When I read through this chapter, I couldn’t help but think of Paul Gorski.  One quote in particular that made me reminisce on his speech was…

“Poor parents and wealthy parents share the exact same assumption about schools:  “The school’s job is to see that my child succeeds.”  Where parents differ is in the kind of critique and empowerment that they bring to their relationship with the school.  Wealthly parents have enormous social capital and leverage, and they believe that they are entitled to use it.  Schools respond to them.  Poor parents, for a multitude of reasons, do not have that sense of empowerment and entitlement, and it makes little sense to equate the respectful “distance” they keep as not caring.  The result may be a school view that parents don’t care about education and a parent view that schools don’t care about kids.” (p.385)

First of all how can one assume that poor parents and wealthy parents share he EXACT same assumption about schools?  Just because a lot of poor parents aren’t as involved in the school community as we think they should be does not mean that they don’t want to be.  I agree with the author that “it makes little sense to equate the respectful “distance” they (poor parents) keep as not caring”.  I have been guilty myself of assuming that they don’t want to be involved or don’t care.  The truth is that I don’t know why poor parents are not involved.  Is it because the parents cannot find the time because they are too busy working two jobs to make ends meet?  Is it because they are ashamed because their own education level does not go beyond eighth grade?  Is it because they don’t care?  I’m not saying any of these statements are or are not true, the truth is I do not know and assuming does not help.  I believe that we as educators (as Paul Gorski put it) need to provide every opportunity we possibly can to invite parents into the schools and get them involved in the school community.  If we want parents to feel truly welcomed then we can never stop trying to get them involved.  I work at a school with low SES.  The majority of our students are on free or reduced lunch.  This year I have changed my outlook on the parents I serve.  I have tried to accommodate each parent when scheduling conferences, even providing an opportunity “after hours” on the phone if needed.  I know a lot of my parents work around the clock so I adjust my way of thinking to be accommodating to them.  I try to treat ALL parents the way that I want to be treated as a parent.  When my son goes to school, I will not be able to be as involved as I would like to be in his classroom because I am a teacher myself and my hours will be the same as his.  The bright side is that there are a number of ways to get involved.  Some parents just make sure that they’re children are doing their homework or bringing in items requested by the teacher.  Some parents make certain that their child shows up to school on time everyday.  I think that if we want the community of our school to include parents, then we have to simply change our way of thinking and make every effort to never stop trying to include and get EVERY parent (regardless of SES) involved (no matter in what way) in their child’s education!

Forgive me if this is wordy.  I found so many great quotes within this chapter and wanted to utilize them in my reflection.  I hope you enjoy reading it.  J

 “Good schools have cultures where it makes sense for faculty to teach all students well and for all students to learn well.” (p. 341)  Doesn’t this quote sum it up?  I don’t really know.  I tend to look at wording and opinions of others a little more critically since taking Rhina’s class this year.  What makes a school a “good school”?  Shouldn’t it just say “schools” and not “good schools”?  I think maybe so.  School culture should foster community among staff and the staff should take pride in educating the students well.  At least that’s how I feel.  I believe that to be an educator means that you take pride in educating each child to the best of your ability.  “…There is a strong likelihood that highly trained and experienced teachers are valuable resources.” (p. 351), which I firmly believe.  They are the ones responsible for the school culture.  However it cannot be done by teachers alone.  Administration is the backbone of school culture and if the backbone is missing, nothing else matters.  “All students at a school—not just the highest achieving ones—need access to the best teachers available.” (p.351)  Shouldn’t the best teachers available be the best trained and most experienced?  I think not.  As it states in this chapter experience is great and it helps us become better if not our best, but it is not everything.  I think that to be a well trained teacher you have to use every opportunity to learn from your experience and most importantly your students.  However, if the school administration is not supporting these experienced and well trained teachers, high rates of teacher turnover happens and the “good ones” go elsewhere.  “All schools say they are committed to all of their students’ learning; and some schools do translate this spoken value into a school-defining theme.  When schools offer all students an intellectually rich curriculum and expect all of them to perform well, students get the message, “We believe you can do it”. (p. 345)  To sum it all up, I believe that it simply goes back to school culture beginning with and being fostered by the faculty and staff of that school.  The administration is the role models for the teachers, who are in return role models for the students who then set standards for learning based on their students and their needs.

I was very excited to hear Gorski speak, especially once I read his articles.  He has a lot of valid points that I had not thought of prior to this.  I had the sense as I was reading that he was someone famous–which I realize now that was a little silly of me.  He is just a person like you and me.  He’s an advocate for education.  Which ALL of us in this Ed.S program are!  There were so many statistics that really backed up a lot of what he had to say about children in poverty.  I know that I have heard certain stereotypes associated with children/people living in poverty and it is so disappointing to know that there are some educators and politicians who buy into these stereotypes.  I think that everyone who is in education could benefit from hearing Paul speak.  As a matter of fact I’m thinking of speaking to my principal about having him either come to our school or at least having her look at his website and power point.  Make one small change at a time, right?  Well this will be one step towards my change.

To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of Ruby Payne until Ed.S.  Since she is supposed to be this poverty-educating guru, I was a little suprised that I had never heard of her until now.  After reading the words of Anita Bohn I was a little shocked.  How can someone claim to be so knowledgeable on the area of poverty, yet have no research to back it up?  And then to learn that she publishes her own work so she doesn’t even have to have the research to back it up made it even worse.  I think that so many people buy into what she has to say simply because they are desperate to seek some kind/any kind of help to better their teaching situation.  I don’t think that children in poverty are any less intelligent than any other student.  If we treat them like they are incapable, we are just hindering them from the start.  I was truly appalled at her “hidden rules for lower class and hidden rules for middle class”.  Does every person in a poverty situation really know how to get a hand gun if the have a police record?  It is almost as if she was implying that simply living in poverty one will eventually have a police record.  I truly try hard not to pass judgement on someone unless I’ve done the research myself, but the things that Anita Bohn points out in her article are just too huge to overlook.  You better believe that I will now think twice before attending a Ruby Payne seminar or purchasing a Ruby Payne book.

When I read the numerous articles this week, I did a lot of thinking about my own classroom and especially the school in which I teach.  I think that I am developing into a very culturally responsive teacher, but I still have a long way to go.  I am here to tell you that I did not always think as I do now.  Being in this program has retrained my thinking when it comes to culture.  I don’t think it was intentional that I didn’t think about each individual student’s culture, I just believed that it never occurred to me that I needed to.  I thought that when I taught each student was equal and I would teach all children the same, but I now know that expressing culture is just as equally important as expressing knowledge in general.  It is a huge part of each person and needs to be acknowledged and celebrated. 

As I read through these two thoughts came to my mind.  The first thought came from the article Evaluating Children’s Books for Bias.  Even though there are more and more books available for classroom usage, there are still not nearly enough.  As I read through some of these “things to check for” like omissions, illustrations, copyright, and authenticity, I see myself doing these exact same things.  I am proud to say that our current librarian (who is fairly new to the school) thinks in this same way.  As she is ordering books for the library, she takes time to review literature and provide a variety of genres with a wide range of cultures represented all copyrighted within the last few years.  I think that this helps us all have literature readily available on a wide variety of topics and age appropriate levels because many of us do not have the money to provide these types of books for our own classroom libraries.  I still think that there needs to be more.  Again, my thinking has been retrained (so to speak) and I’m thinking more about culture.  I feel like this year beginning the Ed.S program was a blessing in disguise.  I am teaching a heavy ELL class this year for the first time in my career and I have a LOT of cultures represented (not just African American, Caucasian, and Hispanic, but Asian and Indian as well) in my own classroom.  I cannot say for certain, but I don’t think I would have been as conscience about incorporating and celebrating culture as I have been this year if it wasn’t for the Ed.S program.  It’s like Charlotte Tyson has said over and over again, “my thinking will never be the same again”.  I know these children are proud of where they come from and I should be willing to help them celebrate that in our classroom.  So, I make an extra effort to take the time to make certain that we are celebrating every culture every day (as much as possible) through literature and class discussion.

This brings me to my next point.  As I was reading the article Stages of Multicultural School Transformation I couldn’t help but think of my school and the current school year.  At the end of February prior to winter break, our school had a HUGE week long Black History Celebration which was concluded by a forty minute rally for the students and a “Soul Food Luncheon” for the teachers.  It was a wonderful program and really focused a lot on African American achievements which our diverse population needs, but I feel it was too much like the Heroes and Holidays section in this article.  I know that February is Black History month, but isn’t September Hispanic History month?  Stockbridge Elementary School has the highest Hispanic population in the county, yet we celebrated nothing in reference to that.  I think at our school there is still too much emphasis on celebrating culture in isolation (like monthly) instead of on a daily basis which is the way it should be celebrated.  This topic has been brought up with administration and staff a number of times, and there was a bulletin board created at the beginning of the year for students to display culture quilts and bios about their culture.  However, that soon fizzled out.  I think it will just take some time to make a huge change.  After all, it takes time to change the way people think about culture.  I guess all I can do is continue to push the issue myself (with my SES girls by my sideJ) and start small…like in my own classroom!