Health #2 Chapter 13

This was a lengthy chapter with loads of information. However after reading it, there are a few thoughts that came to mind regarding the interactions that I have as a teacher with my students. I think that child development is so important to understand and teachers and parents should have a really good grasp of the cycle of development in children. We continue to develop over time and children are always changing and growing. I find child development fascinating and worthy of my taking more time to read and explore. I took a child development class at a local community college back in 2004, and it was mostly focused on the preschooler, but t was very helpful to me in my understanding and building relationships wth the preschool children I had. The first piece of the article that grabbed my attention was the part on page 7 about self-esteem. As teachers it is really important that we understand that our action and interactions with our students help mold that. "Concern that too many children receive praise for mediocre or even poor performance and as a consequence have inflated self-esteem." I know as a teacher I want to encourage my students;however, there are certain behaviors, skills etc that are just expected and to make a really huge deal about them I think falls into the area of praising mediocrity. At our school we have value rockets, and I think that there may be a tendency to overuse these at this level meaning for something that really is not worthy of a value rocket just to give it out everyday to someone in each class, I think is falling into the trap of what this quote is driving at. In my room, I don't know who will get a value rocket, and it has to be something that is really above and beyond just a "super purple" on our behavior clip chart. TO earn one in my class is something that has a "wow" factor, and if that means that someone does not earn it that day or for a week or two then that is how it goes. I think our intentions are good in wanting to recongnize and reward students that praise, but I think we can get carried away with it and we can be guilty of rewarding mediocrity.

The chapter listed for things to increase children's self-esteem: Identify the causes of low self-esteem in which children are encouraged to identify and value areas of competence such as academic, athletic, physical attractiveness, and social acceptance. Each individual child excels in at least one area. I know I have students who may be a little weaker academically, but they excel in social skills or other problem solving areas, and building their awareness of their strengths in whatever area is our responsibility as teachers. Second, provide emotional support/social approval. A lot of our students come from conflicted families and situations that are beyond our control. Some have experienced abuse and neglect. I, over the years, have had a multitude of experiences with students I have known who have been sexually molested, witnessed abuse, live in extreme poverty, live with drug addicts or alcoholic parents, and some that are homeless. Again I think it is our responsibility to provide whatever emotional support they need to help foster their sense of self-esteem. Some children probably carry a lot of guilt over whatever situations they have at home, and providing them with a safe environment is definately critical to their development of self-esteem. Third, help children achieve. Here we as teachers need to teach straightforwar real lskills which studies show results in increased achievement. We are so driven in the area of achievement, and communicating and teaching our students real skills and the importance of having that, translates into their achievement of those goals. Somewhere in the chapter it talked about giving them the tools to assess where they are in achieving their goals, and I believe everything we do at Rocketship does emphasize the goals that they are responsible for reaching. They are always aware of where they are in terms of those goals, how far they need to go, and this year I am having all of my students reflect on what they have done that has contributed to their being able to scale the mountain towards reaching their goal by the end of the year. They had to write about what things they had to do to make it there after I gave them feedback on their first round diagnostic in September. Each time they take the diagnostic, they will have to go back and reflect and write what they did to increase their climbing up the mountain or what they failed to do that maybe held them back. I think this will give them a tremendous amount of satisfaction and allow them to take ownership of what they have accomplished. The fourth way to increase self-esteem that the chapter mentioned was helping children cope. Here again, I think Rocketship does a great job at teaching children to learn how to face a problem onad try to cope with it. We use I-Statements which empower children to solve problems on their own rather than avoiding them. THis is critical to developing healthy self-esteem.

The next piece of the reading that caught my attention was the part about the differences between males and females which I find fascinating. As a teacher I really need to be aware of these differences and learn how it plays into my instruction and the results that I get from my students. One cognitive difference that I have heard about before reading this article was that girls are stronger in verbal abilities and boys are stronger in math and visuospatial skills. As a math teacher, I have always kept this in mind, and I had read articles before claiming that in certain studies boys are always called on more in math than girls. THe other area of differences is what the article called report talk vs. rapport talk. What this means is that males do well when it comes to re port talk which is talking that gives information like public speaking, story telling, lecturing with information. On the other hand, females do better when it comes to rapport talk which is language of conversation and a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships. I am going to watch out for this and be more observant when it comes to this in my classroom because I had never heard of such a thing before. Last, according to the reading boys are more likely to hide their negative emotions such as sadness and girls less likely to express disappoinment that might hurt others' feelings.

In sum, I find child development very interesting and fascinating and I would like to continue to read about their development not only as a teacher, but as a mother of a teenager. I think anyone who has children or works with children should really take the time and effort to understand stages of development and what that means as a parent or an educator. THere is so much to know in terms of development, and I wonder if it is possible to really learn what we need to learn about child development in one class? Absolutely not would be my answer.

Reach 111 Session #3 article

I chose to read the article about ADHD and ADD since I have two students who have been medically diagnosed recently with each of these. One comment that I found particularly interesting in the article,"A New Approach to Attention Deficit Disorder" is the following: " ADD is not a problem of willpower, however. It is a chronic impairment in the chemistry of the management system of the brain." As a teacher who has been in classrooms for many years, I have had students every year who are diagnosed with ADD and ADHD. Some are more severe cases than others and have tested by patience as a teacher. I have been caught up with that same thought that if you can do it behave or be on tast sometimes then why can't you do it all the time? This actually brings me back to a training that I had when I worked in San Jose Unified. We had one whole day's worth of training on ADHD and ADD and one of the issues raised was that teacher's get baffled and frustrated by the simple fact that we see on occasion students with ADD or ADHD perform tasks perfectly and then become confused when they fall back into their not being able to organize, prioritize, focus, sustain effort and manage their emotions. If you can do it once why can't you do it all the time? What is important here is to remember exactly what this quote says which is it is an impairment due to chemicals in the brain that are not being received or delivered to a specific area of the brain. The article stresses that medication for the treatment of ADD/ADHD will not cure it but can be looked at like a pair of glasses to correct the visually impaired individual. It will alleviate those symptoms for the hours of the day that the medication is active in the brain. Since the most recent students to have been diagnosed with ADHD and ADD this year, only one is one medication. She seems to be focusing a lot more and I have noticed a significant improvement in her attention in class. However, the other student's parent put him on medication for one day and decided that she did not like how it effected L, so she stopped giving him his medication. I can respect that decision although I do not understand it because I as a parent would want to try anything that would help my child to do her best and be successful. It seems that one day was not enough time to determine what effects the medication would clearly have on L, so this article is a good reminder that medication although one of the ways to help manage ADD/ADHD still the student needs accomodations. I completely agree that early identification of ADD/ADHD is so critical because if left untouched a student can "become demoralized by repeated experiences of frustration or failure." Finally, there are a lot of myths out there regarding ADD/ADHD, and it is important for me as a classroom teacher to be aware of them and educate myself on what it is exactly and the appropriate modifications that I can make in the classroom that will allow a student with ADD/ADHD to thrive at his or her best. What called my attention is that a person with ADD is six times more likely to have another psychiatric or learning disorder than most other people are. ADD usually overlaps wit other disorders. This particular disorder fascinates me, and I want to continue to learn about it and prepare for those students who come to my classroom with the disorder diagnosed already or those who still do not. Statistics say that 7.8% of children in the U.S. ages 4-17 are currently diagnosed with ADD or ADHD which translates into 2 students er class. That is definately a number that wakes me up!!!

Reach 111 Session #2 reading

After some careful thought about the question, I decided that I have a lot of room to grow as a teacher in regard to providing the appropriate differentiation for students with special needs in my classroom. There are several students who I have in all four classes who present some type of differentiated instruction based on some medically diagnosed disorder. I know that I need to provide more organizers and visuals for many of my students. Specifically when it comes to the 10 tactics to foster attention skills, I paid attention to this one because I for sure have had two students this year L and I who have been diagnosed with ADHD and ADD. Having a highly structured class, display of classroom rules, (I have the core values and the creed posted, but I do not have a separate chart for "my classroom rules" I will focus on having one by the beginning of next school year.), daily class schedule is usually written on the white board and the children know the routine math meeting, homework check, time test, lesson, etc. They know which days to expect centers during the week and so on. The article also mentioned training the class on class cues using bells or charts. The use of two desks for these students and making it a positive is definately something that I would love to implement because it just makes sense especially for L who is up and out of his seat constantly. During assessments, I have had to isolate L completely so he can focus at the task at hand and come and check on him every 5 or so minutes to make sure he is on task and not wasting his time unfocused on someone or something else in the classroom. They all have their own "offices" for testing. L and I have their own specific office away from distractions from others. For these students specifically L he needs to have something in hand all the time to manipulate, so I have given him a small white erase board, marker, and eraser for him to use during group instruction. This keeps him focused and participating and really cuts down on his interruptions and outbursts which were a daily occurence throughout the course of the year. Keeping their desks clear is something that I insist on while testing. Of course visually monitoring them. In terms of providing color organizers I suppose that is something that I could implement as well. I really like the idea of using peer buddies which is just a win win situation when dealing with students with special needs.

Reach 112 Calla Handbook Chapter 3 Academic Language

After looking at my first post on this chapter, I decided that my opinions, thoughts, and feelings have not changed much. It is at present however even clearer to me that academic language is something that I need to make sure I'm teaching my first graders. All of my students with the exception of a few are ELL's , and as this chapter points out, academic and social language are two different things. Academic language takes longer to learn and is more difficult than social language. A vast majority of my students have good social language; however, as the chapter points out this is not at all academic language. I think sometimes we as teachers can be fooled into thinking that just because a student can produce language like a native speaker that he or she has the skills in academic language too, and this is not the case. The simple fact that they are functional in social language does not mean that they possess the academic language. Academic language is going to be taught and used in the classroom, and I definately agree that our students will only have that opportunity to learn and practice academic language in the classroom, so we need to make sure that our instruction delivers this because academic language uses both lower-order and higher-order thinking skills and it encompasses everything from the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy to the highest and most sophisticated level of Bloom's Taxonomy.

Reach 112 Teaching for English Learners Self-Assessment/Observation

When comparing my self-assessment to the observations notes, I realized that I have some holes that I need to fill in terms of my ELL's. Specifically I knew I was weak with explicit forms of academic language; however, upon receiving the observation notes I see where I could work it in and it be successful. I had initially had the idea of incorporating more academic English into the assessments that I give. I see that I could weave it in during the specific opportunity where I constantly remind and push students to show their work. Instead of using "check your work" I could use vocabulary like proving, evaluating, justifying etc.


I knew that I used a lot of visuals like large paper coins, a big model analog clock, base ten blocks, charts etc to conduct my math meeting. Even in the centers I have it manipulative heavy, so the students can work, touch, and see the math. I will continue to to provide manipulatives during math meeting, direct instruction, guided practice, and independent practice because I know that ELL's need that.

I need to change how I use my voice. WHen I asked the students how many agreed, my phrasing coupled with my tone clearly let the students know that I agreed, and it did not give the opportunity I was looking for to see who understood and who did not. I have to work on that so I don't give it away with my phrasing or tone.

There was one comment about my sticks being out but I was not using them. I was using them. I don't know how it was perceived that I did not call on students using the sticks. I used them to call students up to the board. Some other questions I called on students because I was targeting specific Broncos on certain concepts. I just wanted to clarify what I was doing.

In terms of thematic instruction, I was observed doing math meeting which is a daily practice of many math skills. Our theme right now is time and clocks.

I liked the suggestion that I need to incorporate more real-life connections into everything that I teach them. THis taps into respect for home language and culture which I should be able to do more. Using the knowledge that I have for the culture andlanguage and bringing that alive more in my lessons and daily math practice would be something that I could certainly do right away.

Reach 110 Equity (Teaching for Equity Resources)

I browsed several websites, and it appears that there are a lot of different resources out there on the topic. I would like to take the initiative over the summer and choose one or two good readings on this subject as it hits a personal chord with me. I hope that I can be steered in the right direction by my coach to narrowing down some possible reading for the summer break.


I took a look at one particular reading on one of the suggested websites. It was Brian D. Schultz's Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way. This might be one of the reading I look into over the s ummer. According to the article, a fifth grade teacher by the name of Brian Schultz who worked in Chicago's Cabrini Green neighborhood took a group of fifth grade students in room 405 to work on a sophisticated advocacy plan calling for a new school building. Brian Schultz their teacher and author of the book, enacted a social action project with the fifth graders to address their concerns. Although the school was never built, their actions did gain a lot of media attention and supporters including Ralph Nader.

The article goes on to discuss how many teachers due to the rigidity of testing and scripted curricula are limited in the likelihood of the enactment of social change or action projects. Many times teachers are so focused and under such pressure to pour all of their energy, resources, and planning into meeting the standards and preparing students for state tests that they have no room to develop projects that address issues of social change.

Finally, it made me think of one of the reasons I have stayed in education for so long. I stay for exactly that reason: social change. I see that at Rocketship we reach out to our families to be involved in things like the upcoming PACT meeting in which the community is able to ask questions of public officials about schools of choice in the community. We do things at Rocketship that are not part of most public schools. Reaching beyond just the adults, this article made me think about what we can do with all of those students who sit in our classrooms everyday. There are so many social issues out there to make society a better place. What is possible is that these social action projects can be done in a way that will simultaneously develop activist and standards-oriented academic skills. This idea is definately one worth futher exploration.

Reach 110 Equity

The reading by Lisa Delpit, " The Silenced Diologue" was an excellent article about how the white middle-class culture is the one in power, and how this shapes education. When the author got into detail about the culture of power and the five aspects of power, the first one jumped out at me right away. I have always been aware that as a teacher, I am in a position of power over the students. I remember taking a multiculturalism in education course back in college that specifically talked about this very issue. Racism can and will be repeated if a teacher holds that power and prejudice. However, this goes further into things that are not under my direct control like the textbooks that are published, the creators and decision makers of curriculum, the power of the state and federal government to establish educational policy, the authors/creators of the very test which are used to gauge who graduates, who gets into college, who earns credentials, degrees, and who can ultimately be successful in this culture.


One quote that touched me in the article was when the author brought out the point that she has frequently heard schools call poor parents, "uncaring." When parents respond they many times say or show an attitude such that, "it is the school's job." I admit that I am guilty of thinking those exact thoughts and feeling frustrate over the years by parents who seem to hold that attitude. I as a teacher have wanted support and needed support in making sure that these students of mine are successful, and I get angry and frustrated at times when a parent is sending me that message. However, after reading this article and specifically this quote, I had not stopped to think where this idea or attitude was coming from until now. As the author points out what we fail to understand is that if our parents belonged to this culture of power they would transmit these codes and rules to their children. It made me think of what I have tried to establish in terms of my own daughter and value education and do everything in a certain way to ensure that the doors of opportunity are open to her. I know the rules of the game because I have played it already; however, many of our families are immigrants who do not have the information to know what all the codes and rules are, and yes they are going to be unfamiliar with those rules and codes. That made a lot of sense to me. The next time I am tempted to react with that opinion that certain parents don't care, I will step back to think of this article and remember that those parents or families probably are not equipped with the tools, codes, rules, etc to play the game of the culture in power. It makes sense that these families would be teaching another culture to their children that would enable them to survive in their communities.


The last quote that I want to bring up is the following: "In this county students will be juged on their product regardless of the process they used to achieve it." I believe that we are results obsessed as a society, and we value more the final result than the process. How can I take this and teach my students that the process does matter? Do I just arm them with what they will need to know or master in order to fall into the culture of power and teach them to ignore the other pieces?

I am looking forward to our discussion on Tuesday.