Blog Post #7

"What to Look for in A Classroom" by Khan & "Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy" by Learning for Justice 

REFLECTION

Under the Possible Reasons to worry, in What to Look For in a Classroom it is listed,

"Students assignments displayed, but they are (a) suspiciouslt flawless, (b) only from "the best" students, or (c) virtually all alike."

This quote highlights almost perfectly alot of my classrooms growing up, I believe that the shift from everyones work being showed or absolutely no one's occurs in the middle school years. In elementary school I can recall - from my personal experiences everyones work being hung up. But once i reached middle school it became more of the 'selective best' for example in high school I had a assignment, a project of some kind and the teacher hung up the ones that got the best grades or were necessarily visually pleasing. As a result this left some students feeling left out or like their work wasnt necessarily good enough to be displayed in a classroom. This connects to a reason to worry because it can point to favortism with a teacher, or signs that a teacher may be pushing for the very best grades which can be seen in defecit classrooms. 

Under the Good Signs, in What to Look For in a Classroom it is listed,

"Welcoming; eager to explain or demonstrate what theyre doing or to use visitor as a resource"

This quote actually connects directly to my recent observation in a 2nd Grade Classroom, when i entered the room the students were all so excited to meet me. They were all saying, "Hi Mrs. Shannon" and seemed excited to have me in the class some of them even came up to me and introduced themselves and asked me if I'd be joining them for recess. This behavior continued into small groups, and all of the students were excited to be in my group. I can recall even as a young child having visitors in the classroom was always the most exciting experience and I think it shows a healthy classroom enviorment because it shows the students are excited to learn! In particular, the Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy video talks about invisible, and visible aspects, and some visble aspects i observed was crafts, but also how the students talked. they were encouraged to speak in a native language and werent penalized against it, and other students who may have a different native language were interested in learning about others. In my small group i had two kids, one whose native language was english, and the other spanish and english. We were doing math flashcards and the one whose native language was spanish and english sometimes would answer in spanish, the other student asked the student a question regarding the numbers and then started also answering some in spanish. 

REFLECTION: 

In class I'd like to share how both of these pieces of media tied back to my recent classroom visit, and how i observed different aspects of positive classroom enviorment, but also a few negatives!