Journal entry 2

      I'm about halfway through my service learning and I can say with all honesty that this has been the most positive experience of my life. This is no hyperbole at all; I've never been able to help so many kids at one time and I feel like for the first time I am making a difference in multiple lives. I'm beginning to learn names without having to look at name placements and that is a huge thing for me because I've never really been very good at remembering names. I've been working with a particular child and I can say I'm almost shocked at his progress. It's not like I felt this particular child was slow by any means but I figured at such a young age it would be difficult for them to retain information, and with all they are learning the specifics I figured would get lost in translation. However his progress has really opened my eyes on just how fast children can learn.
      I can also say that it feels like the children are much more comfortable with me than I had anticipated. I have a pretty large extended family and I've dealt with children sure, but they've always been family and I figured they would react differently to someone they've never met before. However I couldn't be more wrong. They actually seemed overjoyed at my constant involvement, and as the weeks have passed they all want me to sit at their tables for snack time or help them with their activities.
     I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to expect in the second half of this experience. Just about all my questions have been answered and my concerns put to rest. It's like I said earlier this experience has been incredibly positive, as the teachers in the school has made me feel incredibly welcome and there hasn't been one situation where I felt like I didn't belong. I honestly can't wait until next week because this truly has been the highlight of my week from trip to trip.

"I Won't Learn, But you can Make Me"

           Teaching isn't as easy as making a lesson plan and presenting it to a classroom of children or young adults, not that most believe this to be true but it's always good to clear up misconceptions right off the bat. Every child is different and they come with different learning needs. Simply put, you can not just teach a class and expect every student to learn the same way or to act the same way.
          Children that come from different cultures may have encountered problems with teachers in the past and may reject the idea of learning, much like Barry in this article. Barry had been deemed a problem child and the teacher decided it would be easier to just assume he couldn't learn the material and should be held back on that merit alone. The real problem had lied with the fact that teachers almost feared him, treating him as "6'1" and addicted to drugs". Essentially they saw him, at six years old mind you, as a threat to society. Now I don't know about you but I don't know of that many dangerous six year olds roaming the country.
          It comes down to just being able to deal with different situations and not trying to force anything. The teacher realized in that situation that even though he was in a position of power it didn't really matter at that junction because the student did not respect that power (Delpit). It's not about trying to get every student to like you but they have to respect you as a teacher in order for them to learn anything. Barry only learned when he felt that there was something in it for him, and that particular thing was recognition from class that not only was he the "tough" kid but he was also smart this entire time. When teaching the point in this article would be to play to the attitude of the students in question.

  http://www.teach-kids-attitude-1st.com/

         This link leads to a webpage all about the importance of a good attitude when it comes to students at a young age. Granted all students won't have a great attitude at first but by identifying these students and trying to teach to their strengths can improve that attitude rather than having them regress through negligence or even negative terms.

Inclusion in the Classroom

     "Safe Spaces" was a writing piece that really raised some issues that people don't think about on a daily basis. LGBT students face a problem that most other students don't even see. The lack of relativity in curriculum must make them feel like what they are is wrong. In a time period (K-12) where children are trying to find out who they are any type of negative reinforcement can cause issues for the child in question. There are some alarming numbers concerning teenager suicide with many of them having to do with the fact they were bullied because of their sexual orientation.
       Thinking back to the our first writing piece concerning privilege. While it may not be known to people who don't put emphasis on it (remember people with privilege unaware of that position) but heterosexuality is a position of privilege. Everything about heterosexuality is what is seen as normal. A "family" is constantly seen as a mother, father, and children. Even single parents are mentioned as part of the norm but the issue lies strictly on that of same sex parents. The author mentions that same sex parenting isn't mentioned in elementary school, and thinking back to my schooling I don't remember really hearing about it until high school. This has to be a terrible feeling for children of same sex parenting. Think about being a child in elementary school and having teachers and classmates constantly telling you that it is "unusual" or even "wrong" to not have a mother and a father. Children are impressionable, especially the age in question, so this constant negative reinforcement may make them begin to resent their living situation and even themselves.
        The call to action is all about trying to integrate same sex parenting into the norm of curriculum. A kindergarten teacher in the article put three scenarios up for interpretation, with only one of them being what would be called a "normal" family. The emphasis wasn't put on what each family consisted of but how the families cared for each other. The idea isn't to point out the differences of each family, but to teach that every family is normal not just heterosexual ones.
       Students have to stop feeling like they are different for the wrong reasons. Things like sexual orientation have to be introduced at a younger age in order for children to learn that it is ok and normal to feel or be the way they want. The reason why children make fun of each other would be because they are afraid of what is different. If gay or lesbian isn't a term or concept they understand they will immediately think it is wrong due to that fear of the unknown. The easiest thing to combat this would be to teach them what it is and why there is nothing wrong with it.

My first day (Kozol style journal entry)

     My first day went about as well as I could have asked for. Not expecting perfection I suppose really made things easier I guess, but nevertheless I gathered my things from home and set off for my first experience in my service learning program. I'd be lying if I said that finding the school was as easy as anticipated. I don't spend much time in Providence so getting to the school was in a sense difficult considering the road work in the area and all the detours I had to take. When I finally did get there I noticed that the elementary school itself was very large, much more so than my elementary school I attended in Johnston years ago. I was buzzed in after a few minutes of waiting and when I walked into the office it seemed very busy. In fact it was so busy that I had to speak up slightly just so I could get noticed. I signed in and waited for my assignment, I knew who I was looking for but not necessarily where they would be. After some more waiting my contact came to meet me and instructed me to go to a room down the hall to help out in a kindergarten class.
       Talk about surprise, I went into the day thinking I would be helping out in a third grade class and to hear that I would be going to a kindergarten class really threw me off. Not in a bad way of course but it changed how I was going to act for sure, while both age groups are children kindergarten are the youngest of the bunch. I walked down the hall and the teacher seemed really surprised to see me. She explained to me that no one had told her she would be getting a tutor in class so she really hadn't set up a specific group for me to work with to start off with. It was fine to me because I had gotten to really get a good look at my surroundings and try to learn names as quickly as possible. When she had decided who I was going to work with I went to their table and began to work with the children on some art project they were working on.
      I was actually really surprised with how friendly the children in the class were. I suppose I really didn't know what to expect because after all this was my first time being in a school in this capacity. They asked questions on which school I went to and if I was a student like them. It truly surprised me how quickly they grasped the idea that even though I was much bigger than them and an adult, was a student like them.
      To be able to connect with these kids on the first day was important for me because I wanted them to understand that I was going to be there a while and that I was there to help them. Sure enough they all knew me as Mr. Wentworth immediately and I was actually somewhat embarrassed when I didn't know some of their names. But if I am to take anything away from this first day it would be that the feeling of how gracious and kind these students were, even at such a young age, is the reason why I am doing all this. I want to get into this profession to help students at a young age and to see their gratitude even at this stage validates those feeling and ambitions.

Trying to Break the Language Barrier - An exploration on Richard Rodriguez's piece

           Reading this piece gave me two clear messages; albeit two very contrasting messages. The first thing I picked up on was Richard's loss of his identity as a primarily Spanish speaking person. He seemed reluctant to learn because his home life changed as he and his family learned English. In fact he even says that the personalities of his parents changed the more they learned the English language. His mother wanted to talk all the time while his father became more reserved and kept to himself. Although his father would revert to his old personality whenever he was with his friends and they would exclusively speak in Spanish. It's the thought that one has to leave their old personality behind to take on this new persona as and English speaker.                                                         

"But the bilingualists simplistically scorn the value and necessity of assimilation. They do not seem
to realize that there are two ways a person is individualized. So they do not realize that while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality."

           This leads me into the other message I had noticed in this piece. Students often feel more confident about themselves when the fit in. While Richard had noticed his home life change he also noticed his social and school life change in turn. No longer would he and his siblings rush home because it would be the only place he would feel welcome. His mother wanted a phone installed in their home because she no longer felt isolated and blocked off by the language barrier. That's all that this comes down to, the fact that in bilingual homes private individualism has to suffer a bit in order to have confidence in public and to be their own people.

          So what do I think about this ideal? Personally I am all about people being who they are and to strive for who they want to be without caring about what people may think. The notion that someone has to change themselves in order to strive in society is in itself against my belief. However, as much as I may dislike it, it is a necessary change. To live and thrive in America you have to speak English. However that doesn't mean you have to change who you are entirely because of it. Sacrifices sometimes have to be made in order to achieve a successful job or life, and a small change in private life is a small sacrifice to make.

Society's "Fall from Grace" A look into Kozol's article

      Jonathan Kozol's piece to me was effective at putting the reader in the shoes of a life that isn't truly noticed by society as a whole. We try think about and show pity to those who don't have as much as we do, nor do we truly understand what these people go through on a daily basis. Kozol paints a picture right from the beginning at the struggle and the absolutely alarming statistics that these people are stricken with. They are by his own admission the "poorest of the poor". They see death and despair at almost every corner, either through overdoses on cocaine which has run rampart in their community or from random murders throughout the county. These children are faced with issues many of us couldn't even comprehend at that age because thankfully we weren't exposed to it.
     
       I feel the most shocking thing in this entire article would be the fact that these children aren't even all that phased by their surroundings. Their overexposure to rampart violence and drug usage has completely desensitized them to problems like seeing a murder just down the street. As shown in the anecdote with the child named Cliffe. While walking with him in the park they walk by an area where as Cliffe put it "a guy got shot in the head" with little to no emotion in his voice. They even walked by a place where amputated limbs and bloodied bed sheets were burned and he even made light of that situation.

     Now one could say that it's a coping mechanism, after all there is a large majority of children that live in that area who suffer from depression. They spend their nights crying without even knowing the reason why so they probably try to shove these traumatic events to the back of their minds. By doing this they are likely to have these sudden bursts of sobbing without reason because the memory that has been repressed for a time period is still effecting them emotionally and mentally. It's a very sad thing to think about but it's an issue all the same.

Hello everyone

Hello everyone I'm Kyle. This is my third year at RIC and fifth year of college overall after starting off at CCRI. I didn't have the most exciting summer as most of it was spent working or just hanging out with my friends, although the latter is really all I needed in order to have a good summer. As far as my job goes I work just a few minutes up the road from the college at The Home Depot in Johnston. It's not all that great in any aspect but it's a job all the same. As far as my interests go I enjoy watching sports (all hometown teams) and playing them if my friends aren't busy with whatever they have going on at the time.