All posts by Xueying Lu

immigrant parents, don’t panic when kids Americanized

Blurring the In-School Ouf-of-School Line, Urban Adolescents

immigrant families play an active and deliberate role in creating distance between the worlds of home and school because of their ambivalent feelings about U.S. culture and their fears of “losing their children” to Americanization.
Bridging can feel threatening to immigrant parents, however. Recently arrived immigrant parents have reported retaining aspects of the home culture as a protective mechanism, perceiving a correlation between loss of home culture and negative social and educational outcomes for youth (Bulcroft, Carmody, & Bulcroft, 1996; Driscoll, Russell, & Crockett, 2008; Varela et al., 2004).
—-Doucet 2011, Reconstructing home and school

I would like to choose these sentences because it was a real coincident that, during my observation this morning in an ESL class in P.S 42, the teacher told me exactly the same when asked about possible causes that leads to students’ low English proficiency level. The class I observed this morning has 21 ESL students who have already been in the US for more than 3 years, and mostly their English proficiency level is above intermediate. When I helped them with their class work, they showed relatively good English ability for communication and class interaction. After class, I interviewed some ESL teachers about factors that restrain the speed of students picking up English, and they addressed some factors that I have never thought about.

It is commonly acknowledged that because of cultural factors, Asian students tend to be shy and quite in class. But Ms. Wong from P.S.42 told me that this cultural issue is so minor that most ESL teachers almost ignore it. Students don’t talk because they have no “resources” to talk. For example, when Ms. Wong mentioned a spider in class, she wanted students to share what they knew about spider. Most students keep silent, not because they don’t know what “spider” is, but because their parents never provide any chances for them to get to know or even see spiders in the outside world. They seldom go to Botanic Garden or notice a little insects in parks because most of the time after school, they are picked up by grandparents and took home to watch iPad or TV as long as they don’t make any trouble to adults. Ms. Wong mentioned that parents could be a keep factor to hold kids back from the US society. Sometimes, when parents are busy with work, they have very little time to take kids out or communicate with them, which makes it difficult for kids to gather life experience as resources to initiate conversation with others.

Ms. Wong also mentioned that some parents are kind of scared to see their kids fully immerse into American culture because it makes them feel that their kids are emotionally away from them. Some immigrant parents hope their kids to keep their mother culture while being able to blend in the American society. It is ideal but quite unrealistic. I have been living in the US for 5 years, and I have a relatively higher adaptation ability when facing new environment, so now I think I could get used to American culture pretty well. The problem is, it makes me scared sometimes because I don’t know where I belong to. I believe the same feeling would happened to immigrant kids, when they find the mother culture and American culture both exist in their bodies and they don’t emerge very well with each other.

Another reason for parents to become such a big issue is that it panics the parents when kids talked about new experience or use vocabulary that parents don’t know because parents would feel they are losing authority over their kids. That’s why kids don’t have much chances to show their ability in front of immigrant parents.

Use video games to help with study- Media & Tech Critique

Urban Adolescents

One of my favorite quote about learning is from Grant Wiggins, “What a curriculum should do is make you more effective as a teacher. It should not be the mere course that the teacher runs; it should be the most likely path for causing learning”. I don’t deny that teaching knowledge is important, but teaching the way of learning is more crucial. So, if video games could be used as a tool to promote critical thinking, improve logical analytical ability, they might not be as “horrible” as some teachers thought. Some teachers and parents see video games as threat because it seems that they could “successfully” drag students’ attention away from study. Continuous studies and news about video game addiction panics teachers and parents, so they seldom think the potential educational use of video games.

My perspectives on using computer games to promote learning is very positive because I have successful experience in my previous English language classes. When teaching adolescents, I tried to use an English learning software, called Disney English, which produced by Disney Inc. This software clip out conversations and classic scenes from Disney cartoon, such as Cinderella, Lion King, for students to study and do exercise. This software was delicately made with careful scaffolding difficulty, so it became so attractive to my students that they motivate themselves to study English and even learn new chapters ahead of time. One of the parents texted me saying that his kid has spent as long as 6 hours on that software because it was so interesting. Ever since then, I kept thinking: if we could make students “addict” to study, just like computer game addiction, it would be the most profound success in education area. Therefore, educators should not deny that good video games really exist, and they are effective to promote learning activities.

While embracing the benefits brought by using computer games in classroom, I still have some concerns over it. First of all, adolescents might gradually find study-based video games could not bring as much excitement as entertainment-based games, thereby losing interests to use video games for study. Comparing to some popular online battle games, like League of the Legends, World of Warcraft, Disney English is too “naive” and “childish”. Adolescents probably will tease these “babyish” software, considering their temperamental and sensitive characteristics, and gradually lose interest.

In terms of using teaching tools, my perspective is, no matter how fantastic the software is, there is no way it could replace in-class teaching. The main study procedure must be conducted in classroom, and video games could only be a supportive teaching tool. Thus, it must be correspond with curriculum and teachers’ lesson plan, which is the main reason for my second concern of video games: the design of computer games are quite independent, they are not incorporate with any curriculum. They leave little room for teachers to differentiate and adjust according to proficiency level of students, which makes them difficult to be used in school system. That’s why, it’s difficult to promote using video games in teaching activities; also, it restrains the flexibility and the time of class preparation for teachers.

I personally think video games have a great potential to become an extremely helpful tool as a teaching assist, but this area of study has not been fully developed yet. It requires a lot of great minds in education, as well as financial investment, to fully explore. With the widespread of portable devices, such as tablets and smartphones, game-based study applications are very likely to become popular among learners.

Use media tools wisely- feedback on Sefton-Green’s paper

eLiteracy and Social Media(tion), Urban Adolescents

Honestly, it’s not easy to read Sefton-Green’s article at all. She is a very knowledgeable educator, and in her paper, she refers to large amount of materials and resources, which I know very little about. But, still, I have learned many useful information about the researches that have been done over the relationship between teenagers and the media culture. In this paper, Sefton-Green investigates some traditional and current paradigms in this area, and she also summarizes researches and opinions on video and media productions. In addition, she proposed her opinion on the current research of media culture and it effect on teenagers.

There has been a long time the introduction of new medium raise public anxiety of negatively affecting young generation, such as violence, addiction. However, Sefton-Green believe that “research in the media field, and especially computer games, inherits spurious claims about alleged violent, sensational, and traumatic effects” (p.285). In terms of digital production, she tends to focus on how young people could use them as interactive tools, and new kinds of productions that involved digital technology.

To some degree, I agree that schools and parents are exaggerating the negative effects of media culture on teenagers. The society is making progress, and one of the key promoting product is the Internet. With the widely spread of internet access, there is no way to completely restrain teenagers’ contact with negative influences. It’s suggested in the paper that researchers have been trying to study media culture for pedagogical purposes. For example, if medium could be used to promote learning behavior or to improve literacy. There is no doubt that computer or video games have potential to lead correct study habits. If used properly, they could play important role in teaching activities. Take a story from my neighbor as an example. The son in that family used to addict to computer games, which took tremendous amount of time away from his study, so he was seriously fell behind in his class. But, when the son started to play a computer game that was based on the authentic Chinese history, the game raised his interest in history. And it even helped him pass the history test with a score of 89%. There are a lot of stories and news to prove how media could promote study, so teachers could really find out a good way to use this tool to help their students.

Being a part or being unique

Socioemotional and Psychological Development in Adolescence, Urban Adolescents

“Group boundaries are somewhat permeable in middle school, but not completely so. Middle schoolers are newly aware of the way that their identity is shaped by their membership in such groups, which might be defined by musical tastes, clothes, sports, computer games, or even just the manner in which they navigate the corridors. “
Cushman,K., Rogers, L. (2008). Everything is off balance. In fires in the middle school bathroom: advice for teachers from middle school students (pp.22). new York: The New Press.

During adolescence, teenagers need to face pressure from not only the biological change of their bodies, but also psychological pressure from their surroundings. As they explore to build their social values during middle schools or high schools, they are very likely to imitate their peers in terms of dressing style, activity and attitudes because they have the desire to be accepted by a group. While, at the meantime, they also want to build up their own personalities to be distinguished from the main group, or mainstream social values. However, they are not cognitively ready to be criticized by social norms, so they are very likely to commit some extreme behaviors, like suicide or violence. For example, in The Story of a Suicide (Parker, I. 2012 February), Clementi, a gay college student, committed suicide due to his roommate video recording his sexual behavior with others. Therefore, adolescents are sensitive and fragile, and could impulsively involve in irrational behaviors.
Knowing these psychological changes of adolescents is very crucial to teachers because it can help improve teacher-student relationship, and also could help rectify misbehaviors. For example, when students are suffering pressure from interpersonal relationship, they might be struggling between being themselves or blend in with a group. In this case, teachers should help them find out the best way to show their unique personalities as well as being accepted by the general public instead of a specific Fraternity or Sorority group. Also, helping them to build a formidable mentality to deal with judgment and criticism.

Seize the chance to reshape

Biological & Cognitive Development in Adolescence, Urban Adolescents

“Teachers must cognitively challenge young adolescents to help them take advantage of their intense brain growth. We don’t want teaches to believe that because most middle level students haven’t reached formal operations the curricula must be ‘dumbed down.’ Young adolescents are ready for many intellectual challenges that lead them to capitalize on their cognitive potential.” Brown, D., & Knowles, T. (2007). Understanding the young adolescent’s physical and cognitive growth. In What every middle school teacher should know. (2nd Ed., pp.33). New Hampshire: Heinemann Press.

We all have experienced the period of adolescent, or puberty, so it’s easy for us educators to understand the mental and physical difficulties we have when dealing with the change of our bodies and our surrounding environments. Brown and Knowles have made explicit explanations behind those physiobiological changes along with detailed examples. So, when teaching middle school students, teachers have to deal with additional challenge from students’ emotional instability. But, when reading Brown and Knowles, I couldn’t agree more on their suggestions for teachers to deal with adolescents. I think that adolescence is a crucial period of time because students have a chance to reshape their sense of value, their cognitions about the society, or even build up their own sense of identity. Teachers could also seize the chance, because if only the correct approaches are implemented, students could be gently pushed or manipulated, to build up positive and motivated attitude towards life, which benefits their whole life. As adults, we all know that life is not easy, because there are all kinds of unexpected challenges. If we, future teachers and current educators, could cognitively prepare our students to get ready for them, it will help them to become stronger and tougher in the future, also, more likely to succeed with life goals. Secondly, keep challenging young adolescents could also help teachers or students themselves to explore them potentials. According to Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence (1983), each individual possesses many kinds of “intelligence”. The more teacher help students explore, the more likely students could find about their potential and build up future goals.