Transforming Teacher Education Program

I really loved reading this article and I think this article should have been sent to the administrator of Neag School of Education who designed the school’s curriculum. I feel like I would have benefited much more by taking a multicultural class before doing by student teaching. I definitely agree with Ms. Moore theory that students need to have class to discover their biased opinion in order to increase multiculturalism and diversity in the classroom. The book club is a great example of student discussing their misconception and opinions on multiculturalism. This is especially an important issue for science teacher because it’s very difficult in integrate culture in the classroom on regular basis. When I was doing my student teaching I tried numerous ways to integrate culture into my curriculum such as reading NY times articles, emphasizing minority scientist and incorporating student daily life into class activities. However, I still find extremely difficult to incorporate culture into a subject which is mainly facts. I love biology because of its structure, complexity, and uncharted discoveries and I want all of students to have the same feeling about science. Overall I thought that the article was very good but I was disappointed that it didn’t have any concrete example of implementing a class activity dealing with diverse students.

This article also raises a major concern about the typical courses curriculum in order to become a teacher. As educator, we know that America is diversifying at very rapid pace. We are going to face many challenges ahead if we don’t change our education system. Teacher education program need to drastically change in order to balance the cultural change and attitude. Teacher need to be adequately prepared to understand and relate their content to meet diverse student backgrounds. At this institution we only had the opportunity to take multicultural classroom in our master year. Most of the students will graduate and teach students with only one or two classes in diversity and this is definitely not enough. We also need to take classes which deals with special need students and differentiating class material. Overall I agree with the author that we need to transform our teacher education programs.

First Days of English Language Learner Student

Over the weekend I went to New Jersey to visit my distant family who has just arrived from India. I was talking to one my cousin who is attending Edison High School, NJ about her experience in the high school. I was really surprised to find to that she actually skipped school after going there for two days. My cousin is in the twelfth grade and she is semi proficient in English. She was enrolled in the English medium speaking school and she lived in Bombay which is one of the biggest city in India. In Bombay, predominantly of the people are bilingual and are exposed to many of the western traditions. She told me that after the first day she got lost in the school system. There was no one there to show her around and she kept on arriving late to classes. She said that she got frustrated and angry that she wasn’t able to locate her classes that she just bailed out of school. I asked her “why didn’t you ask for help?” She said that after the bell all the teachers had closed their door. She said she couldn’t find anyone to help her and I am sure that she must have felt really nervous about just wondering in the hallways. I told her that she shouldn’t skip classes anymore and that she could get into big trouble. In India the student’s were allowed to leave school in High School without severe consequences. She didn’t know that she could get in trouble if she left school. I thought this was very absurd and weird that the school didn’t provide adequate help and support to a foreign student who has just arrived to this country. This raises lot of questions in my mind. What are the support systems of incoming EL Learner? Who is responsible for helping the EL learner to adjust to the new environment? Who checks up on the progress of the EL learner? Does this occur in all school or just in urban schools? Who is responsible for familiarizing the students to the high school environment and rules? We have read a lot about the challenging facing teaching the EL learner but we have never shed a light on the support system. Most of these students arrive to the high school with very little background and language skills. How can we just leave them stranded? How can we expect EL learner to make progress in the classroom if we can’t adequately support and accommodate them to the transition of American school system?


I agree with the article “What’s language got to do with it?....” that there is a didactic tension that exist between teaching students and how student perform science in the classroom. This problem is reoccurring theme not just in EL learner but non EL learner as well. During my student teaching I realized that it is very hard to find a good science lab which incorporates the content as well as student surroundings. Most of the experiments are old and come from lab manuals which were written in the 80’s. Most of the labs have very little incorporation of technology and student’s surrounding. The labs are very boring and irrelevant to the students. We need to incorporate and design more labs which assimilate student’s culture and the science content. It is very hard to develop labs that meet these criteria because most of the labs don’t take into account culture diversity emerging in the school system. I definitely agree with the authors when they state that students comprehend more when they are given opportunity to perform science. But I wonder do the currents labs take in to account student diversity and its relationship to the content? I believe that most of the labs need to be revised and refined so that they meet the student culture and content. Students learn the most when they are motivated to do solve a problem which forces them to think critically. We need to throw way labs which focuses on following set of procedure without taking consideration into students everyday life.

Creating Disequilibrium through Conversation

Creating Disequilibrium through Conversation

The article “On Listening to What Children Say” introduces a concept of using a classroom interaction as a source to reveal information on student understanding and comprehension. The author Vivian Gussin Paley states that teachers should treat their classroom as theater in works in which students are actors trying to disperse their problem in the play which is the class content. I really love Ms. Paley concept of listening and gathering information through conversation. In my classroom I tried to have open conversation on the topic I was teaching. Most of the time I had open conversation was to relate the content material to the student’s every day life. Biology can be really tuff sometime at connecting to the real world because the student’s can’t see and feel the content. Open conversation is a great way to gather and analyze student background and understanding on the content. While reading the article I got the strange feeling that Ms. Paley was really talking about creating disequilibrium in student’s understanding through a imaginary story line. The root of the Ms. Paley theory is really Jean Piaget who stated that learning is a versatile activity in which student’s incorporate new information to their existing idea. We covered Jean Piaget in Chapter 3 of “Teaching Science to Every Child” which covers assimilation, accommodation and disequilibrium. Ms. Paley is using listening during conversation as tool to create disequilibrium. She also uses student’s prior knowledge to create this sense of confusion which directly correlates with student’s personal belief. This is a very good concept because the content relates to the student’s own confusion.

However I must point out some of the disadvantages of using this theory. First of all I wish the article provided example of a secondary teacher. I think it’s extremely tuff to have an open conversation which relates to experience of all the students. Secondly, at the secondary level the conversation tends to drift off into other avenues. Sometime it takes a lot of energy to get the students back to the content. Finally it is very time consuming to create disequilibrium with all of the students. Some of the students might just not find material interesting and motivating. As an educator I try my best to introduce each new concept with a lot of energy and enthusiasm but there are always some students that find material tedious. I really love the idea and I have done it in my classroom but structure and foresight are essential to having mutual learning experience in the classroom.

Campfire Effect

First of all while I was reading the “The Campfire Effect” study I almost fell asleep twice. The article was very dull and I felt like the author repeated the central idea way too much. I would have gotten more out of the article if I was informed about the types of strategies and theories that were discussed in the SEI classes. However I do agree with the author theory about changing teacher’s underlying beliefs and attitudes toward teaching students from diverse background in order to get help and teach English Learner Students. I also agree with that the states should install a curriculum that inform teachers about strategies and lesson plans which incorporate EL students to become essential part of the classroom. This study was focused on changing the beliefs and attitudes of pre-service teachers in order to increase EL students learning. I would like to see more data on the implementation of those strategies during their first year of teaching. The author does make comment about the latter statement in his discussion. He states “This question will have to linger until we complete our follow-up research on our pre-service teachers’ practice in their student teaching and first year placements to see what effect the endorsement curriculum truly does have on instruction (pg. 8).” As an educator I firmly believe in convenience and effectiveness of new strategies. Theories are great to learn but they lose their value when teachers can’t make connection to implement the theories to their everyday classroom. This article would have been great if it included data for the first year in-service teachers. I really wanted to see effects of SEI classes on teacher instruction and strategies. I’m not a firm believer of surveys because I think sometime students just feel about the surveys without really thinking about in terms of their own beliefs and values. Overall I think the article did make solid points and did provide data to those statements. This article would have been better if it provided examples of strategies and the results of the first year in-service teachers.

Unjust Generalization of the Urban School System

I’m appalled and irate after reading Mr. Haberman opinions on urban education system in his article “Unemployment Training.” Mr. Haberman makes bold statements about the urban education system without providing any genuine facts or evidence to his theories. Mr. Haberman states that “Schools promulgate the ideology (sliding through the school system) because it is easier to accede to students’ street values than it is to try to change them.” School system doesn’t promulgate the theory of minimal work and nowness but it’s the community, family structure and income, and the government. Through out the article Mr. Haberman fails to include any sense of responsibility from the community or the parents. He doesn’t mention the lack of funding from the government, and the social dynamics of the urban city. Most of the students in the urban society come from a single parents home in which their income will be far less from the average median family household income. In some cases students during their crucial years of learning and growing are malnourished and deprived of family stability. Education system doesn’t run on one wheel but in essence it’s a product of society, family, economy and the government. Mr. Haberman fails to realize the importance of government and community in the school system. He fails to realize that teachers in the urban environment have far less resources and assistance than the suburban environment. Mr. Haberman notices that students aren’t taking the books homes but he doesn’t notice that urban schools don’t have enough funding to provide books for all of the students. Students have to share books and other material in order to get the same education. How can you expect to get equal education and results without having equal amount of resources? How can you just blame the education system without observing all the aspects of the education system? Mr. Haberman talks about teaching mutual cooperation in order to teach students nonviolent options to their problems. Isn’t cooperation necessary from the community, government, and family life important in order to improve the education system? In order to improve the education system the society has whole needs to work together instead of playing the blame game like Mr. Haberman.

Inclusion of Science in the Elementary and Middle Schools

During this week at my internship at Glastonbury High School I discovered the in depth inclusion of science into the course curriculum at the elementary and middle schools level. I want to be a secondary education teacher focusing on biology and general science. Most of my experience has been at the high school level. I haven’t had a chance to observe an elementary teacher carrying out a lesson plan dealing with science. So I was kind of blown back when I saw the state’s science content curriculum for the elementary schools. I had no idea that the elementary teachers covered so many different aspects of science. I’m currently working with the Head of the Science Department to incorporate use of alternative source of energy in the science curriculum. The Glastonbury High School has solar panels in order decrease the energy consumption and the cost of electricity. Mr. Mayer (Head of the Science Department) wants to incorporate the data from the solar panels into the science curriculum. I had a chance to look at the science curriculum for K through 8 grades in detail so that I can make lesson plan that would include the data from the solar panels into the science curriculum. For example there is a unit in the third grade that concentrates on identification of renewable and nonrenewable energy resources. In the fourth grade there is unit that covers the topic that energy can be transferred or transformed. I am just surprised that the elementary teachers have to teach various different aspects of science in just one grade. I am just used to teaching different aspects of biology to the high school students. The elementary school teachers have to teach little bit of physics, biology, earth science and chemistry. I was just surprised that the elementary school teachers had to cover so many different topics of science in their curriculum.

I also discovered that the science curriculum will grow in the upcoming years at the elementary and the middle school levels. The last year was the first year that the State of Connecticut gave out a science CAPT test to the fifth grade students. Most of the students in the Glastonbury District did very well on the test. However, there were some students that were not able to pass the test. Glastonbury district is going to focus more on the science education this year in order the increase their school ranking and student comprehension of the science content in the elementary schools. I feel that because of the CAPT test all of the elementary schools are going to focus more on science education. Science will become a much more important component of elementary school education.