All posts by Paris Huang

Parents’ involvement is very important and it can help tehir kids get imporved in academy and performance at school.

Creating Classroom Community

MVP 14

Auerbach said, “Parents play a key role and are instrumental contributors to the academic success of students” (Auerbach, 2009; Gibson &Haight, 2013; Noguera, 2001). “Engaging parents in school activities and student learning is widely considered fundamental to high-quality early childhood care and education” (Douglass, 2008). “Parents’ involvement is important for improving school engagement and student performance for middle school (Mo & Singh, 2008) and high school students” (Ouimette, Feldman, & Tung, 2006). “While incorporating parents as partners in the educational process is critical, the partnership is one in which parents of color are often powerless, silenced, and marginalized” (Lewis & Foreman, 2002).
As a student teacher who works at a kindergarten class, I agree with what they stated above. Parents’ engaging could really help students’ academy and their daily behavior. I have noticed that some children fight or bully other children was because their parents pay less attention or engaging on their kids, which I found out them when I talked to the parents. In my kindergarten class, we use the book baggy and snap words every day and I ask my children to bring these two home every day because they need to read books and read words again and again until they master them. One day, one Spanish student and one Chinese student are both forgot bringing it to the dismissing place, and their parents came to pick them up. So I asked them to wait at the dismissing place and I could go back to the classroom to get them for my students. It only took me 5 mins to get them and returned back to the dismissing place, then the Spanish student and his mon have gone and the Chinese student and his mom were still there and waiting for me. I asked my cooperative teacher why the Spanish student and his mom leave and don’t wait for me. The cooperative teacher said, “his mother told me that it is okay, and we just don’t read it tonight”. The book baggy and the snap words are very important for our students’ academy and the semester will be finished very soon. I wanted my students can learn knowledge from the school and get a nice score on their post-assessment. The Spanish student’s academy and performance are the worst in my class and he often absent without reason ( he did not provide any Doctor notes or something). His parents seem don’t really care about the study and how their performance at school.
I figured it out why the Chinese student’s academy and his overall behaviors are much better than the Spanish student in my class. The Spanish student is very behind the whole class level.
The Spanish student is very behind the whole class level. I think the parents’ engaging is very important for their kids’ performance.
Since the time we study at school is limited, so parents’ helping and involvement at kids’ homework and study can help students to improve their academy and performance. But I think the parents should care how their children performance and how their children’s academy.

MVP #13 Teacher’s role should be clarfied and the awareness of Mental Health Knowledge on teachers and students

Reaching Adolescents and How to Respond

“one of the factors we had to overcome when working with the educators on the website was their initial feelings of inadequacy about dealing with student mental health. We heard statements such as ‘mission impossible,’ ‘I am struggling too,’ and ‘I will have to ask my school board mental health lead if I can participate.” (Yet One More Expectation for Teachers, P119). “Mental health professionals must remember that building teacher capacity in MHL feels overwhelming to teachers as learners: they are not experts, they know it, and the problems are severe” (Yet One More Expectation for Teachers, P119).
The mental health knowledge and issues are not only happening on students but also happens to teachers. Since teachers are not supermen and superwomen, they cannot know every single knowledge. Teachers also would have felt overwhelming in their work. However, in fact, it is less to think about teachers’ wellness and their mental health cares. I personally think the mental and wellness health problems that teachers have are coming from the students because the teachers struggle with students every day in every single detailed matter. However, teacher, as the teaching role, instead of mental health treatment role, they are actually working on many types of roles. Teachers take care of students’ academic works and daily life, even students’ physical health. While teachers are doing all these works, they have to take care about the students are on the pace of academic learning, which is very hard for the teacher to balance so many different matters into a good direction. So I think the role clarify is really needed. School should provide more supports for students’ mental health knowledge and other fields so that teachers could easily pay attention to academic teaching.

Homosexuality should be treated impartially

Friendship, Love, & Sexuality

“I will never forget an in-service workshop we had one day within my first year. A group, PFLAG (Parents, families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), was coming in to discuss their involvement in the community, the resources they offer, etc. A couple of my colleagues refused to attend, saying they don’t agree with homosexuality and they are not going to have it shoved down their throats. To watch them respond in that way made me wonder how they would respond to a student who may come to them with gender identity issues” (Castro, I.E, & Sujak, M.C. 2014)

Sexual minority, especially homosexuality, has been a popular topic and discussed by people for a very long time. As the educators, how could we help with these situations? What schools and teachers can actually do to help with the sexual minority? I think people should have an impartial attitude when facing the gender and their sexual direction. In China, homosexuality is still an issue, which people are hard to accept homosexuality in a short time, let alone the school services. I think schools and educators should have a right attitude towards the homosexuality students and those minority students. From La Greca and Harrison (2005), they found out that heterosexual adolescents who were not dating were more likely to report anxiety symptoms compared to youth who were dating. That is to say, dating has some benefits: it can increase people’s social abilities, especially communication skills.
However, adolescents are more often staying at school, so providing a good environment for those minority students school make them feels safe and positive.

How to support transgender students to have a better study and life?

Gender Socialization & Identities

Transgender, a very interesting topic and issue existed. For me, I do not see any transgender students in my school. I believe that many teachers and educators at school do not have too many experiences to deal with transgender problems and their need. After reading this article, I realize that transgender could be a group of people who experience a range of emotions and gender, sexuality, fitting in, and friendships. Etc. They might experience somethings really hard then they decided to change their gender. It is not easy to transfer one’s gender, especially for an adolescent. I agree what the article said, “Because students experience these complexities, and they are unique to each individual. It may be exceptionally helpful to offer the student information about LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning) related issues. From my personal perspective, I think schools, teachers, and students should have the right attitude to see the transgender people. There is nothing about higher level because you are normal gender or lower level because you are transgender. I think schools and teachers should help transgender students and their parents to have this awareness. The human being should be treated as same. Secondly, I think schools, educators, and parents should work together to give transgender students some supports. However, there is an issue, that is school can face concerns not understanding about a transgender student within the school population and their specific needs. If parents do not know who and how they can contact in the school system, then a barrier to meeting the needs of the child may arise. But I think maybe school and families can do some share-information sessions in order to help with transgender students. Some transgender students are not willing to talk with their families, then I think the school can role as a listener to know what these transgender students’ needs, then they can give an effective help based on the conversation.

Why Bullying is Happened At School?

Newcomers & Perpetual Foreigners

“Knoshnoor came to New York from Pakistan when she was in the eighth grade. She was bullied from the moment she got to her school, her hijab was continually pulled off by peers who called her ‘stinky’, ‘ugly’ and ‘terrorist’. Students threw things at her, such as balled up pieces of paper with explicit or lewd comments written on them. some even threw basketballs forcefully at her. She reported these incidents to teachers multiple times, but no one did anything to help. She never told her mother because she felt it was pointless (Paracha,2008)

bullying is a big social issue at school, especially because of racism and xenophobic. I accepted my elementary and middle school education in China. The racism is definitely not the main issue compared to how it is treated and seen in the United States. when I was at 7 grade, I went to an international school, there were many different students who came from diverse backgrounds and languages. I did not see the racism or the xenophobic issues happened there.
However, when I came to New York, I started heard people talking about racism and it is a big issue in society and life, especially in school. Color Students are bullied by some “dominated color students” or white students. However, New York is like a melting pot, there are over 100 different nations and background people. According to data, there are over 1 million Chinese people in New York. Bullying is really an important issue and it should be aware of. There is no better nation or worst nation in the world. The human being is all the same. And we should develop a better study environment for all students and parents to live and study. I think the teacher also should encourage all students working together, knowing each other more. I think why the bullying is happening could because students do not know their classmates then they would have misunderstood those color students. Once they get know each other better, their prejudice against color students would decrease. Developing a good learning community is our goal.