All posts by Alexandra Villanueva

I’m here to help. Let’s work it out

Creating Classroom Community

“We don’t have the impulse and control that you have. We are acting out so that you will provide us with safety and structure-be soft yet firm-so that we can learn the behavior we need to learn to be happy and successful.”(Smith & Lambert, 2008, p.19)

This quote reminded me of what a student told me recently when I asked him if he had any advice I could use next year. His response was: “Show confidence, because students, including myself, are going to want to test you. They will misbehave to get attention”. His response and Smith & Lambert’s quote made me wonder: “how many times have I passed this test? How many times have I failed it?” This is a question I’ll have to figure out an answer for on my own, however, I am grateful for the opportunity to have met one student that showed me I can pass these “tests”. His name is Jorge, and he is the type of student who needs to be challenged more than his peers, or he will become bored and disruptive. Although he is intelligent and grasps the material easily, his behavior at the beginning of the semester got in the way of his learning and my instruction, so I talked to my CT and my supervisor about what to do in this situation. They both told me that good teachers know how to bring out the best in their students, that if I talked to him like an adult, he would behave like one, and it was true. I changed my way of approaching his bad behavior; whenever he misbehaved, instead of giving him warnings and then asking him to step out of the classroom, I invited him to meet with me after class and after school several times. Thanks to his cooperation, I discovered a different side of Jorge. After a few weeks of getting to know him better, I could see that his behavior problems arose from the need to be noticed, so I created opportunities for him to have attention, but in a positive and useful way for the rest of his classmates. I made him group leader; assigned him presentations to show what he already knew before we learned it in class, constantly gave him positive reinforcement, and his attitude changed. Jorge is now my best student in this class and his grades have improved tremendously. Thanks to him and all the challenging situations I went through this semester, I feel more prepared to face difficulties in my classrooms next semester and as a teacher next September.

Engaging students in drug abuse prevention

Reaching Adolescents and How to Respond, Urban Adolescents

The most disturbing finding in the report shows that in the past ten years, the number of twelve-to seventeen- year-olds who abused controlled prescription drugs rose 212 percent, while the number of adults jumped 81 percent. (Philip, 2006, 132).

After looking at these numbers, I thought about the main reason these drugs are becoming so addictive: their availability. Kids no longer have to go to an underground party to drink alcohol nor do they have to pay a drug dealer, they can now find drugs in their own medicine cabinet for free. As educators, it is important that we don’t wait until one of our students is abusing a drug to speak up. Like the article pointed out, there are some steps we can take in order to prevent that our students become addicted. Last week, I observed a really good example of how a teacher dealt with a student taking medicine in her classroom. At the beginning of class, while the teacher was setting up, one student took out a bottle of Advil and the tablets made a noise. The noise was barely noticeable, but the teacher recognized it and immediately told the student to go up to her. At this point, she still didn’t know it was Advil, so I thought that once she saw it, she will let him have it, but I was wrong. The teacher asked me to go with him to the nurse’s office so that he receives his medicine from her. At first I was surprised that she didn’t let him have the Advil in the classroom, but then I realized that these teachers’ policies about taking pills in the classroom could have a great impact on the students. They don’t only reassure the teacher that the student is taking the right dose of his medicine, but also set up an example for him and his classmates about how serious these medicines are. As educators, it is our job to be informed about what to do to prevent drug abuse among our students, how to recognize the signs, and intervene when necessary.

They will thank us later

Friendship, Love, & Sexuality, Urban Adolescents

Some [adults] are plain old strict, fearing our fun will lead to trouble. They scare us by telling us not to get too close to boys, not to dance like that—but then how will we look cool to the kids? How are supposed to gain experience? How will we learn when to say no, and when not to? It seems as though adults are afraid of our sexuality and give us no credit for having good sense and self-control. Some kids may need to be restrained, but most of us know when to stop. (Appleton, 2007, 149)

After reading this passage, I remembered the many conversations my friends and I used to have about our parents when we were still in high school. Just like the girl in this article, we would always complain about how over-protective they were and how they seemed to have forgotten what they were like when they were younger. Now that several years have passed and I have a younger sister who goes to the same high school I student teach at, I completely understand my parents’ reasoning, and I am actually grateful that they protected me like they did. As an adolescent, I had the wrong definitions for “cool” and “popular” and I am thankful that my parents tried to make me realize that I had to redefine these concepts in order to have a positive high school experience.Although it is true that adolescents have a mind of their own and should be able to make decisions (right or wrong) in order to prepare themselves for adulthood, like the adults in these children’s’ lives, I think it is our job to guide them and teach them how to protect themselves even if they don’t like us for doing it. I am sure they will thank us later, and if they don’t, we at least know we did it with the best intention.

Fostering “flow” in all students

Gender Socialization & Identities, Urban Adolescents

Smith and Wilhelm also found out that the boys tended to look for a sense of “flow” in their activities. The state of flow, originally conceived by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is one “in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter”… a sense of control and competence, a challenge that requires an appropriate level of skill, clear goals and feedback, and a focus on the immediate experience” (Galley, 2008, 90) Continue reading Fostering “flow” in all students →

Connecting with my immigrant students

Newcomers & Perpetual Foreigners, Urban Adolescents

Pedagogy that is sensitive to students’ cultural backgrounds and needs and demonstrates respect for their cultural heritages is necessary for enhancing their cognitive and behavioral engagement, yet having experienced the difficult process of transition- including the need to learn a new language and new systems of interaction- perhaps the things immigrants students long for the most are basic respect, warmth, and a genuine interest in them as people. (Suárez-Orozco, Qin & Amthor, 2008, p. 64) Continue reading Connecting with my immigrant students →