Welcome to our Fall 2009 Educating Linguistically Diverse Students Course. Our class blog is available at https://unm-farmington.tripod.com/315. Also our Class Collection of web pages is indexed at http://fvitali.tripod.com/315f09.html I look forward to our dialogue, practicum experiences, and adventures that will help us become more culturally responsive educators.
Frances Vitali, Instructor
Please list your reflections below after our first session, August 24.
Each week we will keep a diary of our sessions as a way to document our learning experiences throughout the semester. This will become our class story. Please make note of your scheduled day as the Weekly Scribe.
| Eldadiana Arzate | 2-Apr | |
| Coelho, Sarah | 19-Mar | |
| Dearen, Shelly | 12-Mar | |
| Hall, Valerie | 5-Mar | |
| Jones, Rachel | 26-Feb | |
| Hawkins, Ami | 19-Feb | |
| Petree, Samantha | 12-Feb | |
| Schofield, Rebekah | 5-Feb | |
| Yazzie, Tammie | Jan-29 |
April 9 TBA | April 16 TBA |
April 23 TBA | April 30 TBA
"People are often powerless, alone, afraid; this is because someone else is telling their stories for them." 'You are ugly. You are undesirable. You are useless'. Through storytelling, you recognize your own story." ~ Joseph Bruchac~
Vicki Bruno will be joining us to teach us sign language and talk about communication disorders from Sept. 18-October 9. Welcome to our Educating Linguistically Diverse Students, Vicki. We look forward to learning from you.
Each week a class member records what happened during our time together as a way to document our time together and to share the story of our learning community. Please post your weekly memories here.
9/4 Elise 9/11 Fredrick 9/18 Heather 9/25 Lacey
10/2 Glynna 10/9 Sarah G. 10/17 Brittany 10/24 Clark
10/31 Miranda 11/6 Sarah B. 11/13 Emily 11/20 Nicole
12/4 Frances
Thank you for playing along with the Barnga simulation game today. Please post your reflections about it here. (Will you ever learn to trust me again?!)
Thank you, Vicky Bruno, for sharing your expertise with us about language and communication and sign language. Perhaps you can return to UNM and provide a workshop for educators in the near future. Congratulations upon your upcoming retirement. You will missed and we are fortunate that you will be available to share your time with future teachers.
Frances
Each of us will have at least one opportunity to record the highlights of each session as a reminder of our time together. In the event someone is absent, the recorded account will serve as a log of what we did each week. So scribe on.
Remember to record the session date and your name when posting the weekly highlight.
Thank you...................Frances
1/31 Frances | 2/7 Sarah | 2/28 Nikki |3/6 Christine |
3/13 Hannah | 3/20 Cassady | 4/3 Nick | 4/10 Nancy |
4/17 Shantel | 4/24 Elsie | 5/1 Vickie
Dear Educationalists,
In our LLSS 315 course experience we will have the opportunity to see critically from different perspectives and to consider: what it means to educate and to honor funds of knowledge; what knowledge is valued and by whom; and our critical lens as educators.
We will have an opportunity to work with Apache Elementary School teacher Charlotte Bradshaw and her 4th graders on a family history Chautauqua project this semester. This interaction will provide you with a rich, hands-on practicum experience.
In your dual role as both teacher and student you may gain practical experience and bring more value and understanding to our course text content.
I am looking forward to learning along side all of you!
Frances Vitali
Bernice Reagon: People “know that nobody can survive in a minority position with only one point of view -- we have always had to understand the majority view as well. In the effort to understand the story of America, we're still not getting enough help from many people who share the story, because they come from a culture that says that their view is the only one. Well, I say to them: Welcome to prekindergarten! You will not die if you discover that there are more lines out there than just your own. In fact, you'll discover that you will have an advantage if you know more of them!” — Utne Reader (March/April 1996)
Available at http://www.utne.com/issues/1999_74/features/524-1.html and Retrieved August 10, 2007.
Thinking about the nature of this course, I happened upon this conceptual outlook on AERA’s webpage.
Reconceptualists, consider the “cultural-sociological-political implications of the curriculum taught. Reconceptualists are not only, or even primarily interested in the official curriculum, as curriculum developers are, but seek to examine the hidden curriculum, the subtext that comes with teaching a specific curriculum a certain way to specific groups of students. Reconceptualists, in other words, are interested in much more than subject matter. They are interested in the messages or ideologies (hidden knowledge) that underlay not only subject matter, but also pedagogy, social interactions, and classroom settings, and educational practices as well as institutional contexts that have long come to be taken for granted. Many reconceptualists ultimately ask the question, who benefits from these configurations, and who loses…. in the cultural-sociological-political implications of schooling with respect to social justice, citizenship, or the role education is or should play in society at large.” Source: American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division B - Curriculum Instruction. (Retrieved August 7, 2007).Considering your emerging philosophy of education, are you a Reconceptualist? Is there a need for Reconceptual thinking in education? Please weigh in your thoughts below. Add your reflection about this to your individual webpages.
As a critical theorist, I understand that education and language are not neutral landscapes and that they are highly politicized and controlled by the mainstream, dominant society. As an educator, I am an advocate in giving voice to those who may be underrepresented culturally, linguistically, politically, economically. I continue to challenge content in textbooks and in the curriculum and expose students to these incongruencies so they too may recognize, question and begin to think critically on their own. In preparing our students for their future, my philosophy of education has changed to better preparing our children to be productive in flexible and adaptable environments working with diverse others, culturally, linguistically, educationally, economically. Learning within environments that are meaningful, relevant and authentic has become an important focus of my methodology.
Reconceptualism is a synonym for critical theory and in this way, I do believe my teaching foundation resonates with both. Neil Postman said: "The lives of our children are shaped by what they will see and hear in the media" and "Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.''
Source: Public Discourse in the Age of Showbusiness (2007). Retrieved August 10, 2007.