“Understanding one’s content is one criterion for successful teaching-but only one. Effective educators at all grade levels possess something more significant than content knowledge: a deep understanding of their students. Commer (2005) noted the following in studying over a thousand schools across the United States:
It became clear that both academic and behavioral success were more likely in places where teachers and administrators bought into the value of basing their work on the principles of child and adolescent development. The focus on child development that is largely missing from the preparation of educators probably contributes more to creating dysfunction and underperforming schools than anything else. (757-58)” Continue reading Much more than content knowledge
All posts by Wenli Chen
How complicated about mentoring?
“In addition to issues concerning socioeconomic status, programs tend to gloss over the particular needs related to gender. Single-sex programs (e.g., Big sister of Greater Boston) are finding themselves under increased pressure to become coeducational, despite evidence that they may be more advantageous to adolescent girls. The mentoring movement has grown so rapidly that research has lagged behind, particularly in the area of gender differences….Such differences may not be directly addressed in the pre-match training that goes on at coeducational programs, diminishing the likelihood that mentors are adequately prepared to build strong relationships with their little sister.”
– Rhodes, Davis, Spencer, & Prescott, “Caring Connections: Mentoring Relationships in the Lives of Urban Girls” (p. 151) Continue reading How complicated about mentoring?
Environment affect!
“Environmental factors are also critically important. It has long been noted that large urban centers tend to be more tolerant of same-sax sexuality than small, rural communities, and therefore youths from these two types of communities will likely face distinctly different normative pressure as they struggle to acknowledge, interpret, and accept their same-sex attraction. They will also have notably different degrees of access to support resources. Large urban centers are much more likely to have vibrant lesbian/gay/bisexual communities that sponsor youth groups and youth-focused recreational activities. Youths from rural areas might have little idea that such resources ever exist. These differences directly influence how youths experience and interpret their same-sex sexuality, give that access to supportive lesbian/gay/bisexual resources likely speed and ease the process of sexual-minority identity development.” Continue reading Environment affect!
Tear off Gender Label
“In this particular situation, my “coming out” as a transsexual and as a queer man seemed to be an effectively queer method to provoke questions and challenge assumptions. This anecdote is a salient reminder that there are students of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, and experiences in every single public school across the nation who could potentially identify in some way with Lawrence King. Queer pedagogy must account for the physical…in the material realities and breathing lives it effects.” There Are Transsexuals In Our Middle Schools! Loren Krywanczyk
This paragraph resonates me deeply. In our society, we are grammatically surrounded by gender or racial assumptions, such like social stereotyping on how to be a “good” girl/boy. Based on those stereotypes, teachers sometimes have negative assumptions consciously or unconsciously on students with different social background, gender, race and sexual identity. Continue reading Tear off Gender Label
What teacher should create in class?
Besides gender and generational status, the ways in which immigrant youth are received in the new society-particularly its schools-play a very important role in educational adaptation. In cases where racial and ethnic inequalities between immigrant and native populations are highly structured, such as for Algerians and Moroccans in France, Koreans in Japan or Mexicans in California, social disparagement often permeates the experience of minority youth. … perceived as “perpetual foreigners” and “model minorities” or “honorary whites.” Sadowski, M.(Ed.).(2008). Adolescents at school: Perspectives on youth, identity, and education (2nd ed.)
This passage clearly points out the importance of school and teachers’ role in immigrant students’ educational adaptation. It reminds me of a book I recently read named “Warriors don’t cry”. It is an autobiography in which the author Melba Pattillo wrote her experience as one of the nine teenagers chosen to integrate to Central High School in Arkansas after the landmark Supreme Court ruling case, Brown v. Board of Education. She recalled the tough days she was taunted, threatened and attacked in school. Although the context of today is different from that Melba Pattillo faced with fifty eight years ago, some issues I found in the Warriors Don’t Cry are still critical to our teaching and learning, such like segregation, discrimination and bulling. Continue reading What teacher should create in class?