All posts by Xinyi Chen

Absence of parents at school does not equal to their indifference!

Blurring the In-School Ouf-of-School Line

“There is a popular misconception, especially among teachers, educational policy makers, and fellow (mainstream middle-class) parents that parents who are not a constant presence at the school—chaperoning field trips, attending PTA meetings, baking brownies for the bake sale—simply do not care about their children’s education.”

— Reconstructing Home and School, Fabienne Doucet, 2011

I strongly suspected the author’s idea at the first sight that the frequent absence of parents at school does not mean that parents do not care about their children’s education. I mean, if the parents do care about their children’s education, how is it possible that they rarely show up at school, communicate with the teacher, or participate in parental activities. We always say there are no busy parents but indifferent parents. However, professor Doucet showed me a totally new idea that one possible reason for the absence of parents at school is due to a purposeful resistance to Americanization and a protection for home terrain — the absence does not mean that they are indifferent to their children’s education at all.
It is clearly stated that building up a bridge between school and home may not been regarded as helpful by both teachers and parents. Despite what the initial reason is that parents resist to have a frequent link with the school, it’s better that teachers could bare in mind that they have to respect parents’ decision whether they want to largely participate in their children’s education or not. It is more important for teacher to know that there is no way they can get to the conclusion that a certain parent does not care about their children’s education just due to his or her absence at school. I have witnessed what bad result this idea could cause to this certain student who was regarded to have “indifferent parents”: the teacher unconsciously ignored the student and tended to not care about his homework, his academic performance, his small inappropriate behavior… I assume it is because that once the teacher got the conclusion that even the student’s parents do not care about him, there’s no need for her, as a teacher, to care about him. I admit that this teacher does not stand for all teachers, but still it will be helpful to not have this conclusion at the beginning.

Facebook as learning tool

eLiteracy and Social Media(tion), Media and Technology Critiques

Media plays an important role in adolescents’ daily life and study. Social medias like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, are some media tools online with which youngsters cannot live without. According to a research conducted by Piper Jaffray, by spring 2014, 72 percent of teens use Facebook (The Washington Post). It also states that the population of Facebook is almost the same as the population in China. What can adolescents get from this social network?

First of all, Facebook creates a place for adolescents for belonging to somewhere. According to Robert Fried, adolescents are desperately seeking for an acceptance of a certain group. Using Facebook and having an online identity is also a way of being accepted by a certain group and acquire their identity (The Game of School). In this sense, Facebook is quite similar to online video games in the sense of unreal community. Jordan Shapiro has made a very interesting point in his article talking about video games. He mentioned that in a video games there are two “I”s, one as the controller outside the screen, one as the character or avatar in the game. With this distance, students are building their metacognitive knowledge. More important, it is helpful for adolescents for learn to take others’ perspectives. I think it is the same thing with the identity that adolescents create in Facebook.

Moreover, it will be helpful that the teacher could regard Facebook as an educational tool and include that into students’ learning. Stimulating students learning responsibility and interests by using the Facebook and add that to their online identity will be helpful for students to find their real identity as learners.

It is significant to know that there are all kinds of information on Facebook that adolescents have access to. The positive aspect is learners from all over the world can get in touch with each other and exchange their opinions. It’ll be beneficial that the teacher encourages students to search for different ideas on the same topic, so widen and deepen their understanding and also grow an open mind to different opinions.

Adolescents are in the stage where they can hardly tell between right and wrong. It is the reason why they are easily affected by whatever information in the outside world. Under a large and frequent exposure to meaningless, or even unhealthy information will ambiguous students’ social recognition, in other words, their personal value will be shaken by what they have acquired through their “friends” in Facebook. Moreover, some adolescents tend to create a “perfect me” on the internet, which is different from what they are in reality. In this sense, some may be lost in the “perfect me” on the internet, and once they notice what they are in reality is not as good as they are in the online world, they may lose themselves in reality and choose to hide behind the network. Moreover, adolescents lack self-control, they may get addicted to Facebook and are getting consistently check their website to see if they have new messages or if someone else has posted something new. They will tend to waste all the time on them. So it is essential for teacher and parents to strictly manage the time that students could have access to them on a daily or weekly basis, and really encourage them to use it as an educational tool instead of a meaningless self-expansion platform.

Reference

Jordan Shapiro, Mar 30, 2015. How Video Games In The Classroom Will Make Students Smarter, Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2015/03/30/how-video-games-in-the-classroom-will-make-students-smarter/.

Nico Lang, Feb 21, 2015. Why teens are leaving Facebook: It’s meaningless, The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/02/21/why-teens-are-leaving-facebook-its-meaningless/

Robert Freid, The game of School, San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass;c2005. p.107-115.

 

Embrace graphic novels in your classroom!

eLiteracy and Social Media(tion)

“ The implication of this is all too clear—“cultivating a student’s interest in reading can help overcome home disadvantages” (OECD, 2004, p. 8)… By foregrounding in the classroom substantive topics that can be related to students’ own experiences, multiliteracies pedagogy works to promote learning that recognizes students’ own knowledge resources, which in turn affirms students’ identities as learners and thinkers.”

— Critical Literacies and Graphic Novels, Chun (pp.145)

I remembered that I have read an article saying that students from high SES know more vocabulary words than students from lower SES, not to mention those immigrants. One of my classmates raised this question that if this is the case then how should immigrants, students who speak English as their second language to compete with these kids academically. What a surprise that one solution comes just in time — cultivating students’ reading interests! So the home-disadvantage can be minimized by building up a reading habits and thus encourage students to enlarge their vocabulary themselves.

In this sense, the first step that a teacher takes is quite essential — to have students fall in love with “reading” at the very beginning level. It actually leaves a strict requirement for teachers to choose students’ reading materials. Thanks to this article I get to know the magic power of graphic novels which I used to think as a total time-killer and rarely has positive effects on students’ academic performance. The use of graphic novels reminds me of bridging and contextualization in scaffolding strategies. To relate what students already know to what they are going to be taught can lower students anxiety when facing a completely new task and knowledge.

I also appreciate the idea that by doing so, students’ identities as learners and thinkers will be affirmed. While Adolescents are confused about themselves physically and cognitively, this is a helpful tool for them to recognize themselves and gain a self-identity, especially for those who come from marginalized communities. It satisfies adolescents’ needs of being accepted and praised as well, and I believe it can therefore build up their learning confidence.

Necessity of Individual Attention — MVP#5

Socioemotional and Psychological Development in Adolescence, Urban Adolescents

“Teachers need to address young adolescents’ social and emotional concerns and identity issues through curriculum, school programs, and the development of a personal healthy relationship with each student.”

— Who am I? The Social, Emotional, and Identity Trials of Young Adolescence, Brown & Knowles (pp. 38)

     I remembered we were asked to interview passer-by about their opinions on adolescence, our interviewee mentioned that except for a general consideration, schools should also focus on individual needs.

     It is true that most schools do concern about adolescents and they offer courses (e.g. Adolescent Relationships and Sexual Ethics) to guide they to avoid misbehaviors and give them some clues about normal phenomena in adolescence. However what the school offers is a general information which may vary due to different specific situation. From these courses  Adolescents acquire a basic understanding towards what they have been through at this very moment, but they may still be confused about their personal case. In this sense, it is the teacher’s responsibility to offer individual attention to every single adolescent’s physical and cognitive change.

     At the same time, as what the author mentioned later, the teacher can’t offer effective instructions without setting up a frequent communication with parents. It’s important to inform parents that their children are in their adolescence so they may behave differently from what they used to be. The support and comprehension from parents are always essential when the teacher is dealing with adolescents’ issue. It’ll be more helpful if the teacher could keep in contact with parents, so that they can notice students’ latest situation and avoid any regretful results (like the concussion that we discussed in the class) due to ignorance or late attention.

Cindy

Reactions to adolescents’ misbehavior MVP4

Biological & Cognitive Development in Adolescence

Understanding the Young Adolescent’s Physical and Cognitive Growth

Teachers who overreact in these situations demonstrate to their students that they are also not in control of their impulses. Guidance is the key role that adults can play here. (Brown & Knowles, 36)

This reminds me of the “punishment” that teachers used to give to adolescents who “misbehaved” in China. From my experience, teachers tend to ignore that their students are in their adolescence, and that many of them are easily getting impulsive and are controlled by hormones sometimes. It is natural that adolescents have curiosity towards the opposite sex; they are easily get tired if they don’t have enough sleeping time; and they become impulsive sometimes in a conflicted situation.

However, what I have experienced is that teacher usually took it seriously and would “punish” those who were known in a relationship or who was caught asleep during the class. For those who were reported having a fight, according to how bad the situation is, they would be asked to have a detention, to hand in a written self-criticism paper, or even to have their parents come to school and talk with the teacher. All the natural phenomena are counted as misbehavior in the eyes of some teachers and thus they are giving an inappropriate reaction — a punishment in this situation. However, this is not a proper solution at all; even worse, some punishments will spark the rebellion. Punishment for adolescents usually reach a worse result.

Students are easily get confused in their adolescence about the right and wrong, in this sense, guidance is far more effective than a simple punishment. This article informs me how important it is that the teacher should have a positive and tolerant attitude towards adolescents and should really take the fact that students are in their adolescence into account — like what the author recommends, “acting calmly and professionally”.