Blog #6

As a teacher you never know the backgrounds of the students walking into your classroom—rich, poor, religious, etc. Teaching these different backgrounds can become extremely difficult when it comes to making sure that every student is getting the education that they require. There are many factors that go along with this such as; the teaching of Standard English is today’s education system, the different subject that students are required to learn about, and the different levels that students may be at—learning wise—compared to other students; these are all factors that can make or break how much a student is able to learn in the classroom.

In an article “Teaching Standard English: Who’s Standard?” by Linda M. Christensen, Christensen uses a personal example of when a teacher pointed her out in the middle of class to say the word “lawyer”; She proceeded to say the word “attorney” because with her language that’s the word that they used. The teacher “Delaney” let the whole class burst into laughter, Delaney never corrected Christensen but used her as an example as to why you cannot use your own home language in the classroom. Although Mrs. Delaney thought this was a brilliant idea, this entire essay is to prove opposite. Teaching Standard English is a really good thing, the author (Christensen) also states later in the article that she too continues to teach Standard English, or else she would feel as though she was cheating her students. Standard English is something that is used for professional writing, such as this essay that I’m writing right now. In a way it is good to have one common language that everyone is taught, but why limit it to that? As teacher we want our students to enjoy writing, after all, for many it’s therapeutic. In order for a student to enjoy writing and to really feel comfortable they have to be able to use a language that they are most familiar with, therefore using slang or using words from their own language can really make students write from the heart.

Growing up everyone learns about the same thing—whether you went to school in New York, or Washington state. There is nothing wrong with this considering it is good to all be on the same level as we enter college, but are we really teaching subject that are equally as challenging for each student? Each culture has their own set of ideals and rules that many teachers don’t understand. We read books that have predominantly white characters and are expected to write essays on things that many students have 0 background knowledge on. Examples from “TeacherVision.com” that can be very resourceful for teachers; “Appreciate and accommodate the similarities and differences among the students' cultures, Build relationships with students, Focus on the ways students learn and observe students to identify their task orientations, and Teach students to match their behaviors to the setting.” All these strategies will really help when it comes to teaching a culturally diverse classroom because it really depends on the students you have. I really like the idea of using more broad subjects for writing, such as having students write about their traditions that them and their family or friends do. This often excites students, and can really bring out a lot of culture.

Students come into the classroom at every different learning level with all different kinds of knowledge, leading a class that is challenging every student the perfect amount when it comes to language can be very difficult because of this. Theres many different factors as to why a student isn’t learning at a sufficient rate and may not have very well language skills; the best way to go about this is not to mark the students paper wrong and move on, but helping the student understand his/her mistake. 10% of all children live in poverty (Woolfolk, 216.) which means that not all of your students are going home and focusing on working on their grammar and the way the spell, which means classroom time is critical for many students education. This applies to students who don’t speak English at home at all—maybe their parents are only able to speak Spanish so after being home all night and coming to class they are having to constantly switch languages, being patient with students ad helping correct errors rather than punishing them is how students are really able to learn.

You are going to get students of every race, gender, and religion in your classroom, the main focus is to get every student on track and excited to learn in your class. It’s not always going to be equally as easy for each student, but as teachers it is our jobs to help students individually learn to the best of their ability.