Reflection: My big idea was that learning is not done by listening to a teacher and taking in everything he/she says. This type of stereotype is a problem described in Delpit's article. It seems that the teacher is always the authority figure and the students are supposed to listen and obey. However, this is not how equity and learning is established. Children must learn to think for themselves and realize they are knowledgeable people as well. They are capable of learning and knowing things perhaps even the teacher doesn't know. However, when there is a power relationship in the classroom, students seem to believe everything a teacher says and never question anything. No knowledge is gained this way. However, when a teacher does not play such an authority figure role, students start to ask questions about the material learned. When they ask questions, they are confirming the knowledge and must understand it to do so. In addition to this, they are able to realize things beyond the material given to them and could even perhaps teach the teacher and the rest of the class something others didn't realize before. Teachers should create opportunities for students to learn and think for themselves, not provide one dimensional ways of thinking they believe is right.
Activity: My activity is simple: The teacher sits down and does work with the students. If students were doing a math sheet, for example, I think it is important for the teacher to sit down with them and do it rather than stand at the front of the classroom as an authority figure. When the teacher comes and sits at a desk and does the work with students, it gives the teacher more of a friend and less of a power role. When students see teachers doing things like this they can still look to a teacher as a good role model to do their work, but also less of a person who "knows all." This gives students more responsibility and feeling more capable to do their work by thinking for themselves.
So Madi what your implying based on your activity that students can simply sit around a circle with the teacher at the table with them and that will help them feel like the teacher figure doesn't have as much of an authoritarian figure. I mean I feel like although it is important for a student to want to not be scared to death of their teacher but should in my opinion there needs to be a differentiation between friend and teacher to a student.
ReplyDeleteI was doing some research on this equity issue in the classroom and found out all sorts of stuff I didn't know about the issue, in my school system growing up we didn't have a lot of cultural difference maybe like one or two of a different race out of maybe 600 students so I guess this pending learning difference for the very few that didn't understand the material the way in which us americans learned it. We had a student move here from way far down in Mexico spoke hardly in english when he first came here and the teachers didn't know how to even teach him.
So while I think your idea of doing group activities with the teachers is a good thing I don't feel like it should be an arithmatic assignment but do different types of cultural learning experiences in the classroom maybe try different kinds of mathmatics used in other cultures just for the fun of it, afterall we are the only country in the world that still uses the metric system. There is more to learning than just worksheets.