Post 3- Ashleigh

I really enjoyed the topic of getting to know our students from multiple perspectives and discussing responsive teaching more, I thought we finally got a bit beneath the surface on this topic after hearing a lot about it in the past. Since I’m interested in teaching in an urban setting, I know I’ll have a lot to learn about my students that may be unfamiliar to my own experience, and the Lapp (et al.) reading was interesting to me personally since I’m really interested in hearing about actual experiences in urban districts. Although to some extent “kids are kids” anywhere and we always need to make sure to know them individually regardless of the setting, I’m apprehensive about being caught off guard with things that I have no personal experience with. I thought it was especially helpful that the authors discussed common mistakes that new teachers make and reflections from effective teachers…as well as examples of some of the unexpected obstacles that teachers face that are unique to low-income school districts.

A lot of the little ideas we discussed in class were ones that I had already considered implementing in my classroom either since I enjoyed experiencing them as a student, or because I thought it would be have a positive effect on the classroom community, but our discussion helped me realize and formulate more deliberate rationales for these ideas. I like the “lunch date” idea, our elementary school principal always had one lunch a month with students whose birthdays were during that month (or half birthdays for July and August.) As I thought more about using this in my class, I was concerned about “forcing” them to come if they didn’t want to give up lunch with their friends, but I think it is worthwhile enough to include…and the students that may initially resist the idea are probably ones that I need to get to know better anyway. A lot of the things Erin has incorporated into our class or her own elementary classroom (using music, quotes, bringing in personal items on the first day) seem like really easy ways to incorporate students’ interests and make them feel like they are “being heard.” Another idea that my 8th grade social studies teacher used was posting a calendar in the back of the room where students could write in the times and locations of extracurricular events that we wanted him to attend. Of course, he prefaced this with the knowledge that he may not be able to attend every event written down, but that he would make an effort to attend anything that we wrote on the calendar if he was available. I think, too, that all of our field placements that stressed the use of focus students and my own personal experiences tutoring have helped prepare us to look at students as individuals first, while also considering the needs of the class as a unit.