How have you communicated in ways to demonstrate sensitivty and responsiveness to sociological and linguistic differences?

Today at my tutoring I did the usually working on blending with the kindergartners, and ending sounds with the first graders.  Then during my observing of the kindergartners, the teacher had me go around the room and help students with their stories on what they can see in a bakery. While working with student he seemed a to be having a lot of trouble coming up with a third thing that he could see in a bakery. He already had that he could see cookies and cakes, so to help him out I listed a bunch of food and had him decide if that would be in a bakery of not.  Then he said "pan" would be found in a bakery, an I said that he was right pans would be found in a bakery and then one of the others kids at the table who spoke Spanish said "pan" is Spanish for bread.
Having a language barrier between you and your students can cause many problems even  on the simplest activities.

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

No matter how similar you make think students are in the end they are all individual learners who all learn at different rates.  So a vary of activities and assignments need to be done in the classroom so all students have an equal oppurtunity to learn.  The teacher I work with has different books and activities for me to do with the students every week so the students dont get bored and they have many different ways to learn the same material.  For the last two weeks I have been working on blending sounds with them and we read two books with the words in them and then did a blasketball, and a penny blending game.
Then today when I was observing in the clasroom I was helping them write a storu about a playground and for them its more like two or three sentences.  Then they had to draw a picture to go along with theb story, most students wrote about slides, tire swings, mokey bars, and swing sets.  The teachers uses this as an assesment to determione if students can form sentences and understand the use of periods at the end of a sentence and capitol letters. As I was sitting at one table helping a few students out, then one girl says to me completely out of the blue elephants are hairy.  I look at the teacher who had heard the comment and we both just start dying laughing.  It was completly out of  the blue and she is right the are hairy but most kindergarteners would say monkies are hairy.  It was just one of thosew moments that made me smile and appreciate the innocence of childhood.

The culturally competent teacher is aware o the diverse cultural groups respresneted in his/her classroom, investigates the sociological factors that influence her students learning.

At my school I tutor a group of kindergartens for a half hour then observe in there classroom for a half hour, and then I tutor in first grade for a half hour. While I was observe in the Kindergarten classroom, the teacher had me walk around the room and help the students out whenever they needed help because they were working in centers.  Then all of a sudden one of the students I was helping started crying, I looked at the teacher a little confused and didnt really know what to do. All the other students looked at him and then went back to there work like it was no big deal.  The teacher said he has a tough home life ans sometimes he cries during class.  So she had me take him into another classroom and play candyland.

Not matter what happens in a classroom you can never be totally prepared because we all come from different backgrounds and have different experiences.  I come from an all white family so I cant really wont be able to relate to some of my students.  But no matter what happens in my classroom I will do my best to relate to my students.  Unlike Rodriguez, I will never make students change there home lives to be able to do better within the classroom.

The culturally competent teacher should be able to account for, demonstrate awareness of, and respond to the sociocultural distinctiveness of her or his students, families, and communities when planning for and delivering instruction.

Well the Providence School System has some things that they really need to figure out, like not firing all of the teachers and shutting down many key schools in children neighborhoods. One of the schools proposed to being closed is the school I'm doing my tutoring at, and when I went last week you could just feel the tension within the school.  Not only where the teachers stressed about losing the jobs but a few of the teachers had been their for over ten years and having to change to new schools and a new environment was a change that many are not looking forward to.Even through everything the teachers have been able to put the needs of the students first.

In my kindergarten group the teacher changed out one student for another who she thought would get more out of the VIPS program.  At first I had a hard time getting her to stay seated at the table we were at because she kept getting up and sitting at the other table.  But then I told her unless she wanted a SAD face on her behavior report she needed to stay seated at the table with the rest of the students.  Once I was able to get her seated the group ran smoothly and I was able to focus on working on Phonics and word blending with them.

Infoworks

At my school 94% of the students qualify for subsidized lunch, and 4%of the students are ESL/Bilingual.  That many students qualifying for subsidized lunch reminded me of the school system in Mott Haven in Kozol's article.  In total their are 28 teacher at this school.  For th school year 2009-2010 test scores where at 20% proficient and for this current school year test scores are up 18 % to 38% proficient which is a nice increase to see and that schools are heading in the correct direction.

Asa Messer Elementary School

My placement is at Asa Messer Elementary School in Providence Rhode Island as a Reading buddy in a kindergarten and first grade classroom with three students in each grade. On my first visit to the school I just had training and learned about where all of the supplies that I needed would be located and which students I would be working with.  The school is an older brick building, that reminded me of my own elementary school, and even had the same feel as I walked through the doors with students running to class, artwork on the walls, and pictures everywhere.  The school has four classrooms on each floor and the kindergarten classrooms are on the first floor while the first grade classrooms are on the second floor.  Each classroom has a coat room next to it for all the students to put their backpacks and jackets in so they dont take up space and cause a trip hazard within the classroom.  The kindergarten classroom compared to the first grade classroom are completely different.  The Kindergarten classroom is fully of energy, color, and  the students are constantly different.  The teacher also allows for mor talking within the classroon during group work as long as it doesnt get out of control.  While in the first grade classroom there is limited color, and energy the students are very monotone and the teacher keeps the volume in the classroom so quiet it is almost silent.  I found the noise level in the classroom to be too quiet for an Elementary school where there are kids who need to express themselves and have there voices heard.  After completing our training with the Reading specialist I did a half hour observation in both the kindergarten and first grade classroom.  I am looking forward to my next visit to the school on Tuesday and actually being able to work with the students. 

Short Bio

I am Harley Mitchell, I am a Freshman in my second semester at Rhode Island College.  So far my semester is going pretty good, with three snow day. I am extremely sick of the snow and is so ready for spring to come.   When I am not in class I am either in my dorm hanging with friends listening to music, working selling shoes at the SEARS in Woonsocket, or playing volleybal for the college.