Field Experience Connection:  I believe this week accomplished its purpose – making sure we felt comfortable in our new teaching environment.  I liked how we were eased into the schedule with 9:00 AM meeting times, which allowed us to become adjusted after a long winter break!  On Monday, I enjoyed our Culture Bag activity.  It was interesting to learn more about my other MAT colleagues.  I felt like this activity allowed us to understand each other better, which helped to create a stronger learning community.  I definitely felt a closer bond to other traditional MAT students by the end of the week. 

On Tuesday, it was good to have a refresher on what is expected of us within our myriad of portfolios!  It seems so overwhelming when one first starts the strand during fall quarter, but I think that we will be prepared and everything will work out.  Marlene did a great job of explaining more about the IPDP, so I feel like this is manageable.  I have already been doing a lot of professional development activities!

Wednesday was the longest day of the entire week.  The Mifflin Welcome Center was a great experience.  I was surprised to find out that twenty different languages are spoken within the school.  I imagine that at least one different culture will accompany each language, so cultural awareness plays an important role within this school.  Teachers need to be aware of basic rules for each culture in order to best communicate with the student and parent.  Culture also affects the learning of the students.  If a teacher makes an American cultural reference, then only a few students might understand what the teacher means.

Thursday was a fun day.  I truly enjoyed working with Erin and Nick as we mapped the northern boundary of Buckeye Middle School.  It was great to explore the area and get to know where our students live.  Buckeye encompasses a very eclectic area.  I would divide up the district into fourths.  The lower fourth is the rural southern boundary.  Students in this area live in nicer subdivisions or on a nice plot of land.  The next fourth is from the 270 to the school.  This area is full of smaller, older homes which are close together.  There are a lot of churches within this area, so religion probably plays a big role in most of these students’ lives.  There are also a lot of fast food and retail stores along High Street that are in really nice condition.  The next fourth would be the industrial area just north of the middle school.  The main plant is Buckeye Steel Casting, which is the main cause of the poor air quality within the area.  This plant gives off a stench of death.  I feel badly for those students who live near this and whose health could be adversely affected.  There are no homes within this immediate area but there are some smaller mechanic shops as well as some other sources of industry.  The northern fourth would stretch from the industrial area to the very northern most boundary of the school district.  This fourth seems to be more of what people would think of as “inner city.”  There are a lot of bars but not a lot of retail shops or other restaurants.  The houses are rundown and some of the houses are boarded up with city mandated “Vacant” signs on the doors.  These homes are often used as the canvas for gang communication.

Friday allowed us to start feeling comfortable within the middle school.  The scavenger hunt was a fun and interactive way for us to learn about the school.  Every school has its own procedures and policies.  I thought I definitely got a good feel for the school culture at Buckeye during this day.  The staff members were really excited to have us there.  It was almost like, “Thank goodness they are back!”   I met Ms. Carter, the head secretary, and she was extremely helpful in filling me in on pretty much everything at the school.

I was also able to sit in for one hour in Ms. Reed’s class.  During this time I was able to observe and get to know two different groups – the 3/5 block and the 6/7 block.  Each block has very different personalities as a whole.  I bounced around from group to group trying to get to know the students as well as make sure they were on task.  It is amazing how some students already look at you as a role model within the first few minutes of meeting you.  I could just see that admiration in some of the students’ eyes.  I am excited to get to know these students better and understand their stories, their cultures, and their values.

Research/Text Connection: Ruby Payne’s book A Framework for Understanding Poverty introduces the concept of how different cultures effects teaching and learning.  Payne generalizes the characteristics of different classes by creating a table of the hidden rules.  The hidden rules describe how each class values and reacts to certain things (p.p. 42-43).  The hidden rules of poverty often surface as typical classroom behaviors in an inner city environment, such as being very disorganized, not completing homework assignments, being physically aggressive, wanting to entertain, disliking authority, and laughing when disciplined (p.p. 60-61).  Payne also paints students of generational poverty as coming from truly broken homes.  For example, on page 55, Payne renders a generational poverty family tree.  The mother was the center of the organization.  The diagram showed that the mother had married three times and had a live-in female lover.  Two of the three ex-husbands had remarried at least once and had children with those wives.  Although Payne claims to base this diagram on a real story, this perpetuates the stereotype that all people in poverty live their lives in this manner.  Readers need to keep in mind that some of these anecdotes that Payne mentions could describe some people in poverty but not all.  Ms. Reed confirmed that most students at Buckeye live either in a single-parent household or a two-parent household.  I am certain that very few, if any, children have quite the twisted family tree that Payne depicts in her book.

These generalizations are the source of much frustration within the academic community.  Paul Gorski asks in his article “Savage Unrealities” if we can assume “that poor white U.S. citizens from Appalachian West Virginia share a mindset and culture with poor Somali refugees who arrived in Minnesota last month?”  These two cultures cannot even be close to the same although both populations would be considered in poverty.  Gorski continues saying that

“Payne draws on the most egregious and unsubstantiated stereotypes of socioeconomically disadvantaged people and people of color, supporting the notion that we must fix poor people instead of eradicating classism.  A brief flip-through of A Framework reveals outrageously classist statements, none of which are substantiated by research.”

Payne’s lack of research other than personal anecdotes and observations does bother me as an educator with a science background.  It is true that Payne buffed up her book by adding research notes at a later time.  However, true empirical research does not allow one to simply seek out research to fit what has already been written as the truth.  Payne’s book does one good thing – it starts the conversation about poverty.  What should be done about improving a child’s education when in poverty?  How can we break free from classism within the school system?  These topics that rise to the surface out of Payne discussions, rather than Payne’s cultural generalities, is what will benefit students who currently live in a culture of poverty.

Personal Connection:  I felt very anxious about the methods experience before the quarter started.  Even at the beginning of the week, there was a tremendous sense of unknowing which made me stress.  What would “inner city” be like?  Would it be as Ruby Payne described in her books?  Would all of my students come from dysfunctional and abusive families as Ruby likes to portray families in poverty?  I was surprised to find out that these students were more like me than I had ever imagined.  Pam Reed summed it up by calling these students “rurban,” a fine blend of rural and urban characteristics.  The school district I attended for K-12 was more rural with a little of what would be considered “urban” in Chillicothe.  My home school did not have gang activity, so dealing with students who want to be in a gang because they think it is cool is an area in which I have little experience.  I believe that is probably the only real difference between this school district and my home district that I can see from the surface.

It seems like most of these families really want the best for their children.  The majority of students are dressed in nice clothing, even if it’s not a designer label, so the parents make sure that their children are cared for properly.  The families seem to be hardworking, blue collar folks.  This resonates with me as my dad, as well as many of my friends’ dads, worked in a factory to support their family.  My dad only read one book to me over the years because he hates to read, but he always encouraged me to do my best in school.  I will never forget the tears in his eyes when I was inducted as President of Alpha Lambda Delta at Otterbein as an undergraduate.  I feel like the families in this district are the same way – working hard to make a better life for their children. 

Future Teaching & Learning Connection: The Culture Bag activity succeeded in creating a stronger learning community within our small MAT group.  This makes me think that understanding what each student values within his/her culture is a very important part of creating an exceptional learning community within the classroom.  I think I will try to do this activity in Ms. Reed’s class if she thinks it’s appropriate.  I know she is trying to find ways for her class to come together.  I hope that once we do the Culture Bag activity, then Erin and I will be able to incorporate what we learned about the students to develop culturally relevant lessons.  The Community Mapping activity will also aid us in understanding any cultural references the students reveal during their Culture Bag activities.  I feel that once we make the students’ culture a priority, then we have earned the respect of our students.  The students will then be excited about learning and become truly engaged in the process.