misc post 2

this article deals with the Rodriguez article and the difference between home culture and school culture. This is a very important topic we discussed and there were a lot of negative feelings towards having two separate cultures( mainly language) between home and school. this can cause the students to have a lot of mis communication and also to become very stressed out, which tends to hinder school work and behavior

http://h06.cgpublisher.com/proposals/515/index_html

misc post 1

One of the major themes we covered in class this year was oppression and its presence today. this article talks about the different types of todays oppression and deals with college acceptance. as Christensen talked about its important for these oppressed students to "talk back" against it.

http://www.helium.com/items/1687313-should-race-be-considered-for-college-admissions

visit 9

Visit Number 9

Today was my ninth and final visit to the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. As I was driving to the school I was a little disappointed that I would no longer get to go in every week and work with these young children. I thought each of these kids was unique and all had many qualities for which to like them. Every visit has been a fun and successful one and the drive that these kids have to learn is incredible. It felt kind of like the last day of high school and that I wouldn’t be seeing my friends anymore, because these kids have all grown on me. As I pulled in the school I noticed that the spray paint had still not been replaced on the walls, and I was very happy for that. As I walked into the lobby I noticed a new display that contained photos of students who excelled in certain areas of academics. I thought that this was a great thing to have up in the school for all to see and would probably end up as a form of motivation for all the students to work that much harder. I stopped in and said my usual hellos to Mr. Lahey and Randy. We talked about the new display and how they had already heard kids talking about how they wanted to be up in the photos. I hope this display encourages all the kids to work harder in school which will help keep them on the right path down the road. I then went and spoke with Mrs. Peterson about some paper work to be filled out and got my folder full of activities. I headed down the hall to my trailer and was bombarded with hellos this morning. It was as if the kids knew this was my final visit. I spoke with Barb for several minutes and was very happy when she asked me to continue coming till the end of the school year. She told me I had been extremely helpful to both her and the students and that they all adored me and enjoyed the days that I came. This help put me in a much more positive mood and I went and sat at my table. I called up the second group first today just to mix it up and Bubbles, Cory, Trevor, and Trinity all came running up. Barb asked me to focus mainly on fluency today and showed me the finger dragging technique to show to the kids and make sure they were following it. At first we talked about punctuation. We went over all the different kinds of punctuations, what they were called, when to use them, how they affected the sentence and all the other basic stuff. We read through the first mini story about a dog and the kids struggled at first, but after having to re read pages they were clearly beginning to get a lot better at it. We then went on and read a second story about these two pigs and the kids had a much easier time with this book. After we finished reading the second story we talked about the story web and went over characters, settings, problems, and solutions. We talked again about the punctuation real quick and after forty minutes I had to send them all back to their seats. I then called up the second group of students and Ricky, Julian, Lucy, and J-rock all came over. They were all not very fond of reading either story but I told them it had to be done. We talked quickly about the punctuation and made sure everyone understood it. We then made our way into the first story about the puppy and this group seemed to struggle a little less than the others. After the puppy story we moved onto the pig one which was a little easier and more fun to read. The kids all did an excellent job reading and we completed the same story web and punctuation talk again. It was another successful day and I was looking forward to being able to returning again.

visit 8

Visit Number 8

Today was my eighth visit to the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. Today is very humid and the air is sticky, I hope it doesn’t make the children less attentive. As I pulled into the school parking lot I was relieved to see that the spray paint from the side of the building had not been replaced by the neighborhood hoodlums. Things like that can have very negative effects on the school children, especially at such a young age. I headed inside and said my usual good mornings to Mr. Lahey and Randy. I then went and talked to Mrs. Peterson for a few minutes and she told me that she had gone ahead and put more new materials in my folder because my group and I were moving at such a gradual pace. As I walked down the hall to my classroom I noticed a teacher escorting two young boys to the principal’s office. The boys were both red in the face and appeared out of breath. One boy’s shirt was ripped at the collar and other boy had what looked like fist marks on his cheek. It was pretty obvious that these kids had been fighting and teacher had broken it up. Both boys were Hispanic and it really bothered me that they fought at such a young age and that they even went as far as to throw punches. I helped the teacher escort the kids to the office and then headed down the hall to my trailer. On the way I noticed a teacher in the hallway yelling at a student who had apparently been using very vulgar language. I wasn’t sure if screaming at the child in the hall was the correct way to go about dealing with him, but then again I don’t know what the child said, if he had been warned or if he had greatly offended somebody in his class. I heard him tell his teacher that he thought it was okay because that was how his family and he spoke at home. I could see the astonished look on the teachers face but I wasn’t able to see how she dealt with the situation. Hopefully she called his parents and explained his home behavior was having negative affects during school and that they needed to watch their language around him. But anyway I finally got to my trailer and entered. I was greeted with the usually many hellos and kids begging to come work with me. I talked to Barb for a few minutes about what we would do and she told me she was very proud of everything I had done with the children so far. I took my spot at the table in the back and called up Ricky, Julian, Lucy, and the new student J-rock. We quickly reviewed what he had gone over the previous work before and then got to work on rhyming schemes. We went over the parts of the word that rhyme with other words and then reviewed many rhyming words. We played a very fun memory card game where the deck contained about twenty cards of ten rhyming pairs. The kids seemed to really like this game and they were very enthusiastic. They were all very sad to have to return to class as the second group came running up with smiles from ear to ear. We quickly got into the rhyming activity and the children were all working so hard and doing an excellent job. The more positive comments I gave the kids the harder they worked and the harder they worked led to greater results at the end of the day. Today was another successful day and I am not looking forward to next because it will be my final visit to the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. L

visit 7

Visit Number 7

Today was my seventh visit to the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. It’s back to chilly weather today and I was hoping it was not going to have a negative effect on the kid’s work ethics and focus. The weather keeps playing games going cold to warm to cold to warm. Just when the hopes of nice weather are here to stay it’s raining and cold again making everyone miserable. I was both happy and impressed to see that almost every trace of the once vulgar spray paint was gone from the side of the school building. I was happy to see that the school administrators took the gang problems very seriously and were very intent on keeping it out of the schools. I walked in and went into Mr. Lahey’s office and said good morning to him and Randy. We talked for several minutes about the spray paint from the side of the building and we were all very happy to see it gone. Hopefully the hoodlums in the neighborhood don’t put it up again and realize that these young kids do not need to see that garbage. I then stopped by Mrs. Peterson’s office and grabbed my folder which still contained new materials for the kids. When I left the office something struck me for the first time I had never really paid attention to before. The school lobby contained a wooden carved bench with Native American marking and carved eagles at either end, and next to stood a full sized Native American cutout in full battle attire. I thought this kind of a strange thing to be found in the lobby of a school that contained only 2 Native American students out of just over four hundred. Putting it off my mind I made my way down the hall to my trailer. As I walked in I was greeted with my hellos and questions to join the group. I made my way over to Barbs and we talked for several minutes about what I would be covering in today’s lessons. I called the first group of students and Ricky, Julian, Sara, and the new student J-rock all came over. I made them the same deal that if they behaved and we were able to cover all the materials without mistakes that we would be able to play the special version of candy land again. The kids all got very excited but quickly settled back down. We began an activity that involved reading a story where every kid read his own page out loud. This helped them with their reading, pronunciation, and courage to read in front of others. After we finished reading we filled out a sheet with characters from the story, settings, problems, and solutions to the problems. The kids did a very excellent job and I was very impressed. We then moved onto an activity that dealt with fluency again. The kids all did another excellent job and I was again very impressed. We were then able to move onto the candy land. I added a special rule that didn’t allow the kids to move spaces unless they had the correct pronunciation of the words on the back of the cards. After forty five minutes I again had to deal with the sad faces of students as they headed back to their seats to join the rest of the class. I then called up the second group and Bubbles Cory Trevor and Trinity all came running over. I made the same deal with them that I had made with first group candy land. We then went on to read the story and made our way through the story web afterwards. It took a little bit longer than the first group but we finally finished up. We then went onto the fluency activity and the kids made it through this one with less difficulty than the first group. The kids all behaved well and did a fantastic job with all the activities we did together. We then moved on to candy land and the kids were all having a good time. After another forty five minutes I again had to deal with sad faces and pleas for me to stay. I felt bad having to leave, but I was happy about another successful day.

visit 6

Visit Number 6

Today was my sixth visit to the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. I walked in today knowing it was going to be a good day. When I pulled into the parking lot I noticed some spray paint tagged on the school building. Upon seeing this I was kind of disappointed that someone doesn’t have enough respect to keep their vulgar gang signs and symbols away from places designated for young children. I brushed it off and followed my usual routine of stopping in to say hello to Mr. Lahey and Randy like every other morning. I brought up how I had just seen the spray paint on the side of the building and we all went out and looked at it. We talked about what a shame it was that these thugs didn’t have enough respect to keep their garbage off of the school grounds. They thanked me for pointing it out and they told me they were going to talk to the custodians about having it removed. I just hoped the kids didn’t see it and think it was something cool and that they wanted to be a part of it. I then stopped in to talk to Mrs. Peterson real quick and she handed me a handful of new material for the kids, and thanked for me taking the time to come request new stuff at the request of the students. I was very excited to get to my trailer and get right to work on these new materials. As I entered the trailer I was greeted with the usual hellos and requests to join my group and I made my way over to Barbs desk. We talked about keeping the kids away from the side of the building with the spray paint and also how I had new activities for the kids to do. Barb told me she actually had something important to tell me and let me know the Lucy had gotten herself back on grades with the rest of the class and no longer needed to be in the group. When I began walking over to her desk, Lucy noticed I was there and jumped up, ran over and threw her arms around me hugging and thanking me a thousand times. I told her I was very proud of her for working so hard and handed her a handful of stickers. As I sat down to get to work with Ricky, Julian, and Sara Barb brought over a student who we’ll call J-Rock. J rock was the other white child in the classroom and he was very shy. I introduced myself and told him we were looking forward to having him work with us. We jumped right into a fluency activity that dealt with a lot of reading. This lesson was a level harder than ones we had previously worked on and we had plenty of mistakes to correct. After about twenty minutes the kids learned the materials and we were making it through without any mistakes. We moved on to the next activity which dealt with blends again. We worked on similar words but with different things to do which really helped the kids learn better. Forty five minutes after working with the first group it was time to move on to the next group. Ricky, Julian, Lucy all looked sad and moaned as they headed back to their seats and I told J-rock it very nice to meet him. He smiled shyly and then headed back to his desk. I then called up the second group of kids who all came running. We ran into similar mistakes as the first group and it took just a little bit longer to get through the stuff. However on the second activity we moved faster than the first group and we were able to move onto a third activity that dealt with sight words. The kids were all sad to see me go, and it was another great successful day.

visit 5

Visit Number 5

Today was my fifth visit to the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. It was nice out today and I could tell it would help the kids get into a good mood which always makes these lessons go smooth. I stopped in and said my usual hellos to Mr. Lahey and Randy. I stopped and talked to my literacy coach real quick, her name is Mrs. Peterson. I told her that I thought it would be helpful to get different activities for the children because it was obvious they were becoming bored. We talked about the kids just memorizing the answers and repeating them back, but I explained that I had done another activity from the classroom that dealt with the same thing but was based on completely different material. After several minutes of discussion she told me that the following week I would be provided with new folders for the classroom. I headed down the hall and noticed something interesting on the way there. I saw an older middle school student helping a younger student find her way to the bathroom. I was impressed at how responsible this young child already was. I finally got into my trailer and was again greeted heavily with hellos and many students who I didn’t work with were asking if it was their turn to come work with me. I felt bad telling them that they didn’t need to do the extra work with me and I hated to see the sad looks on their faces. I went and talked to Barb for a minute and she gave me some fresh packets to do with the kids. Ricky, Julian, Sara and Lucy were all very excited to sit down and get to work. We covered activates that dealt with vowels, fluency, and reading. I bribed the kids with candy land, and they all behaved very well and we were able to cover all the materials properly, and play a new version of candy land that involved reading. Like the prior weeks the kids seemed sad to have to go back to the regular class but those frowns were quickly replaced with the smiles of Trevor, Cory, Bubbles, and Trinity. I made them the same deal I made with the first group about playing candy land at the end if they paid attention and we covered everything. We moved through activities a little slower and with a little bit more confusion. We went over the material a few more times until everyone felt comfortable with it and they wernt making the same mistakes over and over, and I could tell they really understood it. We then moved on the candy land which is a fun way to help the kids read, have fun, stay interested, and work hard for. Again another successful day.