Mike wrote,
> I am not certain if the sensitive teacher gets us fully past the
> "other peoples' children" problem. Ideally, I suppose so. Factually,
> to be sufficiently sensitive, it might mean that the teacher needs
> to be sufficiently knowledgable about local cultures to be able (for
> example) to speak to parents in their native language (never mind
> the kids, where in 4-5 first language classrooms, the task is impossible).
I do not think I'd define a sensitive teacher as that who knows everything
about a child and can speak his/her language. Your reasoning seems to imply
(and correct me if I'm wrong) that sensitivity comes from similarity (i.e.,
being in common with child as much as possible). I strongly disagree with
such approach. I do not agree for teacher spending all evening studying
their kids' cultures and languages. I believe in teaching through diversity
not through similarity. Students are in interest to me, as a teacher,
because they deviate from me. I hope to make them interest in each other
and me because we all deviate from each other. We are the curriculum for
each other -- not textbooks or district guidelines -- and this is not our
choice. But we have choice to reject or accept each other and curricula we
bring with us.
Let me provide an example (real example). A week ago I was asked by my
student teacher to visit a classroom where she has her teaching practicum to
observe her teaching and to see a case of learning disability diagnosed by
the school teacher. As evidence of learning disability, the student teacher
pointed at a first grader (an African American boy) who was doing dittos
with a bunch of addition tasks. The boy did everything correctly except
several repeating tasks of 6+1. He systematically wrote that 6+1=2.
Teacher passed the boy several times and corrected him by crossing 2 with
seven and making explanation why 6+1=7. The boy seemed to agree with the
teacher until the task 6+1 came again on the ditto.
I was puzzled by the boy's behavior because he solved all other addition
tasks correctly and because he used his fingers for counting. Finally, I
came to the boy and asked to explain how he counts 4+3. The boy opened four
fingers on the left hand first, then three fingers on the right hand, and
then he counted the fingers on both hands. Then I asked the boy to explain
6+1=2. The group of kids sitting around stopped their work and started
listening to the boy's explanation. The boy opened one finger on the right
hand representing six and added another finger representing one. Because he
got only two fingers open he explained how he got 2 as the result. "Two
plus the other hand," added a girl who were listening them. The boy agreed.
The university instructor recognized that the children were switching from
the system with the base 10 to the system with the base 5. He asked them to
count 7+2 and the kids (including the boy) replied, "Four plus the other
hand." The boy added that "seven is two plus the other hand." I pointed at
boy's ditto, at teacher correction of 6+1=2 (crossed by the teacher and
replaced with 7) and asked the boy, "Is it why the teacher wrote 7 here").
The boy (at the other kids in the group) looked at the addition task and
said, "Yes. She wrote seven because it is two." "Plus the other hand,"
added the other kids. The boy thought for awhile and said, "She wants me to
count fingers on both hands." I told the boy that he had invented his own
way of counting. I represented seven in his system as Y2 (I actually drew
like a tree with five branches representing a hand with open fingers, not
"Y"). The other kids were exciting to write conventional numbers in the
boy's system.
I moved away from the group. Later I observed that the boy solved task of
8+1 by putting both conventional number 9 and his representation Y4. The
teacher passed him by, looked at his picture of "hand" and asked quickly
"What it for?", crossed it out and moved away. After the lesson, I told the
story to the teacher and she said that she is too busy to investigate
problems with each child (however, she was not too busy to ask the student
teacher to document "learning disability" of the boy).
I argue that guidance sensitivity is not about "investigation of problems
with each child" or the exhaustive description of cultural background of
each child, but rather guidance sensitivity is in teacher's genuine interest
in ways students do what they do. Moreover, I believe that the teacher
should MAINLY learn about his/her students in the process of the guidance
rather than before it.
What do you think?
Eugene
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Eugene Matusov
Willard Hall#206G
Department of Educational Studies
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716
Office: 302-831-1266
Fax: 302-831-4445
email: ematusov who-is-at udel.edu
website: http://www.ematusov.com
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