Sevice Learning Prompt #7

Question: How is this experience shaping your teacher identity? Give specific examples/stories

     This experience as a whole was a pretty wonderful experience that I am honored to have had. Experiencing the time that i did with the children in my classroom has truly helped prepare me for a career in the educational field. In starting the class and learning that I would be teaching a classroom that was primarily composed of children of a Latino American or African American descent, i found myself a little bit out of the loop. As much as it pains me to say, i had wondered whether or not i would be considered less that adequate because of my cultural standpoint, as well as my skin color. In my classroom, and although i myself have no semblance of racism in my mind, i was concerned about whether i would be considered uncool because of my culture. I had wondered about whether I would be able to fit in with a community that did not have a culture that was my own.
     In doing this project, however, i was faced almost every Friday with a real life example of change. Even though i was the only white person in the room, i had honestly not been treated any differently that any other person in the room, and that was comforting. Fears that related the idea of "The White Mr.Hogan" were shown to be unfounded, and it was exhilarating. I was simply a teacher to these children. Over the past weeks, i had grown quite close with some of the students, and they were oftentimes just as excited as i was to be able to see me on Fridays. It was refreshing to see that the youth of my classroom were coming into an existence were white, black, and Latino were not distinguishing factors among classmates, but rather the three delicious ingredients that came together to form this incredible "Educational Gumbo" of today's society.
     Certain stigma's that pertained to how I envisioned the children of a certain culture have been rectified in my mind, as i have come to terms and see that these children in my classroom are not a diverse group of culturally composed individuals, but rather a representation of American Children. Generally, all of my students appear in my mind, albeit with a subtle sense of divergence, as well adjusted members of a society working at change. My service learning experience was a wonderful thing, and it has taught me so many lessons that i will need in order to become the teacher that this culturally diverse nation needs. I have learned that we are all together in this struggle, and we must do everything we can to stick together.

Service Learning Prompt #3

Question: The culturally competent teacher should be able to use a variety of assessment techniques appropriate to diverse learners and accommodate sociocultural differences that affect learning. How might the teacher be responsive to the linguistic, ethnic, and sociocultural characteristics of the students in his or her assessment practices?

     The children of today's society are engulfed in a sociocultural tornado that shapes and personifies how they see the world. Children in the classroom depend on the media to understand how to project the images of cool and not cool onto those that are supposed to be their classmates. When children are taught from the media that seemingly improper ways of speaking are considered cool, it is clear to see why some children would attempt to emulate such. In my service learning experience, i found it impossible to misconstrue the fact that most children in the classroom were thoroughly involved, and henceforth shaped, by the use of video games, television, and computers. Their dialect is seemingly derived from a mixture of television shows like "Jersey Shore" and  what can heard by common rap music. In my opinion, in order to most adequately reach the children of today's society, we should attempt to level with them, in order to teach them in a way they can more easily understand. of course, this would be a very difficult thing to do, as oftentimes curriculum's are a preconstructed existence that is developed by school districts.
     One example that i have found in my particular classroom that i found of relavance, was used by the reading textbook that was used in the classroom. The text depicted a journey of a boy, his friend, and an old man of a toy store. The old man had magical powers, and would take the boy and girl on trips around the globe into different places. The old man would teach them something new every time, and the children would pay for the trip by taking a test about what they had learned. The text book was a perfect example of inclusion, because the races of the three people in the book were, Latino, Black, and White. I thought this was a perfect way for the curriculum to help include various forms of culture in the day to day learning processes of the class.
     Another thing that i noticed was a very interesting way of interacting with the children on a social level, was the teachers use of an Easter Egg Hunt as a way to distract children from the everyday stresses of the classroom. This helped to keep them behaved, because their eligibility to participate in the hunt was granted by their ability to remain well behaved. I thought it was clever to almost kind of bribe the children into behaving, because it helped get them to learn in a more organized fashion.
     All in all, i feel that various techniques can be used in order to more accurately reach these children on an ethnic and social level. We need to stop seeing these children as objects of learning, and instead see them as human beings who are doing their best as a product of their society. We are making steps in the right direction.

Service Learning Prompt #4

As a middle class white American, i find myself somewhat at odds with large portions of the student body. Many of the students seem to come from relatively poor, minority group, and this makes it somewhat difficult to understand and interpret how some of these children function and react to situations. In many ways, i feel like seeing first hand how younger students of this type function in a school setting is enlightening to me in many ways. Being able to see how other members of society function in a school system that i once went through helps me to see things in a completely different cultural standpoint. Having to see what these kids go through, as opposed to how i know i went through everything is interesting to see. I feel like there is much i can learn from them, and conversely there is much i can teach them in return. I feel as though both myself and the students can pull something of importance out of this experience. In many ways, i feel that i would be somewhat ill-equipped to teach students in this setting, simply because i do not have much knowledge in reference to what their life at home might be like. As a member of the middle class white American group, i find that i have no idea what life might have been like growing up in a home where my parents did not speak the same language as i did, or perhaps didn't have much parenting foundation in general. In general i feel as though in many ways i could try to help some of these children, by attempting to give them something that i always had and appreciated as a child, which is some sort of structure, and a caring, gentle hand to guide me through the institution of school. In many ways, this experience has opened my eyes to these young children of a completely different culture, and shown me how different they are from whatever misconception i had conceived of them. Until now, i had always saw minority groups to function in a much different way, even with children. I had the predisposed bias that because these children were brought up in different cultural situations, that there overall attitude and behavioral attributes would be significantly different. In the end, though, my service learning experience has shown me that these children are just that very thing, children. It was heartening to see that even though these kids come from such a different background, that they were still similar in many ways. Realizing this has helped me to understand my children more adeptly, and has shown me that these children are not so different from the kind of person i was during elementary school.

Service Learning Prompt #2

In my classroom of 12 students, I find myself being the complete minority. All together, i have 1 white student, 5 black students, 1 Asian student, and 6 Latino students. For the most part, the majority of them all speak and are fairly fluent in English, and some of them are able to speak Spanish. The children as a whole seem very well behaved, and every time i have gone so far i have seen very few absences. The children seem engaged in the material of the classroom, albeit with a subtle level of distraction that can be seen among all children of that age. It seems that each and every one of the children can read very well, and because they are among the accelerated group they read aloud together quite perfectly. In many ways, i feel as though I am getting a somewhat biased look at how a classroom in providence would be conducted, simply because i am in a much smaller group of students that are all considered accelerated. The children show an appreciation for learning and obeying rules that i feel could only be truly implemented in a child that has a powerful guiding force that exists outside the classroom. The cooperativeness of the students has helped to show me that many of them probably have a fairly stable family life outside of the classroom, in which rules and obligations are dictated to them by more than just their teacher. On the other hand, however, the other classroom that i attend seems to be in complete opposition to these very ideas. Within the other classroom, which my teacher suggested I look into so as to form a more cohesive experience in public schools, many of the children are found to be loud, obnoxious, and uncooperative. Several times the teacher had to completely stop the class in order to quiet the classroom down. Many of the children do not speak perfect English, and it is obvious that there is no real direction at home or from parents. I find it difficult to understand how one teacher can have only 11 accelerated students, and yet other teachers are forced to deal with 27 students of varying levels of competency.

Service Learning Prompt #1

The school in which I am conducting my service learning project is called George West Elementary School, and it teaches grades K-6. The school is in an area of providence that one might refer to as being "low income". The school itself seems normal enough, albeit with various cosmetic damages that are visible on the outside as well as the inside. To be more specific, for example, many of the exterior windows appear to be boarded up in certain areas, and it seems that the structure of the school seems to be deteriorating. The situation on the interior is slightly better, and the walls are adorned with various colorful images that would seem to be contemporary with a child's school. The space is used the best it could be, i assume. Many of the classrooms are overfilled, having an average of 27 students per classroom, and each room has only one teacher. Much of the time, it seems that the school is just not big enough for all the children, and teachers are commonly overwhelmed by children on a day to day basis. My classroom in particular, however, is nothing like this. My classroom is composed of 12 students and one teacher. These students are placed in a smaller group of children, because they are considered "accelerated", and are ahead of their reading level. My teacher is very good at commanding the attention of the students, and she does so in a relatively calm and gentle manner. Overall, i feel that the teacher does a very good job with her students, and many of the students can be seen enjoying themselves doing the assignments. Additionally, i was able to look in on another classroom that was the literal complete opposite of what my classroom seems to be. The teacher seemed restless, the classroom was disorganized, the students weren't listening, and the class size was more than double. With 27 kids, the teacher had enough trouble with just that. The kids had once been two separate classes, but were brought together because a teacher had quit. Because there were two different classes, the students were on two very different levels of material, and so the class had to be split up into two sections, which only made controlling the class that much more difficult. The values in this school seem to be centered around instilling obedience and establishing control over the students, so as to more successfully teach them the material. The students in my first class are very diligent, and cooperative with the teacher, and i think much of this has to do with the class size. In the other, larger classroom, everything is so much more chaotic and difficult to control. Overall, i am beginning to really like the children I am working with and i am enjoying the real life experience.

About Me

Finally, i can get this blog started. I apologize for it being so late, been really busy with a new job at the hospital.
My name is Michael Hogan, and i am not related to the old blonde wrestler in any way whatsoever, so just don't ask about that, please. I like to consider myself a man of mystery, whilst living deep under the cover of the Federal Government. I wasn't serious about that. I try to be funny, and it usually only works when i'm trying to be serious, which in itself is pretty funny. I actually try to be funny professionally on occasion, trying out my hand on stand up comedy of which i usually just get weird looks. I've had a few nights that i actually had a lot of laughs, and it was amazing. There is no feeling that compares to the adrenaline pumping as everybody in the whole room watches and is interested in what you have to say. I also enjoy a subtle karaoke night now and then, because frankly there is nothing quite as hilarious as Gloria Gainer sung high and low by a 21 year old white man. I enjoy the finer things in life, like snowboarding, surfing (when the waves don't suck), playing guitar, and on occasion, rolling down really large hills without fear of what might happen at the bottom. I prefer to keep life simple, and i always let the little stuff go. Life is too short to get all worried about every little thing. I'm probably the most relaxed and patient person i know. Everybody that i see nowadays has 35 different things to do that day, and they are too bust texting on their smart phones to even start one of them. I'm pretty faithful and loyal to whoever decides to hang out with me, and i like to make new friends with cool people, or show mean people how lame they are for being a meanie for no reason. I write things down in my head constantly, and im always on the lookout for ideas to write a book about. I could on for what would be days i think, but i doubt anybody really cares haha.