Brooke Kelly's blog

The second thing that was notable this week occurred today during our class discussion with Marsha Pincus. As I shared in class, when I was in middle school we went on a week long overnight field trip, in which we were divided into groups. At the time, we noticed that the groups seemed to be divided by cliques, including which teacher was leading the group. For example, the athletic kids were with the gym teacher, the kids in band were with the band teachers, etc. A few years later, the gym teacher whose group my friends and I were in confessed that they had drafted the groups. At the time, we absolutely loved our groups. I was with my favorite teacher and all my friends, so it seemed like the ideal situation. However, reflecting back now, I see that all that did was establish and enforce the stereotypes that we already felt about each other and ourselves. While it is true that these groups already existed, making these groups established that they were concrete and acknowledged that the teachers were also aware of them, and felt no need to attempt at integration. In high school, we all developed other interests, but the groups remained. Perhaps part of this is that we were not encouraged to reach outside of these groups at a young age, which lead to the cliché, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” This was also an example of our teachers projecting themselves onto us, as in many ways the groups seemed to be divided by who they would have liked to be friends with if they were our age.

This week was my second visit to my placement, and being slightly more used to the environment, I was able to concentrate more on details than only the bigger picture. This week I had more one on one conversations with the students, and was conscious of keeping up with my observations from last week. I was still not thrilled with the teacher, and continued to struggle with understanding the class environment. At one point, one of the boys called me over to his desk and asked me if I wanted to be a teacher. When I responded yes, he told me to work at a magnet school. This comment caught me off guard, and made me think more about my observations last week concerning the teacher and the way the students responded to her. Before my first day, I looked up information about this school, and noticed that it was a high ranked public school with a good reputation. I was completely caught off guard that this eighth grade boy would warn me against teaching in a school like his. How is a kid supposed to be excited to learn, when he has such an established idea that his school is not suitable?

This post is a bit late, but it is in response to my first day at my placement. This semester, I have been placed at a public school in Center City Philadelphia, which is vastly different than the suburban independent school I attended, and the two previous placements I’ve had which were also both at independent schools. I am currently in a place where I feel as though I am not prepared to pass judgment or provide ample commentary on the school because I am still figuring out what my impressions are, myself. My first impression of the teacher is that she is not overly enthusiastic. She became irritated quickly and did not seem to feel the need for digression in front of her students. A few times she became frustrated and threw up her hands, exclaiming things such as “I just can’t!” or “I’m done!” after which she would return to her desk for a little bit. At one point, another teacher wandered into the class and the woman I am shadowing turned to her, gestured to the class and said to her, “See what I’m talking about?” The oddest part about this to me was that the students seemed completely un-phased by her attitude. In fact, in many cases, it seemed they rather liked her. 

A couple weeks ago in class, we discussed the idea of "threshold concepts" and the ways these moments of clarity function in the classroom. Esteniolla described her definition of these moments and added that one of her partners in the project studies the occurance of these moments in the classroom, but puts less emphasis on theshold moments outside of the classroom. My natural interest tends to lead me in the other direction. Since this class, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on "aha-moments" that I have had, and although it is possible to pinpoint a few instances in the classroom, I am even more fascinated by the threshold concepts that I have mastered outside of the walls of the classroom. At the end of my past season, I was elected captain of the Haverford field hockey team, and although I was honored, I have also been anxious and struggling to understand what kind of leader I should be. Last week, I attended a leadership seminar, along with the other Haverford College teams’ sophomores. The topic of this seminar was core values. Each attendee was given a list of twenty values and we were asked to number our top ten in order. After we had each done so, we began to discuss our choices, and the leaders of the seminar began to evaluate “Integrity” as a value. I had noticed integrity on the list, but I had not put it in my top ten. Perhaps this was because I did not fully understand its meaning. They defined integrity of being the person you say you are, and eliminated dissonance between what you say and what you do.

Last Thursday in class, we discussed the journal entry about a first grade student who had been given a minor role in her school play because English was her second language, and therefore she was not as fluent as the other students. The writer of this journal entry describee this experience as a turning point that motivated her to develop her reading and speaking skills in English. While reading and discussing this post, I began to wonder about that pivital moment in every young students' life when they decide that it is time to commit to learning their language and to read. As a college student, I understand both the functional purpose and the societal norm that states that around the age of five, children should start to learn to read. However, when you are five, you are still oblivious to these societal norms. This is where my question stems from. What is it that inspires a young student who barely understands the importance of reading, to want to read? I believe that in the case of this specific journal entry, it was the realization that an inability to read English would socially separate her from her peers. This caused me to reflect on the ways that social pressures are present even at this early age. I believe that without the pressure/support/and desire to fit in with your peers (an innate desire) students would not be as motivated to learn to read, or for that matter, develop any other skill.

When reflecting on this assignment, one memory in particular came to mind. While my story is not specifically a story about a breakthrough or an epiphany when I all of a sudden knew how to read, it is a story of literacy, and ways in which my understanding of a storyline helped me play a role. When I was young I had a series of fairytale books. Out of all of them, my favorite was The Twelve Dancing Princesses. My older sister is twelve years older than me, so by the time I began to learn to read she was in college. I had always looked up to my sister and wanted so badly to impress her. During one of her visits home I went to her and informed her that I had been learning to read and had mastered this skill, which was far from true. I held my The Twelve Dancing Princesses book in front of my, careful to stare at the pages studiously, and recited the story from memory. While my sister was overly impressed, when she reported my success to my parents, they saw through my act. While this was only a temporary success, one could argue that although I could not yet read, I was literate. I was able to entertain my sister by telling her the story, while also demonstrating a certain cunning, although it was a deceptive one. If literacy here means judging my success at reading, I would have failed. However, if literacy had been considered my ability to entertain and communicate the story, it could be considered a success.