished one of our courses in Eastern Washington University and after it I think I´ve got a better answer for those questions.

Teaching in America is teaching in a country full with differences between people and a shared desire of being one but different at the same time: more like a salad than a melting pot. Teaching in America is about dealing with integration, which has been the main challenge in education in this country, as its History reveals. Teaching in America is about preparing qualified workers for the economy of the country in the future but also good and wise thinkers.

As something new I have learned in this course, I would highlight the importance and value of discussion in the classroom as an essential tool for a democratic society, as well as, the use of Critical Pedagogy ideas in my own teaching practice.

Over all, I have learned how important it is being passionate and authentic in the classroom. I have also learned that change in education might be slow but always possible. 

My teaching philosophy

According to my philosophy of education, children develop and learn by playing, exploring and discovering new ideas from the ones they already own. Four principles on which learning should be built are inquiry, outdoor play, creativity and cooperation. Children should develop their curiosity by being engaged in activities which promote inquiry and let them think of creative solutions to different problems as well as creative representations of their own emotions and ideas. Moreover, I consider that children should be frequently exposed to free and structured play outside, being in touch with the nature and their daily environment in their neighborhoods. On the top of it, children need to learn through cooperation with their peers since only through collaboration with others can we be exposed to new points of view.

As a consequence of the previous learning characteristics, I would affirm that teaching should be child-centered, engaging and authentic. The role of teachers is helping students become self-actualized, providing them a wide variety of environments and activities where all of them are able to show their potential. Teachers also have to help student apply curriculum to their own experiences. Therefore, it is important that students are taught in first place contents related to their daily lives at home and in their community and later, contents that help them understand the complexity of nowadays world.

Teachers need to be real and authentic in the classroom. Being teacher is not like playing a role but about being yourself. In addition, teachers have to be critical with their own practice and they have to keep on being trained in new approaches and resources constantly. Teachers should have a great understanding of content and be a model for children in their social relationships at the same time. 

Comment on what I have learned about my own approach to the use of educational technology

Before starting to talk about this topic I must recognize I´m a technophobic. I´m not good at using technology and I´m quite afraid of doing it in the classroom. The main reason of this is that I haven´t been trained in doing that and I consider it really needs special skills, not only to handle computers or other tools but also to offer them to children in an appropriate way.

Lately, teachers are supposed to integrate the use of technologies in their daily practice but many of us don´t know how to do it or what is the purpose of it. Is it just because it sounds fashionable? Or does technology actually provide benefits to the children´s learning?

Four perspectives to the approach of technology in the classroom can be identified. On one hand, some teachers could be named as technophobic. This means they are against the use of technology in the classroom and somehow they have fear of it. On the other hand, some teachers definitely support technology in their classrooms. For many others, their perspective is mainly instrumentalist. It is seen as a simply tool to reach a goal. They think technology is useful just if well managed. We can find many reasons to use technology in our classroom or even not to use it. Therefore, we need to approach a critical perspective through which we really weight up the benefits and drawbacks of the use of technologies applied to educational contexts.

In spite of being afraid of using technology in the classroom, I can recognize it is very valuable if we consider it as an extension for every person that allows the individuals to go further. Technology can help children and teachers to bring the external world into the classroom, to link the learning with everyday experiences. Technology can help children with special needs to cover more areas of knowledge and it can also promote equality in the classroom.

Thus, I should change my own perspective in relation to technologies in the classroom and acquire a critical perspective which had into account the sociocultural impacts of technology. Therefore, we could affirm that technology is valuable when it helps to develop each child´s own identity, when it promotes human relationships and put children in the position of power they need depending on their circumstances.

This is an area I still need to develop as it can be very helpful in my career.  

Critical Pedagogy

In this new post of my blog, I´d like to write about some ideas of critical pedagogy. Critical Pedagogy -for those who don´t know what it is about- assets that men and women live in a world with many asymmetries of power and privilege. These differences are usually sustained at the schools.

There are many concepts that explain the difficult relations between individuals and society. However, I´d like to focus on “discourse”. McLaren defines discursive practices as the rules by which discourses are formed, rules that govern what can be said and what must remain unsaid, and who can speak with authority and who must listen.

If we attempt to see the actual application of this in the classroom, some little details can be identified. For instance, how are the desks where children work placed? Are they all facing the teacher (main source of knowledge)? Or are they shaping a circle (giving all the students the same relevancy as the teacher)? Does the teacher ask open questions with many possible answers (allowing children to be critical and real thinkers)? Or, on the contrary, does the teacher pose close questions that only admit one correct answer (letting them see that it´s only the teacher who has the truth)?

These facts and ways of teaching show some hidden rules that are created by the society and at the same time teachers make children understand that´s the way in which society works.

Depending on the kind of society we want to create, we should make decisions about these ideas and analyze our teaching practice in a critical way.

Should we prepare children for the world outside the classroom or should we prepare them to change the world outside?

One week in the States

This adventure began on July 24th around planes and airports. First good impressions!

My Spanish partner and I had to spend an unexpected night in Denver. Our plane from New York to Denver was delayed. Therefore we missed our connection to Spokane. Good things come to those who wait!

On Sunday afternoon we could meet our French and English mates and our peer mentors. Visiting Spokane.

Monday 26th. Classes start. We meet our German mates and the typical American burguer which will be with us during this month. First class was amazing, really inspiring.

Tuesday 27th. Visit to one-room school in EWU campus. The happy school!

Wednesday 28th. My 21st birthday in USA!

Thursday 29th. Bowl and Pitcher.

 

Friday 30th. Great Northern School District Visit. 

Sunday 1st. North Idaho Beach. Art on the grass!

The week finished with a wonderful dinner at Lisa´s. Thanks for your hospitality!

But not everything has been leisure activities. We´ve been also working hard.