My Service Learning Observations: Part Four

In my service learning placement I am very excited to see support for all children, of every race, culture and sex! The school in general is very good at supporting English language learners. The school is set up to be a dual immersion school. This is beneficial for both Spanish speaking and English speaking students for many on both ends are learning a new language. Teachers go into their classrooms from the start knowing that they might have students who are unfamiliar with the language of the classroom and are more prepared to provide extra help to those students.  And they are given many resources to help them as they learn a new language. One court case that made support for English language learners a priority and a necessity was Lau vs. Nichol. this court case was taken to court by a group of Chinese students in San Francisco where they were told to either sink or swim in a mainstream school. The court judge decided that these students had received unequal treatment and in no way a meaningful education. As a result of this court case a federal law was created to protect these students the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974.

Because of Brown vs. the Board of Education and because of Ruby Bridges I see students of all color in my service learning placement. It makes me so excited to see students from all different races in a classroom together and no one bats an eye. The students don't even notice a difference between them and their peers. They are not scared of each other because of the color of the skin they see. They freely befriend their peers no matter what the color of their skin is. And all students are treated equally by my teacher and given a valuable education! I think this is so exciting because it has not been long since our schools were segregated and we were scared of each other. It is amazing to see the amount of progress we have made!

My Service Learning Observations: Part Three

The teacher I observe in my service learning classroom is very good at engaging her students. I have seen multiple activities that the kids find engaging! One activity that stuck out to me was when the students were practicing spelling words. The teacher sprayed a small amount of shaving cream on each desk. The kids then spread it around their table. When they were done they had a thin layer of shaving cream on their desk. A Tupperware full of paper towels was at each table and a plastic sack for garbage if the kids needed to wipe off their hands. Then all the kids took a Popsicle stick and wrote their spelling words as the teacher read them out. What a fun and memorable way to practice spelling! 

Another engaging activity was when the teacher passed out a plain deck of cards to each table. The kids were going to practice their math by playing math card games. There was quite a variety and I'll be honest I don't remember most of them. But one of the games was a lot like war. Two kids flip a card over at a time and they add them together. When they know the answer they shout it out and whoever says it first wins. These games were really fun and exciting for these kids. They play these math card games in their class pretty frequently and their teacher has given them all a deck of cards and instructions for all the games to keep and take home. I love that her students have been encouraged to keep practicing at home in a fun and exciting way. Because of this they will be more likely to practice!

One other engaging activity that my teacher has her students participate in is a program that the students play on tablets. This program focuses on teaching reading, spelling, letter sounds etc. This program modifies to each student and their individual level. They do this 3 days a week for 20 minutes at a time. The kids really seem to like playing on the tablets as a way to learn! They get to play games and participate in a wide variety of activities to help them grasp concepts!

There are times when the activities or lessons in this class are not engaging. This class starts their day working on a worksheet. A couple of weeks ago the worksheet they worked on was a groundhog day coloring page. I did not think that this worksheet was very engaging and there could have been a better way to discuss groundhog day. It seemed like pointless busy work and it wasted 15 minutes of class time. If it were my classroom I would have gotten up in front of the class and explained what groundhog day is shown pictures of groundhogs and shown a video of this years groundhog day! This way I would be showing the kids exactly what groundhog day is and we'd find out if we would have 6 more weeks of winter or if we would get Spring!