Prompt 7-My last words

Well this is my final blog, after tutoring for so long at John Gregory Elementary; it has shaped me into becoming a better and more settled in teacher. I have had many experiences before in teaching but none like this. Before I had always taught the sport of baseball, because I loved the sport and it became quite easy for me to teach. Teaching is not always about teaching what one loves, but what has to be taught. In this case I taught math. Now math comes pretty easy to me, but teaching it to others became more of a difficult for me. I am not the greatest person to teach things to others, but somehow I succeeded in Ms. Jordan’s classroom. I feel that I accomplished so much this year, I do not know what to think. Ms. Jordan was a great teacher to be around, and I wish that there were more teachers like her out there. There cannot be though, because Ms. Jordan is her own person, her own teacher who teaches others for a living in a way no one else can. So, from that, I will have to take what I learned from her and put it in to my own teachings as a teacher. I mean while teaching my students, I took many things that Ms. Jordan did and put them into my teachings to her students. It worked phenomenally and I got great results from doing it. But with the school semester ending for me, and my fellow classmates, I wonder what their take was on their tutoring experience. How did they become a better teacher in the process, who knows, but all that I know is I became a better teacher and even student from this experience. So I end this blog with the knowledge of how I know now to become a better teacher and student, just through my experiences at John Gregory Elementary school and Ms. Jordan’s classroom.

Prompt 2-My School in General

When looking for information about the elementary school I am tutoring at, I looked more at the demographics of the school. In this school 49% of the students were male and 51% are female, 31% are White, 17% are Black, 32% are Hispanic, 5% are Asian, and 15% put a more than one response of ethnicity. 60% of students receive free lunch, 22% get reduced, and 17% get neither, and looking at these I am shocked at some of these demographics. Then I looked more at the grade I was dealing with in terms of ethnicity, which was 6th grade. In this case, 32% are White, 19% are Black, 32% are Hispanic, 5% are Asian, and 11% are other. Now these were taken during the 2007-2008 school year. And looking at the class I am in right now, most of the students are either Hispanic or Black, and there are few Whites within the classroom. But looking at these numbers I am shocked with the demographics in the school. To me a least, it does not look like there are more Whites to Blacks or Hispanics, it looks more like the minority is the majority in this school, and technically I am right since the majority is the minority, but it seems like there should be less White students in the school then what I see. Next I looked at who gets reduced, free lunch, or neither. 60% of the school gets free lunch, to me that am a lot. I am quite surprised with this number that is given, 60%, and then 22% of the school gets reduced lunch, which is still big. That’s 82% of eth school who either gets Free or Reduced lunch. But this tells me that most of the students who partake in this school are poor. It might be because their parents have many jobs and do not have enough time to make them lunches, or it is simpler for them just to eat breakfast and lunch at school then having to buy tons of groceries for home, who knows. The fact is that their minorities in this school are the majority and most who attend the school are poor.


When I look at this, it reminds me of Lisa Delpit and the culture of power. Since most of the students in this school are the minority and poor, it concurs with what Delpit says about the culture of power. The Culture of Power is represented as the White, Male, heterosexual, Middle class person. This tells me that most of the students in this school are not associated with having the Culture of Power. Most of the school is a minority, and this is shown through the demographics. Another thing is that they are poor, and part of the lower class, not the middle as should be when relating it with the culture of power. But the great thing about this school is that there are many ethnicities, and it is a good thing, because why teach just one ethnicity when we can teach all. It is something that Delpit says is an opportunity we should not miss. We should be grateful in the opportunity to be in a school where all the ethnicities can be represented for.

Prompt 5- Me and the Parents

The students that I am tutoring, one in particular, seem to have a big problem with understanding math. The one student I am going to refer to is named Carlos. He is a good student, and one who does his work, but in this case has trouble doing certain math problems, and what he is learning about right now is fractions. I remember when I was learning fractions it was a tough time, but I eventually learned it. Carlos seems to not fully understand math at all. He has a difficulty knowing what to do and it is hard. I do not know how to teach him this. He always asks me how to do an easy problem. I ask him all the time if he understands the curriculum and he says yes, but in the end he does not get it. It is tough, because there are students in the classroom that have a much worse case than Carlos does. Some do not even get math at all. Math has always come easy to me, but in Carlos’ case he needs more time to understand the curriculum in general. He needs extra time in this subject, but he cannot get any because of the way the curriculum is set for the classroom. With looking at that I look at the problem of the children’s learning capabilities. Not all children are same in learning styles; all students learn in different ways and understand it differently than others do. When collaborating with parents about their children I would have to compensate for their own learning styles, and what they need to learn. There might be a chance that I may have to suggest to parents that their children receive outside help, ask for their children to stay after school to get some extra help on the subject. They might have to be put into an IEP program where they can get the extra attention to learning that they need. When asking myself this, of how to talk to these parents about their children’s problems, I also look at the different ethnicities within the classroom. Most of the classroom is either African American or Spanish, with exception of at least two or three white children. I have to look at these students all as equals and give them the same amount of time I give all my students to help them learn. Allan Johnson, who wrote “Who’s Me? What it means to Be involved in Privilege and Oppression”, writes about how certain students get more privilege over others. This is because a teacher favor them, and reminds them of the teacher, it might be more prone for the teacher to give them more of an advantage, and that is something I cannot do. I have to treat all my students the same, and when talking to their parents have to tell them why their student is doing great or poorly. They have to understand that I am doing my best to teach them and there is not favoritism with in the classroom.

Prompt 4- My Learning experience to theirs

After tutoring in Ms. Jordan’s class for a few weeks, I have noticed many things in the classroom. The way she teaches is for the students to learn the facts and at an alarming, yet fast pace. This is due to the curriculum that must be taught. It is taught so that these students can take the NECAP testing. Looking at this, I look at my own personal history of how I learned and how I got through the public school system to the point of where I am today. I went through the Barrington School system, so compared to the students that I am tutoring I had a little more of an advantage compared to them. At the same time I never had to take these NECAP tests, I had recess twice a day for about an hour during my elementary years, and there was no real pressure for my entire class to do absolutely great in school testing. From what I remember in school, there were a lot of students who were smart and did exceptionally well in school, and some even went to some great colleges. Compared to the classroom I am tutoring in, there are many difficulties that these students have compared to when I was in the public school system. Everything has to be taught a certain way and at a certain pace. Everything is fast and to the point, there is no time for truly making a lesson plan and teaching it to the students. I would have little say in what these students actually get to learn from me and my classroom I would be in. In the past, my teachers actually got to choose how to teach and present what was important to the students. These students, at the same time do not have the same resources and privileges I had when I was in the public school system. With this I look to Ira Shor in what he was saying about education. Shor says that students should be more involved in the daily life of teaching. They should be the ones who say when they can go on from one lesson to the other, not the curriculum. If these students don’t get enough time to truly learn the subject, then how are we as educators actually teaching these student’s. Isn’t a teacher suppose to teach and not give the facts? If I want the facts I will just read a book, but I don’t want the facts I want a person to teach me in some way that I can understand what I am learning, but it cannot be that way because of the pressures it is for students to learn and know what to do for the NECAP testing.

BLOG 1

This year I entered Ms. Jordan’s classroom at John Gregory Elementary School in Providence. The first day I went to the school the neighborhood looked like it was a good neighborhood to live in. It was next to a main street with some restaurants and a private school. It seemed like a good environment for these kids to grow up in. When entering the school for the first time, I noticed that there were three floors to the school, and it looked like it was made back in the 1950’s maybe 60’s. It reminded me of my own elementary school back when I was going through the public school system. I have only been on one floor of the floor I am on looks like it is used well. All of the higher grades 4th, 5th and 6th grade are all on the top floor. The school seems a little weird to be in, just because I am use to my old elementary schools. But overall, I feel very comfortable in the school. When I entered the classroom, I noticed that the children had all their desks set up in an island format, where there were six people to a group, and they were set in proximity to the blackboard. There were pictures all on the wall, math problems on the board, since they were doing math, and everything seemed like a classroom that I was in back in elementary school, not so much 6th grade. Most of the kids in the classroom were African American and of Spanish decent. There was about two to three children in the classroom that were white. Ms. Jordan seems to be a very good teacher, always trying to help her students in anyway. But at the same time is a little hasty with what the children have to do. This is mainly because of what curriculum she has to teach. The students do not really get much time to learn the curriculum. Its either you do learn it or you don’t, and that is not how a classroom is suppose to run, but that is what is happening. It is not Ms. Jordan’s fault, it’s the curriculum. The students seem to be behind in what they have to learn. Many students are right on par, but there are some and many which are not at or exceed the standard in learning. Mainly, hard work, honesty are valued much in this school, doing great in the classroom and just being a good student in general. They even have a rubric for the students to follow, more as a mission statement more than anything else. In the classroom though, hard work, and paying attention are things that are most valued. Many of the students have a tough time with the curriculum, so it is hard for them to be good learners and workers, and with that they do not pay attention. This seems like a good classroom to be in and Ms. Jordan looks like a good teacher to be with.

Just something for you to look at.........

Hi my name is Jimmy, I am a Junior at RIC in the Physical Education/Health program, but I am transfering into the History program. I feel like this year is gonna be long, with so many classes and so much to do this year It is gonna be tough. So far though my year has been going good and I am looking forward to finishing my classes this year.

Right now I work part-time at Shaws Supermarket, but hope to go into a new career very, very soon. I am a huge baseball fan, I live to play, and with that I am a one of the biggest Red Sox fans alive. I love playing other sports as well such as frisbee, football, and the occasional bowling. I love just hanging out, going to parks, or even the beach and hanging out with my friends. Having said that I hope this year will be a good one.