Week 2 Readings

This week's readings started out on a very high note for me; I started out reading Lenski's's article, which while I found it a little dense to get through I also enjoyed it because it had a lot of great advice on how to teach ELL students, which is something that I am very interested in possibly doing for my career. I thought that it had some great advice on assessments and I like the idea of the Predictability Log to help get a better sense of my students.

Next I moved on the Fleming article, which though it saddened me, it also gave me a sense of strength. I ultimately would like to work in an urban setting. TE 401 I was in the urban section, and I am set to do my internship next year in Chicago in an urban school. It sounds cheesy but I would love to be the teacher that students remember who really encouraged them and helped them to enjoy school and succeed. At the very least I would love to be the bright spot in a child's day. I thought that the article brought up a lot of important points about understanding what some kids in urban contexts REALLY go through and how to be understanding of that. I also appreciated that it gave what I viewed as warnings to future teachers in urban contexts. I thought that it was an honest article and that I took away a lot from it.

Unfortunately, however, I ended my readings with Delpit. In perfect honesty I thought that the article was a lot of hypocritical whining, excuse making, and contradictions. I started out in a Redford school in a very "lower class" area where the majority of my peers were white. Eventually my parents worked hard enough and were able to move us to Farmington Hills, where I finished growing up in a "middle class" city and went to a "middle class" school where more than half of my high school was black. I will never forget that my ex boyfriend of that time received more money in scholarships for simply being black than for his educational achievements. I felt as though throughout the article she kept complaining about "those with power" but offered no ideas of what it was exactly that she wanted or wanted to change. She even mentioned at one point that it would be a "cultural genocide" to try to change the make up of other classes. It also made me very angry that she kept talking about how white people have no idea how to teach black kids; I was raised to know that people are people and therefore children are children. If I get placed into a classroom with black children I believe that I am more than qualified to teach them as well. Overall I just felt as though the article was pointing out racial differences and problems not in a constructive manner but to breed more hatred and try to put greater emphasis on racial differences and tension than there already is.