Review

      This chapter emphasizes the attitudes of teachers toward the students in their classroom. The teacher’s attitude can impact the student and the way they learn and identities. As stated in a previous reflection, many teachers have a notion that the Asian students are able to do math very well, which means they will score high on the math standardized tests. Many times “these notions are based on race, gender, or income level” (Noel, 2008). Two main ways to view students are called the difference orientation and the deficit orientation approach. The deficiency orientation approach emphasizes that the struggling student is lacking something (p. 127). Whereas with the difference orientation the teacher does not see the struggling student as lacking, or blame the child’s culture for the problems learning (p. 128). Teachers that view the child with the difference orientation will try to use more than one approach to teach their students, rather than just one approach assuming that everyone will understand. Learning styles of all students can vary from student to student, gender, income levels, and culture. A teacher needs to recognize the different strengths the students have and base their teachings off of their strengths rather than the student’s weaknesses.

Reflect

       Unfortunately, there are some teachers who are very set in their way of teaching and do not change their thoughts no matter what they are told by the professionals. There are some teachers who will use their same lesson plans each year and not vary from them at all. This goes against that studies show about students all having different learning styles. I know if my classroom, I have to find what works with my students each year. I may have the same outline of what I am teaching, but the way it is delivered can vary greatly each year. At our school, we are asked to eat lunch with our students for the first two weeks. Many teachers consider this a punishment and complain the full two weeks. As for me, I actually enjoy this time to get to know my students. This gives me a chance to find out what they like and what they dislike. Their likes and dislikes can be anything from food, friends, and what they like to learn. This helps give me a feel for how I want to structure my classroom. Then even after that time, I find I need to change things up, since everything doesn’t fit into one nice little mold. Also, when it comes to assessing a student, it doesn’t always have to be pencil and paper assessment. Some students have a hard time with that, but yet they fully understand the material and can demonstrate it in ways other than pencil and paper.

     Sometimes teachers want to “blame” the parents or the society for the student that struggles. There are times that I feel I have to agree with this. The reason I feel this way is due to the fact that there are some parents that do not want to take any responsibility for their child or their child’s education. The parent feels that all the learning should be done at school. I found this happened a lot when I was teaching first grade. Although even now, I am seeing it in fifth grade. Just last week at conferences, I had a parent tell me that their child needed more homework. Apparently, this parent didn’t realize that the child did not do their homework half of the time, or they did it wrong. But instead of the parent getting involved, the parent just wanted me to give more. Extra homework does not necessarily help the student, but someone that is willing to listen to why they are struggling or not doing their work is going to be the best help for them.

Refine

     In thinking about my teaching and learning styles, I realize I need to make sure that I am aware of all of my students learning styles also. As a student myself, I realize I am field-independent (Zainuddin, Yahya, Morales-Jones, & Ariza, 2011), I prefer to be given a task and allowed to work with others to get the assignment accomplished. I find I am not very good as asking for additional instruction, even if I am confused.  Also, after reading this chapter, I reflect on the fact that I need to make sure that I am varying my lessons enough. I know when I had taught first grade, I used a lot of music in my lessons, but since moving to fifth grade, I do not tend to do that as much. Although I have realized that the students do respond to singing or even getting up and dancing to a song that goes with the topic. This year’s class is also one that enjoys the art projects. I have found that some of the students would prefer not to do the “artsy” stuff in the classroom, so I do allow them to give me the information in other formats.  

     Although I know that I try to make sure that I teach the students in different styles, my main emphasis, (especially after reading this chapter) is that I need to make sure that I have high expectations for all of my students. Generally, I do have high expectations, but I find that since I have generally been given the “lower” classes or the collaborative special education class, I do not have my expectations as high as compared to the other classes that have all regular education students or even the ones with gifted students. Just as students from different cultures, students from different levels of learning abilities all have their strengths in different areas.