Week 6: Possibilities and Hope

We must work to create classrooms where there is a discourse of possibility and hope... where we are much more attentive to using the text of students' lives in our work.
-Enid Lee

Enid Lee's quote evokes my idea of an ideal classroom where the focus is using the life "text" of each student for learning. There have been a universe of cultural perspectives this week and even my cultural junkie head is spinning. Again and again, I come back to the idea of questioning and inquiring instead of automatically forming assumptions and judgments. However, we are culturally hard wired to make judgments based on our cultural lenses that we inherited. It is challenging as the dominant culture, white, English speaking, middle class, educated to re-calibrate our cultural lenses to see the world the way others do.

I had a student from China who sobbed for an hour in my class when her mark in Spanish 11 went from 98% to 96.8%. I immediately thought give your head a shake but I needed to delve deeper into her reaction. The student had incredible parental pressure to do well in school and her grade would be part of the calculation for applications to universities and applications for bursaries and awards. I was looking at the big picture of life but she was overwhelmed by the stress of getting a bursary so that she would be able to go to university. If you have no relationship with the student then you do not see what is shaping the student. A parent teacher interview with one student might seem like a casual affair of just checking in to see how their son or daughter is doing in the course but an interview with the parents of the Chinese student was a serious and formal affair. I thought this student would crack under all of this pressure so I helped her to have some perspective and to schedule some fun into her hectic schedule.

If expectations and behaviors are culture specific, there is be a clash of cultures as
we ask students to transform themselves from being information "parrots" to become information "creators" and to advocate for their own learning. What happens when two different cultures come together? It reminds me of the Borg from Star Trek, "You must be assimilated". As the data-driven learning culture meets the creative thinking learning culture heads are going to roll. But are we really that creative thinking based in North America? Faced with provincial exam pressures, I have watched creative teachers transform into "Teach to the Exam" robots!

When students are required to do cooperative activities all students struggle as we expect them to magically work together when we give them no scaffolding to hold on to. This challenge of sharing information is even harder for some ESL students I have taught who keep their information and ideas close to their chest to get their "A". Some ESL students hate group work as they are used to the parrot method of teaching. The more that I unveil the complexities of ESL learners in this course and throughout my career; it is a miracle that students do not run screaming from the building everyday. The gestures of clenched fists may be from pure frustration and confusion.

We need to choose a variety of teaching strategies to need the multifaceted needs of all the learners in the room. The teacher sets the learning atmosphere in the room and she has the power to shape the culture of a classroom that promotes cooperation and mutual support. The challenge is showing students both ESL and monolingual that we are not just in the classroom to get a mark but to learn how to work together. Our attempts to do this are fraught with challenges as our Western tendencies of direct communication, assertiveness, and disclosure can come into direct conflict with other cultural beliefs. At least by being aware of some of the differences can inform and enrich our teaching and meet the needs of all of our students.


Week 6: Five Continua

Most of my personal ratings did not move much after the reading but the readings made me realize how much I change or modify my behavior based on the circumstance and cultural group I am in. I worked for so many years overseas that I had to learn to “fit in” as much as I could to get things done.

assertiveness <---X-------------> compliance

I would have to say that I am much more assertive than compliant however this totally depends on the circumstance that I am in. If I am working on a committee and we are trying to work on consensus then I am much more compliant but if I want to get my point across to a student who is being disrespectful then I am much more assertive. I also change when I am with family in Mexico and I become one of la familia and I go along more with the crowd.

dominance <-----x--------------> submission
I
n Canada, I am definitely more in the dominant side of things. I like to get things done and others call on me for leadership. My cultural awakening as a feminist allowed me to see my power as a woman but my “assertiveness” is sometimes seen as by others as something negative. Sometimes women in other cultures are viewed as others as being submissive but they are quite the opposite. I have seen many women in macho societies using their intelligence in creative ways to get what they want done. My mother in law in Mexico runs her household finances and the finances of the businesses of her son but when someone sees her serve her husband food before she eats she might be viewed as submissive. Let me tell you that she is the least submissive person I know.

disclosure <---------x----------> privacy

I definitely rate myself in the middle. If I feel like I can trust the person that I am talking to then I will disclose more but overall I am quite a private person. I disclose a bit more of myself to my students because I want to show them that I am a human being and to get to know me. There are many parts of me that people will never get to see unless they become close friends or family. I have many acquaintances but a few close friends. The readings made me think of North American TV programs like Jerry Springer and Oprah were people bare their souls for others to see. I can see these programs and Canadian classrooms now more through immigrant children’s eyes where they are asked to show parts of themselves that they consider to be “private” and only discussed with close family.

direct communication <--x-------> indirect communication

I am usually very direct in my communication and I do not fear dealing with conflict and misunderstandings. However, I am getting better at “reading the room” and adapting my communication to my audience. I can be quite diplomatic at times but sometimes I wish we could just talk more openly to each other. In my first years in Latin America, I used to get so frustrated with everyone talking around a subject but I soon realized the cultural politics at work in the room. Conflicts that come up in communication sometimes look like the fun mirrors in the PNE when we find each other saying, “Did he really mean that or what is he trying to say?” I am so intrigued about how people communicate and I loved in the reading how we fall into traps on misunderstandings when we judge others instead of looking a bit deeper.

flexible time <----x--------------> time as commodity

Oh I fear that I am starting to sound like a cultural chameleon but the clock controls me at work and getting my daughter to soccer or dance but in my home we exist in Latino time. My sister calls it being caught in the “Suarez family vortex”. Relationships are held more important than the clock and if we are talking together at home then we often arrive “late” in the North American idea of being late. Things are more fluid at home and things just organically happen. When I am with Mexican family members then time as a commodity is thrown out the window. Things get done and we all have clear work schedules but time is more flexible and I have never heard people complaining about not having time to do things because they make time. Family get-togethers happen on the spur of the moment and people spend more time together sharing stories and chisme/gossip. This Latino idea of flexible time has also influenced my way of being in my job as I always have a moment to share a conversation in my office with my colleagues and students. I probably could get more work done if I did not do this but my job would be way less fun.

Learning Styles:

I believe that learning styles have a great deal to do with our ability to learn. The challenge is how to address the diversity of learning styles in our classrooms. I agree with others that as teachers we need to present information in a variety of ways. The message also sometimes chooses the medium. I would not give notes to students if I want to challenge them with new ideas. Film, music, art or photography along with text communicates ideas with more impact then just notes on an overhead. I talk a lot about learning in my classroom and now as a Teacher Librarian I work with teachers to help them present information in a myriad of ways. How do we educate youth who are used to multi-tasking and creating original content on a variety of technology? This generation’s brains are being wired differently than former generations and this is already having an impact on learning styles. The new technologies of web2.0 applications on hand held devices such as ipods, cell phones, laptops, and video cams give teachers a variety of ways to present information. ESL learners can find much content on the internet to augment their learning and teachers can use wikis to provide resources to support the learning that is happening in the classroom. However, content needs to be at the centre of the use of technology and perhaps technology is one way of giving students choice on how to learn.

Again, I must return to the reality of teaching and how we can possibly meet everyone’s needs. I think of it like a multicultural buffet. If you just eat mash potatoes all the time you will get stagnant. This week the readings were useful to be aware again of my learning style and to see how it shapes and/or limits my teaching style. The more that I learn about learning styles helps me to become a better teacher. I am mostly a visual learner but I really enjoy hands on task to make learning more concrete through experience. However, I can’t let my learning style shape everything I do as a educator as I have to meet the needs of others. My job as a teacher librarian is to introduce teachers to strategies on how to meet the diversity of students’ learning styles. Some teachers are flexible and open and some others are more set in their ways.

However what do you do if your personal learning style clashes with your cultural upbringing and/or where you find yourself now? It is a big culture shift for immigrant children to come into a Canadian classroom and to be expected to jump into the conversation when dissension, creativity and original ideas are encouraged. First of all, students need to discover their own learning style either through experimentation or a survey like we took this week. Hopefully, in a good high school environment a student will find a variety of teaching styles in all their teachers and they will learn how to adapt material to their own style. I took Biology 100 at UBC a century ago and I created mini-dramas with hand puppets and went for walks in the woods to experience flora and fauna to get through the course. I tell a lot of stories about learning for students to get the idea that they can be advocates for their own learning and that the process is often messy.