Throughout my student teaching this semester, I have had the luxury of using my CT’s already established classroom culture. I observed her through her first several weeks of school where she established procedures and expectations, and while reading these chapters, I was struck by how closesly my CT followed these guidelines. Because of the solid foundation of expectations and respect she created with my students, I have been able to teach my French II classes with very little difficulty pertaining to class room managemnt. Unfortunately, during my first year of NYU, when I was teaching elementary school in France, I had a terrible time managing my classes and did not have a CT to le Continue reading Starting Out on the Right Foot
All posts by Gretchen
Substance Abuse and the Teacher’s Role
“In the school settings, teenagers draw conclusions about alcohol and drug abuse from what they see and hear from their friends, classmates, and teachers. When schools establish drug and alcohol policies that clearly state expectations and penalties regarding use by students, they help reinforce the factor that underage drug use is not an acceptable form of behavior.”
While reading Chapter 9, I thought to myself, were I a teenager, how would I interpret this information? I was struck by the difference between the studies concluding that the teenage brain is succeptible to the Continue reading Substance Abuse and the Teacher’s Role
No Defining Characteristic
I struggled to choose just one important passage for my MVP this week, but I stuck with the conclusion from Diamond and Savin-Williams “The Intimate Relationsips of Sexual Minority Youth”
“Perhaps the single most defining characteristic of sexual-minority youths’ intimate relationships is that they have no single defining characteristics: the types of casual, intimate, platonic, and romantic relationships these youths pursue with same-sex and other-sex peers Continue reading No Defining Characteristic
How to Rigorously Queer
“In queering, there is no closing – and arguably, there is never closure. To queer is to venture into controversial, intellectually complicated, nuanced terrain with students. It requires faith that middle school students in a public school such as mine not only can, but must, learn to grapple with complexity if their education is going to provide opportunities, rather than impose insurmountable limitations.”
My placement’s instructional focus this year is rigor: a buzz word I have difficulty nailing down the meaning of, but as it pertains to my classroom, it is incorporating the “why” is this important and “how” can what we’re learning affect your life. This element proves to be challenging, as I’m pushed to ask higher-level questions to my students. It’s also a challenge for myself to incorporate real world Continue reading How to Rigorously Queer
The ESL classroom
Linda Prieto’s “The Sting of Social Hierarchies.”
“Not only were my siblings and I expected to negotiate the English-speaking world by translating for our parents at school, the doctor’s office, and when paying bills, but were also expected to ser acomedidos, to jump in and translate for others around us, whether we knew them or not. This is why I understood that I am privileged to be bilingual. I learned this alongside the knowledge that in public school, bilingualism is not valued and speaking Spanish is considered a deficit. Only mainstream youth are accommodated.”
This passage struck me because I so clearly see how these two different interpretations of bilingualism are communicated in my current student-teaching placement. While observing my CT teach French I, I have noticed that she frequently asks her “Spanish speakers” if a new wor Continue reading The ESL classroom