Reaching Out

I feel the single most important thing in making a student who is high risk, lives in poverty or ESL is to make them feel 100% equal to the other students in the classroom. I would not give these students more attention but make them feel that they are no different from the rest, allowing them the same oppurtunities as the more fortunate children and possibly put more effort in giving them those oppurtunities. I will have the same expectations of them as well.

Student Voice

I think that giving students a say in their education is a great idea once they reach a certain level of academics. I think that it should be a privledge that is earned by an idividual who exceeds expectaions in academic level and extra curricular activities. I also think that these individuals should be trained or take a special class that gives them experience in how to assist with the functions they are able to assist with, such as parent-teacher conferences, hiring of new staff, developing curriculum and sitting on the school board.

Culturally Responsive Teaching

In the video case, it represents Multicultural Education and Thematic Teaching. The teacher wants to make the kids feel safe and honored and wants them to understand that she is interested in learning about who they are and where they are from. She wants to hear and have them hear each others points of view and recognize the similarities, and find common feelings.
Teachers can arrange many different activities for older students. Each student can be assigned a different area of the world to research and learn the culture and become familiar with their customs and or traditions. A presentation can be put together to show and compare the different cultures to their own to the class. Another option would be for each student to trace their own ancestry and research traditions and culture on their own family.

"So Much"

I think that reading "So Much" to the students would give them a sense of family. It would also allow them to be exposed to the different names used by different cultures such as grandma vs nana or mama vs mommy etc...
I think that I would use this book to help the children understand the importance of family and showing love to one another. I would also use it to help children that don't have the typical home (mother and father) that having a grandmother or aunt take care of you and love you is just as important as a mother or father and they can love you just as much.

Teaching as a profession: Collaboration with colleagues

The collaborative process shown in this case study allows the teachers involved to reflect not only on themselves and how they are handling the particular evaluations of students math abilities but allows them to give insight to each other on how they could possibly do things differently in order to meet the kids and parents changing needs and become consistent throughout the school rather than in each individual classroom. These teachers are setting aside time to reflect or re-evaluate how things were handled in the past and allowing themselves to make improvements to meet the schools common goals.
I would enjoy collaborating with colleagues for many different reasons. I feel that schools should be consistent throughout and in order to accomplish this, all teachers must be on the same page and following the same rubric in grading and curriculum. This also would form a greater bond between colleagues and allow for a stronger, more cohesive team of educators to benefit the students. Schools and education are changing on a daily basis along with the needs of the students and the amount of involvement of the parents. In order to maintain the highest level of student interest, the school must be able to work together in order to work alone in the classroom. If you are unable to bond and for alliances with your colleagues you will be unable to form the same bonds with the students.

Unperfect

I am not a perfect girl.

My hair doesn't always stay in place &

I spill things a lot. Im pretty clumsy &

sometimes I have a broken heart.

My friends & I sometimes fight &

maybe somedays nothing goes right.

But when i think about it & take a step back

I remember how amazing life truly is

& maybe, just maybe, I like being

Unperfect.