Gender Roles

In our literacy class we have been discussing stereotypes in literature, and being aware of it when selecting books to read with our buddies, and ultimately for our classrooms. This same concept of stereotypes has been addressed in our social studies class. Because of this I have been hyper-aware of stereotypes around me, and this mainly in the media.

This morning while watching television, I saw a commercial that was the opposite of every other one I'd seen. It was an ad for Lexus, and since it's the holiday season, this the time of the year that Lexus and Mercedes advertise giving one over their expensive cars as a gift.

In the traditional ad, it is the caucasian husband giving the car to his beautiful caucasian wife. But this time it was the opposite. While it was still a beautiful, caucasian couple, it was the woman surprising the man with the car. For many people this little detail of the commercial would go unnoticed. With my background in advertising, I enjoy watching television ads because I know how much goes into making them, so I tend to watch them closely. But this detail was more than just a detail in an ad, it was a step in the right direction of gender-equality and breaking the stereotype.

Predictable Books

During my kindergarten September experience, I took a picture of each student's face. My master teacher and I then cut out the faces and glued them onto pages with the student's letter of his or her first name. For example if a student's name is Bella, her page would read "B My Name is Bella". We called this book, A My Name Is and every student got a copy of the book to put in his or her book bag, an extra large Ziploc, of "just right" books that each student keeps in his or her cubby.

Every student enjoyed reading the book, but our ELL learners read the book over and over. According to Fox, "predictable books-books with repeated phrases or sentences- hold a special promise because they bring English syntax and English words within easy reach of young children who are beginning to read a language different from the one spoken at home" (2008, p.231).

This book gave everyone success. The students were able to use the cue from the picture, the student's name, to not only tell the written word, but also hear the first letter sound, so they know the letter. With "B My Name is Bella". The student knows Bella because she's in his class, and by knowing Bella, he can stretch B-ella and relate the sound to the letter, if he was unsure of the letter.

This book was so easy to make, and the kids loved it. It is a fun, inexpensive tool that all kindergarten teachers could use in their classrooms.

Is Sudoku Math?

According to Wikipedia, Sudoku is defined as a "logic-based, number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid, which typically has a unique solution."

To me logic and strategic placement of numbers, is math. However when I started the Sudoku in my favorite magazine, I noticed in big bold letter above the grid "There's no math involved! No need to count or add up!" After I read this I was sadden to think that this tag line would attract people to the game, and then under this, in smaller letters was "just use logic to solve the puzzle."

This brings me to my next question, is logic math? As an undergraduate student I look a logic class and that university counted the class as a math requirement, but my current university did not, and I was required to take an additional math class. Logic was not an easy class, but I find it interesting that this magazine is using logic as though it's the same as "common sense". When I think about people who study logic and people who enjoy Sudoku puzzles, I think of people who are creative, diligent, organized and strategic. All characteristics of mathematicians.

So I found it interesting when I saw a Sudoku puzzle that people were playing without numbers. Next to the image it said, "It should be recognized that we could play the exact same game with 9 different symbols (stars, smiley faces, carrots, whatever) as we do with the numbers 1-9. It is not the numerals that make Sudoku math. Every mathematician can play Sudoku well, even if they don’t like the game. We can think logically and can say “if this and this, then that” without batting an eye. Math and logic are very closely related. Sudoku requires a certain organized thinking that is prominent in mathematics."

Mathematizing Clean-Up

In my dyad placement the teacher asked the class if anyone knew where the pegs were for the three cribbage boards. Of course, no knew where the pegs were, and so the teacher asked the class what they could use as pegs so they could still play the game. After several suggestions, one boy raised his hand and said that his grandparents had lost their cribbage pegs and they were using colored tooth-picks as substitutes.

My teacher used this impromtu lesson as an opportunity to mathematize. She started by asking the students how many pegs were needed for each board? The students answered with two pegs per player, red for player one and blue for player two. This led to a series of multiplication problems, an area of math the students are just getting into. The questions included, if one board needs two red pegs, how many pegs would the class need for three boards? The students solved the question on their own and then turned to their neighbor and told them how they solved the problem.

After asking several math questions, the teacher wrote their answers on the board. This was also a list of what the class need for their cribbage boards. I thought this was a fun way of having the class figure out how many pegs they needed and at the same time demonstrate for them how multiplication is used in real life.

Rhyming

This week in our kindergarten buddy activity, we did a rhyming read aloud, Sheep in a Jeep and the activity, “Word Family Muffins” (Fox, 2008, p.103). We chose this activity because our buddy has a basic understanding of rhyming; he can give a clear textbook definition of what rhyming is and recognizes the rime in cat, bat and mat when looking at the words in print, but when he hears them read a loud, without a visual, he struggles to list a word that rimes with cat.

In the activity our buddy picked a tile from the letter tins and one from the word families, at, ell, or old and recorded it on the “muffin word guide” worksheet. Our buddy was finding the correct family, but he was doing so by stretching out the words, he wasn’t recognizing the patterns of the word families. It wasn’t until the very end, did he start to pick up on the patterns, and I’m still not sure if he understood the riming or if we had just done it so many times that he had memorized the words.

I think about how close my buddy is to fully grasping rhyming. I wish I had more time to work with him and see his growth. Lamott said, “the job of the teacher is to hold the lantern while the student digs”. I love this quote and I’ve been thinking about it for a few days. My buddy needs teachers to hold the lantern through providing activities and read alouds about rhyming while he digs in and sees the patterns and gets a strong hold on it.

Changing the world - 5 minutes at a time

This week in our Social Studies class we learned about a 12 year-old boy who is changing the world by bringing awareness to child labor. In class we discussed the video and how we as teachers can use stories like these in our social studies curriculum. My group talked about how we as teachers could use stories like this 12 year-old and other child activists to motivate and teach our students to be social activists in their own communities.

But how do you teach social activism in classrooms where the focus is reading, writing and math and students only have 30 minutes of social studies a week? The answer, get creative! This video clip is of a school in Australia where students only spend five minutes a day being social activists and yet are making a huge difference in their community.

"What I've learned about great teachers"

Recently I read a short interview with Bill Gates titled, "What I've learned about great teachers". The thought that this profound statement could be covered in just one page, including a large caricature of Gates, intrigued me; however, my intrigue quickly diminished by the third question.

When asked why experts claim there are so many bad teachers in America, Gates answered, "Very little is invested in understanding great teaching... the Gates Foundation has learned that two questions can predict how much kids learn, 'does your teacher use class time well?' and 'when you're confused, does your teacher help you get straightened out?'" (Tough, 2010, p.8).

As a pre-service teacher, I would have to disagree when Gates says, "very little is invested in understanding great teaching". I spend hours every week reading articles and book by people who have dedicated their careers to understanding great teaching, and in my placements and the schools that I worked in, I see first hand the great teaching that I read about. These teachers understand how to be great educators and they are putting it into practice everyday.

As for the two questions that can predict how much a student learns in class, I wonder to myself, how can a student answer the question, "does your teacher use class time well", without being given an example of what is the correct way of using time. And if the Gates Foundation is implement their own skewed definition, are they asking the same questions to each student?For it doesn't take a great teacher to know what is an efficient use of time for one person could be completely different for the next.

I do think Gates' second questions does have some merit, it's important for a teacher to take the time to work with a student and straighten him or her out when s/he is confused. As a young student, I know my best teachers were the ones who took the time to work with me and help me understand. But I was never in class size larger than 24, and Gates wasn't asked the question, how does a teacher with limited resources and 32 students straighten out each one every time s/he is confused? I observe teachers, who despite their best efforts of working with students at lunch and before and after school, there are still the occasional student who is still "confused", but this confusion isn't just based on this one teacher, it's also from past experiences and an often stressful home-life. After everything this teacher has done, would the Gates Foundation still consider her a bad teacher?

One of the final questions of the interview asked what he learned from home-schooling his kids while he and Melinda traveled for three month? Gates answered, "Teaching's hard! You need different skills: positive reinforcement, keeping students from getting bored, [and] commanding their attention in a certain way" (Tough, 2010, p.8).

How could such a short interview go from, very little being invested in good teaching, to him describing what teachers do everyday?