Let’s call him Jack. Jack is a white, blue eyed, blond haired boy that thoroughly enjoys to be loud. He is the student that will pick up chairs and walk around during class. He will talk to a few of the other students, but mainly he just talks with three of the other boys. From his actions, he seems to be slightly intimidated to approach the other children. He likes the comfort and normalcy of old friends. When given the chance, they will laugh and joke together, but they are seated fairly far apart from each other. However, despite his loud tendencies, he also seems to really want to excel and seems to be paying attention most of the time. He will answer question in class and when he really needs to get his work done, he will separate himself from the rest of the class to do it.
Jack is a talkative student that really does want to answer the questions often. He likes the attention that talking in class gives him. He will sometimes answer the questions by raising his hand, sometimes not. Most of the time when a question is asked, he will give the answer, but sometimes, he will expand this answer into a personal story about what happened to him. Jack is a great story-teller. Jack is also sent down the hall often to the special education room for what he calls “a problem in my head”. He said that he often has trouble remembering things. Occasionally, he can’t see the board, but still, he is seated in the back row for a few of his classes. Jack is a student that I see so much potential in that I just don’t feel is currently being met at his school.
As I stated earlier, I think that Jack is a student that really thrives on attention. I asked him if he would be willing to chat with me and answer a few questions for me. He willingly said that he would spend some of his lunch time sitting outside, eating lunch with me, and talking about himself. It was so fascinating to talk with him. He would just tell me story after story about himself, experiences he had experienced, his family, and his friends. When I asked if he wanted to go to recess with the rest of the kids he said no, he was fine just talking with me. I think that he really needs that one on one attention. Perhaps part of this is because he feels that he doesn’t have many friends. He has shared with me that when he was little, because he didn’t have friends and people picked on him, he had an imaginary friend named Franko. Because of his feelings about the lack of friendships I believe he needs a reminder that he is important. Jack’s lack of experience with social friendships will most likely hinder his social literacy. Although Jack seems to know right from wrong, what is accepted and what is not, he will occasionally talk overbearingly loud over people or take a joke too far. However, as he starts to have more friends and works with different people in group settings, his social literacy will improve. Although I think that by being with the students for a while, I would have picked up on his need for verification about himself, I think that getting to know a student individually is the only way to really start to understand where a students is coming from.
During our conversation it seemed as though while he got some support at home, he had a rough family life and there wasn’t as much support as in some families. This is really important to note because as a teacher, there will be some students that I will not need to help as much because they have the familial support, while others may need me to be more of a parental figure. As an educator, I need to be aware of these differences and with students like Jack, make sure I take the time to really get to know them and spend extra time helping them and talking to them.
Another thing that I learned from Jack is that it is so important not
to make assumptions when I am teaching. My first impression of this
bleached haired blond boy was that he might be trouble. My next assumption
was that he talked a lot. This was true, but fortunately, talking
doesn’t really bother me. Then, I discovered that he was in special
education for some of his classes so I questioned why and if I should have
the same expectations for him as for everyone else. My assumptions
were not correct at all, well, minus the talking factor. As I stated
earlier, he loves attention. He will try and get it from the other
students and from the other teachers. However, he is not trouble
at all. I see him as a student that if you respect him, he will definitely
respect you. Also, my assumption about his ability to keep up with
the rest of the class proved to be inaccurate. Yes, he did go down
to the special education room for help with reading for tests and such,
but I think that he is a smart kid. I believe that he needs lessons
and strategies on how to find information and remember information.
But, if he were given more guidance instead of simply giving it to him
and expecting to find the answers, I believe that he would be able to understand
the text more and find the answers himself next time. As we have
learned in C&I 302, it is so important to teach the students how to
think and learn because it is nearly impossible to learn without being
taught.
One of the aspects that fascinated me so much about Jack that I would
not have expected was his love for writing. He really enjoys writing,
especially creative writing. He was telling me how often he writes
when he can’t sleep. He shared how he would lay in his bed, with
the covers over him, with a flashlight in one hand and pen in the other
and just keep on writing. Sometimes his dad would catch him, but
his dad was ok with it. Another story about writing that he told
me that I thought was endearing was how sometimes he just gets on the computer
at his house and won’t realize that he is writing a story until he is done.
His love for writing was also apparent in lessons that we did with him.
We took the kids outside to write. It was gorgeous out so some of
the kids got a lot written while others barely got a thing done.
However, Jack separated himself from the group just so that he could concentrate
on writing. When time was up, he wasn’t quite finished but we had
to do lunch. Then, as I was saying, our meeting took up most of the
lunch and recess time, but in the last ten minutes, instead of playing
football with his friends, he wanted to finish writing his paper.
I was amazed.
During our interview when I asked him what kinds of writing he did in school and if he enjoyed it, he said no. This surprised me because it was after he had described his love for writing. When I questioned him further, I found that he did not enjoy writing in school because he felt that it was more assignments and expository writing instead of creative writing. He said that all he wanted was time to express his thoughts and stories in a creative manner, more “freedom of topics”. This then reminded me again that if I want to be an effective teacher, I have to make sure to have a variety of lesson plans to fit everyone from the Steve Crane’s that love research papers to the Jack’s who love expressing themselves creatively. Like Jack’s struggles in other subjects, I think that if he was taught multiple ways to write a research paper, he would feel more comfortable and enjoy writing them more. When I asked him about English specifically he said that he doesn’t feel that he can do well in English because his teacher doesn’t explain things well. They really only do things out of the books. Jack does not seem to get enough instruction with writing. He has a lot of potential, he just needs to be taught.
Jack also has an interest in reading. He doesn’t have a particular favorite genre. He said that he likes sports books a lot. He talked a fair amount about a book that he won that was about an African American man that because a professional baseball player. When I asked him if he liked to read in school he told me that he got frustrated because of all the breaks he was forced to take. He would just start to get into the book and suddenly it would be time to stop. I thought that it was really interesting that he wished he had more time to read. As his teacher, I might try to set up a program before, during, or after school where he could come and read. I think in the class I would also make more places conducive to comfy reading. The kids just have their desks that are all in rows. I also love the idea of having multiple books going on simultaneously. Unfortunately, I didn’t think about it until Professor Clift mentioned in class, that the chances of having multiple books going on at the same time my first year is not that likely. I am going to try and get into that as quickly as possible so I can benefit my kids the most.
One of the things that I asked Jack when we were talking about books was his experiences with racial diversity. He is at an all white school so in my opinion learning about diversity is even more important. However, between talking with Jack, his teacher, and other teachers in the building, it seems that they really do not work much with issues of racial diversity. Observing one day in his social studies class, I noticed that they were learning about the Chinese Dynasties, but the students were not engaged. Although Jack has been reading The Cay for the past two months, Jack said that most of the contact he has had with diversity has been with books he has read outside of class on his own. Due in part to the lack of racial diversity, I focused my unit plan on diversity. Hopefully by identifying stereotypes that are used on people and reading a story that included both diversity and stereotypes, the students will become more accustomed and experienced in diversity and become a closer community of students. As Christensen states, “To become a community, students must learn to live in someone else’s skin, understand the parallels of hurt, struggle, and joy across class and culture lines, and work for change. For that to happen, students need more than an upbeat supportive teacher, they need a curriculum that encourages them to empathize with others” (2). With lessons on diversity, the students will start to understand and empathize better with each other. Like the lack racial diversity, class and religion diversification of the students also seems to be fairly homogeneous. Without asking questions, they appear to be from about the same financial bracket; however, I do know that some of the students are from in town and others are from the surrounding farming areas. Thus, there is probably a financial difference and definitely a social difference. However, this was not apparent while I was teaching. The students are from a small town that has recently been destroyed by a tornado so the entire town is still recovering both emotionally and physically. One of the few real situations of diversity that I noticed was with learning abilities. Within the class, there are students that are exceptionally gifted while there are others that occasionally go to the special education room. This is a challenge for both the students and the teachers. However, the students seem to have adapted fine to this arrangement. Because of the predominantly homogeneous nature of the community, educating the students on diversity is imperative.
Another fact that I liked was that his favorite thing about books was the pictures in them. This answer surprised me a bit knowing that he was in sixth grade. I think this might go back to the fact that he is not a ROTE learner. Jack has trouble processing words and remembering what is going on. One example that he gave was that he can not have a whole list of instructions at once. He said that it was too much for him to process and remember. He needs it to be in separate paragraphs or on separate pieces of paper to remember. I do not think that his teachers all know about this because none of his teachers seem to cater to his needs. Again, I think that the only reason that he told me was because I was taking the time to listen and learn about the students. Each student is going to have a “best” way of learning. Granted, I will probably not be able to accommodate all of the students needs at once, but I can certainly try. As Allen and Gonzalez point out, “A curriculum that is too structured, too lockstep, will add to students’ feelings that there is no room for them and their needs in school” (7). Variety of lesson presentation is key.
Jack’s special education needs are something that I tried to address in my Unit plan. First, I will make sure that I have a variety of lesson presentations in my unit. The students have time to work as individuals, with small groups, and also as a large class. Hopefully this will ensure that the students are getting a variety of learning experiences. I also like group work because it seems to level the learning curve due to the students that have higher learning abilities helping out the students that are slower learners. Throughout my Unit Plan, there was also multiple opportunities for the students to get up, move around, and talk. This is important for Jack because he loves talking and has a short attention span. However, he also requires one on one attention so there is also time built in for that.
Jack is also literate in multiple things besides academics. He knows how to fix bikes and spends a lot of his free time working on those. One time when I was working with Jack he was showing me some of his amazing computer literacy. As a sixth grader, he was already doing things such as PowerPoint and making webpages. I haven’t started to do that until this year. His PowerPoint presentation has a huge section about the bikes he likes and the kinds of cars he really wants to work on. Thus, Jack probably has a very high literacy for hands on activities. Jack even has had multiple experiences driving a car in the country. Jack is also really interested in guns. Even though he is only in sixth grade he already has two bb guns and a rifle. He said that he goes out with his uncle often to shoot. I thought that was interesting because it is something so far removed from something that I would do. He is also great at football, wrestling, and street hockey. Thus, these sports have probably increase his spatial and physical literacy. He understands the sports talk and moves more than I ever will. Jack is also talented musically. He plays the trumpet in band. Hence, he is literate in reading and playing music. It would be really beneficial to know about all of this when assigning reading and writing projects. With his knowledge in those areas, not only will he have personal interest, but he will also be able to compare and contrast the information in them. There needs to be time in class for him to be able to express his other literacies besides reading and writing. For Jack, acknowledging and commending him on his talent in all of his literate areas, would probably also increase his self-confidence.
Overall, in the short time I have spent observing Jack and talking with
him I think he has shown me a lot. If he was not interested, he just
didn’t pay attention. However, he was always hungering for attention.
Jack is a student that with extra work and guidance has great potential.
Therefore, my unit plan would have to have lots of variety to keep him
interested and also allow for group work so he feels that he is getting
the attention that he needs. Occasional meetings with me would also
be beneficial, either just to talk, or to help him with his work.
Jack is a wonderful student that with direction and care has the ability
to have great accomplishments.
Work Cited
Allen, Janet, Gonzalez, Kyle. There’s Room for Me Here: Literacy
Workshop in the Middle School. York, Maine. Stenhouse Publisher,
1998.
Christensen, Linda. Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word. Rethinking Schools, Ltd, 2000.
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