- Language
- How do we select the languages we teach? Should it be mandatory to have students learn the other language in Canada to promote our bilingual culture?
When I was in high school they offered, French, Spanish, and German and I had always thought that French was needed because of our bilingual country and I also saw the merit of Spanish because of how prevalent it is in the USA. German however I never understood why they chose it as a language rather than something more widely used such as Mandarin, Arabic, or Punjabi. These other languages are growing and they are languages I believe would be much more useful for students than German. Because of this I wondered how they chose the languages that would be covered in schools.
I was never able to speak French and neither can my immediate family but my cousins on my Dad’s side were fluent in both French and English. Because of this I wonder if they have a stronger connection to Canada because they have embraced both of the languages supported by the government. I feel like every student should take French in grades 7 to 9 and that would allow them to get a feel for the language at least and help them integrate into Canadian culture. The same would go for this in a French part of Canada where they would need to study English.
Cummins, Jim. “Heritage language teaching in Canadian schools.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 24.3 (1992): 281-286.
In this article Cummins points out that over half of the students in major centers of Canada like Toronto and Vancouver are from non-English speaking countries which causes issues when deciding on language in Schools. In order to be inclusive to all of the students while making sure that the class size makes sense the administrators need to ensure they have a wide range of languages available to them with their teachers as well. This change would make the classes more flexible from year to year in order to support the changing demographics in Canadian schools. This is a really good article and I think it addressed both of my questions effectively.
- Culture + Literacy
- What cultural practices / norms can we allow in our classrooms? When using literacy in the classroom should we be focusing on BICS or CALP language?
The amount of diversity in the classes that I taught during my practicum caused me to think about what kind of practices all of the different students in my class had to honour. I was thinking that you cannot limit their religious freedom but when they are fasting during the day it is hard to make sure they are focused an on task because they have not eaten all day. I thought you could possibly change your class for them to try and help them while they fast but you don’t want them behind once they finish fasting.
This came from having ELL students who did not understand the register that I used at times and because of this I think BICS (playground language could be more useful). The problem with this is that the students who do understand may want CALP (academic language) so the concepts can be better explained to the class.
Gunderson, Lee. “Voices of the teenage diasporas.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy (2000): 692-706.
Gunderson talks about how teachers do not make it their focus in classes to restructure their lessons in order to accommodate the diverse students they have in their classes. Since many believe that English should be a prerequisite for their classes they are not willing to use BICS language and therefore focus on CALP and leave students behind. Gunderson points this out as a major concern and it addresses my second question thoroughly. He also argues that many people see knowing to read and write should be prerequisites to being in the classroom. The problem he points out with all of these ideas however is that the students have no chance to learn these skills if they are not being taught them in the class and therefore you need to include literacy in your class no matter what you teach.
- Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Assessment
- Are grades detrimental to student’s intrinsic motivation? Can Zeros help change this dynamic?
The reason I picked this question is because it was a big part of my project in Inquiry II and was a focus for my practicum. I focused on how to increase student’s intrinsic motivation and one of the stumbling blocks for this was grades. Many students are so concerned with grades that if an assignment is not worth any marks they will not put effort into it because they care more about the grades then what they are actually learning.
The implementation of a no zero policy I do not believe helps this problem at all and if anything it hurts students who do all their work because the students who hand nothing in are still getting marks. This was a really big issue for me in my practicum because my teachers were both for zeros and some of the other teachers were not causing some tension between faculty members and making students pick teachers based on how easy they were.
Kohn, Alfie. “The case against grades.” Educational Leadership 69.3 (2011): 28-33.
The article by Kohn talks about how students are discouraged by grades and that in order to actually promote learning in the classroom it should be run as a grade free environment. I have a lot of problems with this article though because I believe that while it seems very effective in the cases provided by Kohn I also think that his view is very Utopian and that grades are a necessary evil that all students need to address. The problems with no grades I have is that the solution that is posed in the article is that the students will negotiate their grade at the end of the term based on the work they submitted and the comments they received on that work. The problem with this is that I am not sure all students would take this completely seriously and it would mean having some student’s pushing for marks they may not deserve. This system also has problems because it don’t think it would be valid or equitable to assign marks in this manner.
- Diversity and Social Justice
- Should we focus on protecting student’s feelings when discussing social justice? Does focusing on student’s feelings dilute the content being taught?
I chose my initial question because I am worried about offending students in my class. One of my SA’s was discussing sexual assault in one of his law 12 classes that I had taught so he was following one of my lesson plans. One of his students however had been affected by this and when he brought it up they became very upset and left the class, not coming back for multiple classes before he was able to meet with her and discuss what had happened. Because of this it has caused me to consider how much you need to consider your students feelings with social justice issues.
I think this question relate very closely to my first one and comes from my experience in this program. I find that many times in the Bed program our discussion of important issues has been derail by a person who has become offended by the misspeaking of another person rather than looking for what their true point was. Because of this the deeper issues can be lost and it becomes an argument about terminology which pails in importance when dealing with social justice issues. Because of this the talks about difficult issues have to be prefaced with a discussion about how to properly talk about difficult issues and let students know that if they are being offended that they can remove themselves from the conversation and bring it up with the teacher and other student afterwards.
Hackman, Heather W. “Five essential components for social justice education.” Equity & Excellence in Education 38.2 (2005): 103-109.
Hackman outlines self-reflection, content mastery, action skills, critical thinking, and awareness of others as the key components to discussing social justice in class. The article is not in line with my thoughts as much as I thought it may be as it is more forgiving of others feelings in the discussions, I believe the issues are of greater importance and she also does but I differ because of how many important discussions I have seen derailed by discussion about jargon. Hackman sees teachers and schools as vanguards for change in the area of social justice because of the effect they can have on their communities and in this I completely agree. The article is very thorough and she does an excellent job of setting guidelines that create a positive environment for discussing social justice in the classroom.