Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Blog #3. Contribution to Group Presentation

I had some time to ruminate about our last session in class. I always enjoy listening to the perspectives of my colleagues about race and ethnicity. Everybody brings a different experience and perspective to the table. Please continue to share your experience and/or questions.

I am part of Race and Ethnicity in the Classroom. We spent last class brainstorming about how to go about our theme. It is wonderful to listen to the contributions from everyone in the group. We are going to use reading from books, journal articles and clips from relevant movies etcetera to introduce and buttress our class presentation.

My own contribution to the group presentation is examining the issue of race in the classroom as it affects immigrant parents and their children (students who may be immigrants or first generation Americans). I will be doing face to face interviews with these immigrant parents/guardians about their experiences - positive or otherwise while interacting with teachers and administrators in the educational system. I do not want to limit myself to just one ethnicity when interviewing immigrants so I am presently looking for other ethnic groups other than Africans and Latinos just to enrich the interview experience and be able to compare the experience of these interviewees.

The tools Intend to use include a voice recorder. when the interviews are all done. I will download them as mp3 files onto my computer. The mp3 files would then be uploaded to SoundCloud where they can be accessed by members of our class. I would also use SoundCloud image uploads to show the picture of the interviewee or the setting of the interview. Since I am going to upload to SoundCloud, this will allow me to embed the interviews on the class digital omnibus when the project is completed.

I have opted to use a voice recorder mainly because I foresee a reticence in my interviewees about video interviews (I intend to video recordings as much as possible). One of the parents I was talking to about the project was enthusiastic until the issue of when to do the video recording came up and his "enthusiasm" evaporated. I then offered the voice recording alternative and that was acceptable to him. I have to remind myself that a number of immigrant communities are quite reticent about their personal lives and do not just open up to anybody.In some ways I am also like that. I do not mind talking to people face to face but I have been finding it challenging to "bare my soul" as it were on the internet. Who exactly am I talking to out there? I can't see nor hear you so I cannot assess your reception of what I am talking about unless you write a response.

I am still working on the questions I want to ask the parents/guardians as well as the students. I want the questions to encourage them to speak frankly but at the same time I do not want to "put words in their mouths" as we say in my corner of the globe.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Blog #2 - Project Proposal

Trying to brainstorm about my personal project proposal was overwhelming for me at first. I simply didn't know which theme  nor direction to focus on. I am interested in Racial Identity, its effects on everyday life and the educational sector.  I am also very much interested in how to better serve students (in general and English Language Learners in particular), teachers, parents and other stake holders in addressing the issues involved in racial diversity. I am currently not in the classroom so I had to really consider what kind of project that I would like to do and how to go about it.

I arrived in the United States as an adult educated immigrant. I have experienced racial issues in the market place and as a parent. I happen to consider myself as reasonably well educated but I still had to deal with people who felt that because I had an "accent" my ability to perform my duties or hold an intelligent conversation was doubtful. As a parent, I was informed that since I was an immigrant and my child had another language being spoken at home she could not really be expected to excel in her studies! All this without the said educator having taken the trouble to find out anything about my child nor her background. This attitude, I am happy to say, was quickly erased after the said educator was taken to task and asked to substantiate his claims. Needless to say that I changed my child's school as soon as I possibly could.

When I decided to become an educator myself, I noticed the same problems occurring with English Language Learners in particular and students who have immigrant parents in general. Even when educators try to promote and celebrate cultural diversity students from immigrant homes will go to extreme lengths to merge into mainstream American society and do not want to be seen as different. What can be done to actively encourage students from immigrant homes to celebrate their diversity, encourage all stakeholders to recognize that we are all humans and each person is different whether we look alike or not and speak the same language or another language.

The fact that I do not readily have immediate access to students (that I'm currently teaching and therefore, their parents) makes me want to pause. Also, there is the fact that I am a relative newbie to technology but I will like to see how far I can cast my net and come up with something that is interesting and that will also make a positive contribution to the class.

Research has shown that students including ELLs do better academically when there is cooperation between parents/guardians and educators. How to make this a working reality with immigrant parents?

I would like to do some interviews of immigrants - some parents,  a few students (including first generation Americans with immigrant parents) to see how the issue of racial identity has affected them in their interactions in the educational sector, what specific incidences (if any) could they recall, how they think the situation could have been better handled and what suggestions would they like to give?

The materials used for the interviews would be a video camera and/or an audio recorder depending on the preference of the person being interviewed, also pictures of realia could be used if relevant to the interviews.

Monday, February 9, 2015

Writing to Learn

A very apt title. I am writing to learn or should it rather be learning to write? Anyway, this is very new to me. I just took a leap into 21st Century technology as it were.
I really don't know what to expect from the class right now. Still trying to recover from the shock of finding myself in a writing class where I have to blog and tweet! I am hear to learn, experience and absorb.  I'd like to hear other people's perspectives of race, identity etc. and take that with me into the field as an educator of English Language Learners.