Final Connection to Service Learning Part 2 (Kliewer)

The third Author I also felt I was connected to was Kliewer from the article called Citizenship in Schools.  A quote from Vygotsky. was important to me. I am also in a Kindergarten classroom with Mrs. Maggiacomo. She is a wonderful fun teacher with an energetic personality. That is what you need to be a Kindergarten teacher. In the Kindergarten class there are some students that have disabilities. There are about 7-9 of them I would have to say. I like how the students are in the classroom even though they have a disability. Some of the students disability are worse then others but they are still teaching those students with disabilities how the students without disabilities the same except they get extra help from teachers outside of the classroom.  "Vygotsky found that the culture of segregation surrounding people with disabilities actually teaches underdevelopment of thinking through the isolation of children from socially valued opportunities. As described in more detail below, altering the culture of disability requires that a child be recognized as an active learner, a thinker, and a problem-solver, but this cannot occur apart from relationships that allow for such engagement."(p. 83) Some of these students leave the classroom everyday. I know when I was in the classroom the students did not want to leave but had to leave to receive the help they needed. I connected with these students because when I was younger I had an IEP and had to leave the classroom and it absolutely was not my favorite part of the day. But you had to do what you had to do. 

I really enjoyed my time at Robert J. Bailey Elementary School! 


Click VIDEO on children with disabilities. 

Final Connection To Service Learning Part 1 (Delpit)

I will be presenting my Pecha Kucha on Tuesday. I am very excited to be one of the first ones to present and also get it over with. I am not a big fan of presenting in front of people. I felt like my 2nd grade classroom was most connected to Collier. Collier showed up a lot in my class. My Pecha Kucha presentation is on Collier.

I also felt like I was connected to Delpit. The way Mrs. Lamarre handled her class reminded me of the rules and codes of power. Mrs. Lamarre is in charge and the students know that. "Issues of power are enacted in the classroom. "These issues include: the power of the teacher over the StU­ dents; the power of the publishers of textbooks and of the developers of (he curriculum ( 0 determine the view of the world presented: the power of (he state in enforcing conclusory schooling; and the power of an individual or group to determine another's intelligence or "normalcy.""(Deplit 24-25). When she does an activity with the students she set a timer so when the timer goes off the student needs to stop what they are doing and have pencils out of their hands and hands down on the table. From the being of the school year the students were not really good at stopping right away but by now most of the students are focused and are paying attention. Seeing the children grow throughout the first half of year was incredible. Mrs. Lamarre also has a saying and the students follow her. She is a great teacher and uses styles like Delpit. There are also many rules in the classroom that Mrs. Lamarre uses and the students do much better following the rules now then the beginning of the year. They use hand motions as well rather than words because that way the kids will copy the hand motions.

Promising Practices

This was my very first time attending a conference at Rhode Island College on Saturday, November 1st. Since this was my first time I really was dreading this conference because I thought it was going to boring and a waste of a weekend. Promising Practices  

The first workshop I attended was called Making it personal. Buddy Comet was the person who ran this. He is the dean of Pedagogy at Central Falls High School. Karen Oliviera also helped run this who works at Rhode Island College school of social work. Out of the two workshops I attended I feel as though I liked this one better. During this workshop we spent time learning on how to help students who have an IEP. When personalizing students you are taking a whole new approach. Sometimes you are in a self contained setting, you are traveling throughout the day but always with a teacher. Sometimes the students have anxiety disorders, learning disabilities and diverse ability. Buddy said that he likes when students move around in the classroom rather than sit in the desk all day because kids are kids. They need to move around to learn and stay focused. He had us pretend we

were students and go from table to table to complete a task. He said that it is okay if we don't finish each task. Every task that I did reminded me of Delpit and a little bit of Kozal. He had the directions printed for each table and had the power to make sure we knew how to do the activity correctly. The second part of this workshop Karen ran the workshop. She talked about what students face at school and out of school with foster card, divorces etc. I could related because my parents got divorced at a young age. I thought of Kozal for this because of when he was talking about the neighborhoods some children live in. I really liked how a lot of people help out these students. Leaving this workshop, I thought about minoring in social work. It is still up in the air for me. But overall this workshop was my favorite.

The second workshop I attended was called Comedy in the classroom ran by Elizabeth Anne Keiser and Tall University students. I really thought this was going to be my favorite workshop. I read the description when signing up and though wow this seems fun and interesting. When I got into the workshop they were running about 10 minutes late. Students introduced themselves as we walked in. There was also little to no room to move because of all of us plus the tall university students. This was not very structured and organized at all. We worked with the students and tried  to understand what the point of this workshop was about. It was hard to understand because the students seemed like they did not know what they were going either. I wish the adults ran it a little better so I could understand it better.

Christopher Emdin did the keynote. He did a great job tying everything I learned together. He gave a great speech and tied what he talked about by putting it in the classroom and how much the teachers role play in a students life. I could see this by working at my daycare. I ave gotten called "mom" by so many students because most of their life is spent at school and at the daycare until 6:00pm. I was happy I attended this conference and I can not wait to have my own classroom.