Sarah Findlay

Chapter 4 Reflection

Review-What did I learn?

There are two ways in which teachers approach their students in terms of expectations and biases.  Noel explains in Chapter 4, that they are called Deficiency Orientation and Difference Orientation.  Deficiency Orientation means that the teacher assumes that the student is deficient in some area due to their culture, skin color, language or community.  They may also assume that their home is lacking of the proper support.  These teachers want their students to adapt to the mainstream culture of the school or society.  The responsibility for the child’s success is wholly dependent on the student and the home.  The Difference Orientation is quite the opposite.  In this orientation, teachers understand that the cultural differences are not deficiencies but may possibly be strengths.  These teachers can use the cultural, linguistic, or ethnic backgrounds to build upon and use to their advantage.  Teachers that adopt the Difference Orientation often examine their own teaching styles and adapt them to the needs of their students.  The responsibility for the child’s success in this orientation falls upon the teacher. 

Students come to us from a variety of cultural upbringings.  These cultural upbringings, among other influences, develop into the students learning style and learning intelligence.  Students often prefer a specific physical setting such as bright lighting, soft music, or warm temperatures.  They also tend to like working in a group or alone better and tend to use a specific sense to absorb information.   Students also learn best using one, or a combination of Gardner’s Intelligences.  These intelligences include linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, bodily kinesthetic, spatial, intrapersonal, interpersonal, or naturalistic.  With each of these students scaffold their knowledge based on their strengths.  They are able to retain more information using their specific intelligences.  Knowing the learning styles and learning intelligences of our students gives us in insight on how to teach them best. 

           

Reflect-What does it mean to me?

In self-reflection, I see that I have some characteristics of both the Difference Orientation and the Deficiency Orientation.  I teach in a lower socio-economic school, where all of my current students come from a very different cultural background than I do.   I feel that I have adopted the Difference Orientation in the sense that I love to bring in their cultures.  I try to link what we are learning to their language or culture as much as possible.  For example, today we were learning the major mountains and rivers of the United States. I asked them if they could tell me what Rio Grande meant in Spanish.  They were able to say “big river.”  I then told them that the way that I remember which river on the map is the Rio Grande is because it is the only one that borders both the United States and Mexico and its name is in Spanish.   Hopefully this little clue will help them to retain that information. 

In terms of learning styles and intelligences, I am very familiar with my own learning style and intelligence but I have not taken the time to find this information about my students.  I tend to use a lot of technology, color, movement, and pictures to teach.  To me, this is a perfect way to learn, however, there may be students sitting in my classroom who are not retaining any information because I am disregarding several of the intelligences.   I would like to give all of my students a learning styles or learning intelligences inventory and use that information to better plan my lessons. 

             

Refine-How will I use this information in the classroom?

I will now take a closer look at the cultural biases I have towards my students.  I do not want to be the teacher with the Deficiency Orientation.   I realize now, that I am guilty of assuming that my students are lacking in both language and home support.  I must change the way I look at their differences and use them towards my advantage.  I would like to involve more parents in the classroom so that they can both teach us about their culture and see what our classroom culture is like and become more of a support for their child.               

I also want to give my students a learning styles inventory.  After reviewing the information on this, I realize how powerful this knowledge is.  I am very interested to see what strengths my students have and how they like to learn best.  I am curious to see if some of my assumptions are correct.  I will then re-evaluate my teaching styles.  I could form groups according to the different intelligences and differentiate the activities that I assign these groups.  I could also add more things like music, kinesthetic activities, and naturalistic experiences to my lessons to help the students who have the intelligences that I tend to stray from.  

                                                                                   

Bibliography

Noel, J. (2008). Developing Multicultural Educators. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. .