CLASSROOM LITERATURE RESPONSE BLOG

CLASSROOM LITERATURE RESPONSE BLOG

Ilana Bailey

            I believe the classroom is an important part of a child’s life that helps to shape the rest of the child’s life.  In the classroom, children learn through both the visible and invisible, through the manifest curriculum and latent curriculum. Teachers need to be aware of both of these aspects of the classroom and actively work to ensure all students are given a fair opportunity to learn in an environment that respects their culture, including their language, history, beliefs, and way of learning. 

            The manifest curriculum can be easily seen and includes factors such as guides, textbooks, bulletin boards and textbooks (Banks & Banks, 2010, p.23).  More formal manifestations of classroom life are encompassed by the content of the classroom (Hernández, 2001, p. 16). The manifest curriculum in a classroom can easily be biased if not carefully considered.  Materials should give accurate and unbiased accounts from perspectives of different groups, including race, social class, and gender.  Banks & Banks (2010) explains that a “teacher’s failure to consider the integration of race, social class, and gender can lead to an oversimplified or inaccurate understanding of what occurs in schools and, therefore, to an inappropriate or simplistic prescription for educational equity and excellence” (p. 66).  Students are the most motivated and have the best potential to learn when their own cultures, experiences and perspectives are reflected in the curriculum, and feel alienated when this does not happen (Banks & Banks, 2010, p.248).  It is also a huge problem when culture and/or language misalignments occur with standardized tests, which can give students horrific disadvantages. Miguel Fernández is a student that suffered one such disadvantage; he was bright and praised by his teachers, but was not able to go to college because of the scores he got on tests that he took in his second language, and because of his citizenship status (Noguera, 2008, p. 48).  I believe incorporating high quality diverse literature in the classroom is an important step in developing the manifest curriculum.  When choosing literature for the classroom, choosing a “varied and balanced collection of book” that are pluralistic and include “works by and about people from many diverse groups” while avoiding stereotypes (Harris, 1997, p.18).  I was intrigued to read Blackburn & Clark’s suggestion of presenting both complementary and competing materials and ideas to provide opportunities for conflicts and deep consideration (2011, p. 247).  This made me reflect on the benefits of these competing materials.  Students can practice higher-level thinking as they dissect and compare what they read a look for inequities.) 

            In addition to the manifest curriculum, the latent curriculum is always present.  Aspects of learning such as language, conversation, questioning, friendships, competition and teamwork, and socialization are part of the classroom process and the latent curriculum.  The latent curriculum is curriculum that is not explicitly taught by the teacher, but all students learn (Banks & Banks, 2010).  Schools are places where children learn important life lessons, such as how to listen to and follow directions, how to interact with other people, and how to work with authority (Noguera, 2008, p.28).  This has been evident in my experience as a teacher.  At the beginning of the school year, I put forth great effort to teach my Pre-K students the classroom routine, and how to follow our classroom instructions and rules.  By the end of the school year these things are old hat for the students.  Teachers need to be aware that students experience classroom life differently from each other. Hernández (2001) explains teachers must be aware of the classroom process and must “be able to identify how learner preferences, beliefs, attitude, and behaviors are influenced by culture and how this relationship affects performance (p. 15).  The classroom experience will be very different for a native speaker of the classroom language than the experience of a non-native speaker.  I was interested in an example that was given by Perry & Delpit in which Ph.D. candidates were asked to read aloud in an unfamiliar dialect.  As pronunciation errors were made, a teacher interrupted with statements and comments elementary teachers routinely make to their students.  The Ph.D. candidates lost all intonation, begin to subvocalize, stumble, fidget, and switch letters around for no reason (Perry Delpit, 1998, p. 25).  Clearly, these language-learning students are not benefiting from this and teachers should consider other methods that benefit these students.  Different cultures have different verbal and non-verbal patterns of interacting (Garcia, 1992, p. 59).  The way students both interact with and respond to their peers and their teachers is often affected by cultural differences (Hernández, 2001, p.164).  Writing allows children the opportunity to take their time and edit their work while having rules displayed before them.  It alleviates students of the pressure of unplanned public reading or oral language (Perry Delpit, 1998, p. 25). 

            While doing the course readings, I became concerned with the dangers of ability grouping and tracking.  Noguera (2008) states, “students can be both unfairly victimized by the labeling and sorting processes that occur within school, in addition to being harmed by the attitudes and behavior they adopt in reaction to those processes” (p.28).  I had a personal experience of this in elementary school when I was placed in the low math group in fourth grade.  I had catching up to do and worked very hard to do so.  When I entered fifth grade, I was automatically placed in the low group again without assessment or any further consideration than my last year’s placement.  Ultimately, I appealed to the teachers and was moved up halfway through the school year, but I missed an entire semester of the math group that was more inline with my current abilities.  Boutte, LaPoint, & Davis (1993) also bring up another concern of ability grouping and tracking; it often leads to segregation by race (p. 12).  This is a form of bias in the classroom.  Research has proven that effective schools maintain high expectations for all students, regardless of their race or gender (Noguera, 2008, p.36).  For these reasons, I believe that heterogeneous grouping should be done in the classroom, and expectations should remain high for all students.  It is important for teachers to treat all different levels and groups fairly, including all gender groups.  Some great ways teachers can reflect to treat groups fairly are:  monitor materials to ensure that they are anti-bias, monitor who you call on, monitor where you stand in class, and monitor where students sit where you stand in relation to the students (Banks & Banks 2010, p. 161).  I think it will be very interesting to monitor myself in these things to see if my intentions match my actual practice.  I believe it is important to monitor myself frequently as well, because even when intentions are good, it is important to reflect on actual practices.  The classroom is such and important part of a student’s life.  Teachers need to actively work to create bias- and racism-free classrooms for all students. 

REFERENCES

Banks, J.A. & Banks, C A. M. (Eds.). (2010). Multicultural education”  Issues and perspectives (7^th ed.) Hoboken, NJ:  John Wiley & Sons. 

Bishop, R. S. (1997). Selecting literature for a multicultural curriculum. In V. J. Harris (Ed.), (pp. 1-15). Norweed, Massachusetts: Christopher-Gordon Publishers In.

Blackburn, M. V., Clark, C.T. (2011).  Analyzing talk in a long-term literature discussion group:  ways of operating within lgbt-inclusive and queer discourses.  Reading Research Quarterly, 46(3), 222-248. dx.doi.org/10.1598?RRO.46.3.2

Boutte, G. S., LaPoint, S., & Davis, B. D. (1993). Racial issues in the classroom: Real or Imagined? Young Children, 49 (1), 19-23.

García, G. E. (1992).  Ethnography and classroom communication:  Taking an “emic” perspective.  Topics in Language Disorders, May 1992,12(3):54-66.

Hernández, H. (2001).  Multicultural education:  A teacher’s guide to linking context, process, and content.  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Merrill Prentice-Hall. 

Noguera, P. A. (2008).  The Trouble with Black boys… and other reflections on race, equality, and the future of public education. San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass.

Perry, Theresa, and Lisa D. Delpit (1998) (Eds.) The Real Ebonics Debate: Power, Language, and the Education of African-American Children. Boston: Beacon Press.