Fourth School Visit

During my fourth school visit I worked with Curtis and Debbie together again. This week I gave them different assignments. With Curtis, I had him reading passages again and then we played candy land. For Debbie, I had her play candy land with us, but I also gave her the second grade word list, because her teach told me to start working with her at a second grade level and work our way up. The rules of candy land are similar to the word list, you pick up a colored card, and then on the card is a word that you have to use in a sentence. If you use the word correctly, then you get to move forward to the color on the card. Curtis wont the game of candy land. In my kindergarten class, the students did a math packet with the teacher and I sat next to a boy named Marcus and helped him with his math packet, as well as helped the other two children at the table.

Third School Visit

For my third school visit, I worked with my third grade students for the first hour. This time when I worked with them I didn't work with them one-on-one, I worked with both of them at the same time. I had Curtis read one passage, and then i had Debbie read the other one after. After that, they worked on the word list together, each of them having to make a different sentence for the word. I noticed that when putting them with me together, they were harder to work with because they were more rowdy than they were when they were when I was alone with them. After I worked with them, I made my way down to my kindergarten classroom. In that classroom, I was mostly observing, since they were taking a math test when I went down there. In that class one of the boys threw a big of a temper tantrum and refused to take his test, and he had to be escorted out of the classroom by the student teacher and another teacher from down the hall. I enjoyed working with the kindergarten class.

Second School visit

When i went to my school for the second time, My visit was cut short. For the first half hour i worked with a boy named Curtis, and i had him read short passages and paragraphs, and then we worked with the third grade word list. With the word list, he had to read the word and then make a sentence with it. After he was done, I worked with a little girl named Debbie. With Debbie i did the same exercise, but she had more trouble with it than Curtis did, especially with the silent Es and words that couldn't easily be spelled out, such as "caught." After that my class has gym and I obviously cannot go to gym with them, so I was supposed to be moved into another classroom for the remainder of my time. However, when I went to ask where to put me, the head of the volunteers forgot that I had to be placed somewhere else. She put me in a kindergarten math class for the next week and sent me home a half hour early.

Talking points on Carlson

1. "Within normalizing communities, some individuals are subject positions get privileged and represented as 'normal' while other individuals and subject positions are disempowered and represented as deviant, sick, neurotic, criminal, lazy, lacking in intelligence, and in other ways, 'absonormal.'"
This quote means that we have a serious problem when it comes to the respect that we lack for other cultures, and that society needs to change the way that we view people.
2. "Aside from being an absence in the curriculum, gayness has been made visible in some various limited and marginalized contexts. To the extent that gayness is recognized in the curriculum, it is likely to be in the health curriculum, where it is associated with disease.:
This quote is one that I find to be incredibly important because it shows us how little we teach about homosexuality, and what we do say about it is negative. I believe that we are sending out the wrong message about gay people and that it shouldn't be so avoided by people.
3."The official policy in most school districts is in the identical to that of the U.S. Military, namely: 'Don't ask, Don't tell.'"
I think that this quote is important because although it is an improvement of the way that we treat homosexual teachers, it is wrong to try and avoid the truth. Gay people shouldn't have to hide who they are in the classroom as if they are ashamed of their sexuality.

I found this article to be a real eye opener on the way that some people treat homosexuality, and that we should change the way that we treat the topic of homosexuality. We shouldn't try to hide and avoid it so much because there's nothing wrong with it, and there are many more people these days who are "coming out."

Meier talkng points

1. 40% of the total U.S. public school population is made up of students with color.
- I think that this is important because that's such a high number of colored students and it's almost equal.
2. Many children who are unused to books and being read to find it difficult to sit still for the time it takes a teacher to read even a fairly short picture book.
- This is important being it shows how not being familiar with reading can really set a child back and also make a distraction in the classroom. Every child should have an experience reading and with books.
3. If books are not compelling to children, then no amount of time spent on rhyming games, phonemic awareness exercises, or any other kind of literacy activity will result in their becoming proficient & empowered readers.
- This is important because it shows how much we need to keep the children interested in learning and in reading so that they can progress and learn more. Children need to want to learn and have a drive to learn new things or else they won't try, and in result they won't do well or do as well as they could.

School visit

Friday was my first day visiting my school. Meghan and I carpooled there and we arrived at 9 a.m. At first I was a little nervous, but then as i entered my classroom I got very excited to be there. My teacher that I'm working with is named Mr. Willie Wonka and I'm in a third grade classroom working with two boys on reading. There is also an assistant teacher in my classroom named Ms. Bucket. While I was there, my class went to the book store and browsed for quite a bit, and then when they got back to the classroom it was time for a school assembly, and since I didn't get my training done right away, I didn't get to work with the kids at all. What I did do in the classroom before my training was I helped Mr. Wonka file papers and put children's worksheets in the appropriate folders. Overall, I think it was a good first visit and I am eager to go back when they children get back from their vacation.

White Privilege

Talking points on White Privilege, by McIntosh
Casey Martel
1. "As a white person, I realized I had been taught about
racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege which puts me at an advantage."
I think that this statement is important because it shows that her eyes have been opened up to the possibilities that have been granted to her and not to others because of their race. She takes into consideration all of the choices that she's had and all of the privileges that she could have recieved that she had never notices before.
2. "The pressure to avoid it is great, for in
facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country;
one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own."
This quote is important because she is talking about how it's wrong for others to not get the same privileges in life as others. She thinks that everyone should get the same chances as everyone else and that people should be able to climb the social status by the work that they've accomplished and not by the color of their skin.
3. "I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in
individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in the invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth."
In this quote, she's talking about how she feels racism is not just being mean to somebody who is not white, she is talkign about how racism could be to ignore the fact that when you are born of a certain race, you get certain privileges. She feels that this privilege isn't known by many white people because they are born with it, but she feels that it is wrong and that things should not be this way in our society.

This article made me think about how we need to change the way we treat other people of different races. I think that we are born with a privilege that is higher than other races, and that we should give other races that same standard. I think that everyone should be treated equal and that the same doors that are open for one race should be open for all races. I think that McIntosh is right and that it is time for a change in the way we handle other races and the opportunities that we have over them.