Ms. Oak's empowering education classroom

We all learn differently. Some people are oral learners, others are visual learners, and some are kinesthetic learners where they learn better doing hands on activities. I personally learn better when doing something hands on, or when I physically am looking at the material. When I have my own classroom I am aware that I will have students who will have all different ways of learning. It is important to be able to use a variety of assignments to accommodate the various learning techniques.

In Ms. Oak’s first grade class it is hard enough getting the children focused on the assignment given, let alone make sure each student properly understands what the assignment is asking them to do. Ms. Oak does a great job at getting the attention of her students. She waits until all of the students have their hands in an “o” position and sitting quietly to assure that each student is given the opportunity to hear and understand all of the directions. Once each student has heard all the directions she splits the class into the two reading groups she previously assigned. One group sits around a round table to do reading activities with her, and she leaves me with the other students to make sure they complete a few assignments, usually consisting of two pages in their workbook, a practice paper, and if they finish to read the next story. Ms. Oak does a great job at getting her students to initiate their work; I however have a harder time. Most of the time the students are focused on sharpening their pencils until they are one inch long, stabbing holes in their reading boxes, drawing pictures on their boxes, or asking me questions about my life such as why I am there, why I go to college, if they could play with my hair, or simply being fascinated by the fact that I am 19 years old. It is a blast for me to have them so interested in my life, but I have to make sure they get their work done. Ms. Oak does a good job at appealing to all of the different styles of learning. When she is with one group she reads to the students, as well as they read aloud to her and the fellow students in the group. Then the students usually play a listening and reading game with her. When that group of students works alone they do the worksheets. I noticed that one particular girl named Tulip has an extremely hard time settling down and paying attention. When she works on the activities alone I noticed she cannot get motivated. I usually sit next to her making sure she gets her work done. It is hard balancing myself with helping their other students if they have any questions as well as making sure Tulip is working on her assignments as well. I noticed that Tulip likes to help me help the other students, so when they come up asking me a question, and she has already finished that part of the assignment I will ask her to explain it to them. She gets really excited to help the other students.

Ms. Oak’s classroom is an example of empowering education pedagogy, expressed by Ira Shor. Ms. Oak makes sure she is responding to all the needs of each student to create growth for each individual student. Ms. Oak sets high expectations for her students to learn the material given. She does this by appealing to each student’s individual learning style. Ira Shor would be pleased by Ms. Oak’s teaching methods to create an empowered classroom. I am glad to be in a classroom with a teacher who can elicit positive emotions to the class at times where she is clearly frustrated over distracted first graders.

Diversity at Greenville prompt 2

The students at Greenville* Elementary are mostly African American, or Hispanic. When looking around the classroom there are only a couple Caucasian and Asian students. When searching Greenville Elementary on inforworks.com, the statistics show that 56%, more than half of the school’s students are Hispanic. 21% are African American, only 13% Asian and 10% Caucasian.
When you first walk into the school there are signs in both Spanish and English, which I think it is great to have a school welcoming to people who speak different languages. I think these signs are mostly for parents leading them to different part of the building, because inside the actual classrooms there are no other signs containing both languages. According to infoworks.com only 26% of the students are receiving an ESL education service.
Jonathan Kozol would say that this school is not a diverse school. Just because most of the students in the school are Hispanic or African American, does not make this school diverse. When looking at the students in Ms. Oak’s classroom there are only two Caucasian students and one Asian student. Jonathan Kozol would argue that if this school was diverse, then there would be an equal percentage of all ethnicities.
According to infoworks.com the majority of the percentage of proficiency in math and reading for grades 3 through 6 are substantially below proficient. The students in which attend Greenville Elementary live in a poor urban area. This could be a factor in why scores are so low. Jonathan Kozol argues that if this happened to a rich school, something would be done to change the proficiency of the scores. He says what is good for a rich child, is just as good for a poor child. It is upsetting to me that year after year the students at the school are continuing to achieve such low scores.
In Ms. Oak’s classroom, the ethnical background differences of the students are as obvious to these first graders as it is to me. A boy, Bert was being teased by another boy, Ernie, saying he had a crush on a girl in the class. Bert was not angry he laughed with Ernie saying he could never have a crush on the girl because they were friends, and neighbors, but more importantly because she was white. Bert did not speak about the girl’s skin color in a derogatory way, but it was one of the reasons that he could not have a crush on her. Since these boys were saying this directly in front of me, I explained that it was okay if he had a crush on her and Bert exclaimed “That means I can have a crush on you!”
*names have been changed