Subject: Geography
Grade Level: 3rd
Goals: Student will be able to identify the 7 continent. Student will be able to discuss the school and family life of people found on the continents. Student will be able to share their culture with others through a class website

Teaching Outline:
1: Discuss maps and continent
2: Discuss the life style, focus on school and family, of each continents
3: Discuss pen-pals and setting up a class website.
4: Prep for tomorrow, ideas, plans for class website
5: Field Trip/guest speaker about website.
6: Create Website
7: Connect with other School Websites, focus on finding international schools and/or foreign
schools (with English)
8: Set kids up with email-pals.
9: Continue to update website and contact by email

Management and Challenges:

It will be hard to keep everyone engaged in one big class project and if they’re not engaged the management problems increase. One way to deal with this is by breaking the website into chunks that the kids can work on in small groups of four or five people. For example, possible groupings are an introduction page, school life page, family life page, our favorite things page. By giving the groups individual pages to work they each have individual responsibilities within the larger single project of creating a website.

Benefits of the Technology:

I choose this project because it gave the students a way to connect with an abstract concept, continent and maps, with concepts that they are familiar with, school and their family. I also wanted it to be a genuine experience. We will study the different cultures in books but will use technology to widen our experience to people we can interact with (through the internet). By providing children with the opportunity to talk with children living in the culture they can gain a first hand perspective they couldn’t in books.

Equity ~ Multicultural Education

Cultural compentenece is my ability to be an effective teacher to all the students in my class. It is about expanding my point of view beyond my personal experiences and beliefs. Understanding that other views and experiences in the world differ from mine and that children bring these differences into our classroom. As their teacher, it is my responsibility to ensure the children in my class feel that their voices are heard and valid.

Incorporating diversity in my curriculum is important but I do not want diversity to be "just" a unit or theme in the classroom. Thematic and unit teachings about diversity seem to increase the idea of one culture dominating a classroom with the other cultures having less value. Diversity should be an integrated daily occurrence in the classroom. In our classroom, the goal will be to daily view the world through someone else’s and our own perspective.

To make this happen I need to incorporate the transformation and social action approach of multicultural education in my classroom. This is what I want to see in my classroom but it does seem daunting at times. It will take time and effort to make sure that I have the correct knowledge and information to share with my students. I will have to push my student and myself out of our personal experience and comforts.

One way I want to improve our classroom knowledge about cultures other then mine is by involving the students’ families and the members of the community we live in. By bring people into the classroom we learn from their perspective and gain a social awareness of what is important to our community. I hope that it will allow the children in class to make connections between their lives at school and their world outside school.

Mainly, I want to make sure that the student in my class feel safe being who they are and who their families are. That in our classroom students, teachers and visitors will feel welcomed, part of our class. That this, feeling of inclusion, will allow us to focus on learning. It won’t be prefect but we would learn to work with our imperfections to find our close to prefect class.

Equity Chapter Three Reflection 3.7

Reduced Lunch program for family of 4 = $39,220/$3,269
Free Lunch program for family of 4 = $27,560/$2,297
Poverty line for a family of 4 = $21,200
35% of the kids at Brush receive free or reduced lunch
27% of them are getting free lunch


Rent 3 bedroom 1.5 bath = $895

Utilities
Water/trash: included in rent
Gas & Electric: $100
Phone: $69.99
Total cost = $169.99

Transportation
Car Loan: $250
Gas: $240
Total Cost = $490

Monthly Grocery Bill
= $400

Movie for family of 4 (w/out concessions)
Adult: $9.00 x 2 = $18.00
Child: $6.50 x 2 = $13.00
Total cost: $21.00 x 2 = $42.00

Restaurant Red Robin
Adults Meal: $9.59 x 2= $19.18
Adult Drink: $3.99 x 2 = $8.98
Kid’s Meal w/ drink: $5.49 x 2 = $10.98
Total cost: $39.14

Taxes (guessing)
= $400

GRAND TOTAL: 2,314.00

Income – Grand Total = extra money
$2,297.00 – $2,314.00 = -$17

The school I am placed out has a lot of family that are on the free lunch program. I choose to do the activity with a family of four because most of the kids in my class have at least one other sibling living with them. After figuring out the basic need that a family would need to pay for plus 3 fun activities I was over budget by $17. Not to mention the things I’m sure I forgot to include in the budget.

A good job makes a difference is an understatement. I don’t know how people manage to get “ahead of the game” with out finical help or security. I would be able to be part of this program if it wasn’t for my loan and my parent allowing me to move back home. It would be even harder if you were supporting a family. I would assume that you would want your kids to have experiences and things that the rest of their classmates are privileged to. Money is a huge part of making those things happened. I’d like to think that money wasn’t that important but . . .

Equity Chapter Four

Reactions to different kinds of kids. . .
1. Kids you find easy to like:
friendly kids, good sense of humor, comfortable around adults, works hard
2. Kids you find it hard to like:
whiners, bossy kids, needy kids
3. Kids you are sorry for:
bad hygiene
4. Kids you fell threatened by:
defiant kids
5. Kids you identify with:
quite kids, not volunteer info
6. Kids you gravitate towards:
The ones who can’t stay in their seats
7. Kids you fell inadequate around:
accelerated kids, advanced kids
8. Kid you probably don’t even notice:
the one’s I identify with, the quite ones, the ones that don’t want to be noticed

I’ve only spent a little time in my student teaching classroom but I can all ready see how hard it is to divide your time and your attention with all the kids. Already I’ve caught myself dividing the kids into categories like, good at reading, completely lost, space cadet, needy, bossy and I’ve only spent about 10 hours with them. I’ve also caught myself treating children differently based on these assumptions. I have to remind myself that I’ve only seen a small part of whom they are, just one example of how they behave. It will be interesting to see how my perception of them changes over the year.

Equity Chapter Two Reflection

I didn’t start the reading assignment until about 8pm this night. This turned out to be a bad idea since all the reflections required interviewing people and children. They only person I could convince to be interview this late at night was my nine year old brother. He wasn’t completely thrilled and had more fun wrestling with me then answering the question. (Which I total encourage by telling him I turning his brain as I poked him in the head.) I did like one comment he made. We were talking about times he felt like he had freedom, even just a little bit of freedom. He said soccer was one area that he felt he had freedom in. But then he said “but mom still doesn’t ask.” It was interesting he still wanted to be asked about playing soccer or attending a soccer camp even though we all know he like to play.

It made me think about how we start to assume someone will like or not like something based on our previous experiences with him. But we are always changing and what we like one day we may not like the next day. It’s easy when we first meeting a person to assume that who they are present is who they are but they could be have a bad day or a good day. We typically are just see one aspect of their personality. It takes time to understand who someone is and even when we think we understand, we still need to ask.

Teaching Websites for Ed Tech

1.) Zoom website: Great website for both parents and teachers that has link to science projects. It also allows the kids to comment on what the found and read what other kids have found. Great way to interact with different classes. 

http://pbskids.org/zoom/grownups/index.html

2.) Federal Resources for Educational Excellence: Site has a collection of links to diffrerent educational site, organized by subjects.  It has a lot of pictures and tons of information.  Great for personal research.  

http://free.ed.gov

3.) American Library Association: Site has lists of  Newbery and Caldecott medal books, plus other book list for children.  It is a great way to find lists of book that other people enjoy.   

http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/awardsscholarships/literaryawds/literaryrelated.cfm

Equity Autobiography

“Where are you from?” is an interesting but perplexing question. How do you decide where you are from? I was born in Utah but moved to California before my 1st birthday. Six years later my family, now included two brothers, moved to Saudi Arabia. The next nine years was spent in Oregon, adding a sister and a brother to the family. I went on to spend the next 10 years after high school living in Utah, South Korea, Oregon and Taiwan. When faced with the above question I answer Oregon, it easier, it's home but it isn't completely true. This question is hard for me to answer because I feel that whom I am is greatly influenced by where I've lived and experiences I’ve had in each place.

Utah ~ May 1980

My father graduated from his Master's program in the summer of 1980, married and the father of one (me). I have no memory of this moment, I was only a few months old, but it is a perfect example of the concept of family that I grew up with. My parents felt and taught us that marriage and children didn't need to wait for education, wealth etc. We were taught that family was more important then monitory wants. Family was first 

and foremost in our home.

California ~ August 1985

I vaguely remember the first time I realized that families were different from mine. I was sitting at the kitchen table of our neighbors eating cereal, Cheerios. I had spent the night because my mom and dad were at the hospital getting my new baby brother. My babysitter asked if I wanted sugar on my cereal. I was surprised and didn't know what to say.   I thought all Moms knew you weren't allowed to put sugar on cereal.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia ~ 1987 to 1989

I spent second and third grade attending an international school in Saudi Arabia. During this time I was surrounded by classmates from all over the world and was living in a culture completely different from mine. I started to learn that not only did other families have different rules from mine, there was a country filled with people different from my family. They spoke a different language and wrote words and numbers that looked like scribbles to me. Their church was even different then mine, they stopped and prayed five times a day. I was taught that it was interesting and fun that my classmates and I came from different countries and from different parts of the US.  

Salem, Oregon ~ Spring 1997

It was a typical day in high school I was sitting in English Class following the conversation but was more involved in counting the minutes till class was over. We were discussing the role of women in the work place. It had turn into the overly predictable debate if women should stay home or work. I sat listening to a guy in the class talking about how women should be in work places etc. When I raised my hand, to the surprise of my teacher and myself. I commented that women are told they have to be employed, set a new standard by working or they are told to be nurturers and stay home to care for their children. Women are always being told what they should be doing or not doing. Women should work because they want to work or stay home because they want to be at home.  I still feel this way, coming from a traditional family certain ideas were fixed, like dad work and mom stays home.  Even when my mom did work she worried about not being home.   It made me sensitive to the pressure some women feel to do it all and the stress from trying to. 

Utah ~ May 1998 to July 2001
My parents raised us in the LDS church and it is a huge part of who my family is and who I am. I decided to go to college in Utah and for the first time in my life I was in a community where the dominant religion was mine. Once again I felt like I was sitting at the kitchen table with the sugar bowl, see how others were "being" Mormon and how it was differed or similar to the home I grew up in. It was also the first time I was able to explore what I believed independent of my family and the importance religion was going to have in my life.

Korea ~ Nov 2001 to Feb 2003

I didn't go into my mission in Korea thinking it was going to be easy, I expected it to be hard. But I wasn't prepared for the stares I received all day long. I spent my whole life being the girl next door. At 5 foot 5 inches, my green eyes and blond hair, never stood out much in Oregon or Utah. But in Inchon, Korean far from Seoul and the army base I stood out. People would stare and take my picture when they thought I wasn't looking. The attention changed me and changed the way I viewed myself. It took me a long time to understanding that looking different from the norm didn't change who I was. I learned and gained an idea of how your race effects they way people treat you and how that can affects your view of self.

Utah ~ April 2006

Training to be a casework for family services I was told my beliefs, morals, and ideas of right and wrong had to be left at home everyday I went to work. Suddenly I was introduced to a part of my community that I knew existed but never experienced. The effects of poverty, drug use and abuse and the difficulty of getting out of each one was no longer in a textbook. It was the life of the people I worked with everyday. At first the things my clients did, their standard of lived, and how they treated their children and family horrified me. Then one day I sighed with relief when given a case where a parent was only using marijuana. I start advocating that children, who were thriving in the foster homes, be returned to their parent in residential treatment after year of being homeless and using multiple drugs. I was surprised to find what I had once found unacceptable I was now advocating for. It made me worry about who I was becoming, if I was doing the right thing for my clients and myself. I struggled to find a balance of understanding others and their choices and holding onto what I believed.

Taiwan ~ June 2007 to June 2008

Cultural difference was a word I grew up. Having been exposed to multiple cultures I knew there were difference but felt these difference were exaggerated. People were people and that mattered more then one’s culture. Then I spent a year teaching English in Taiwan working in their cultural and with their work ethic. Suddenly, cultural differences was no longer an exaggeration but a fact. I had to learn how to judge the interactions of my employer and students by their culture and not mine. It was easy to be offended and upset by my interactions with them. It forced me to learn how respect and understand their culture while holding onto my culture beliefs.  It helped me get closer to find that balance I needed as a caseworker.

All these experiences have impacted my views on, race, social class, gender, religion, family, and culture.  Views that have shaped my personal beliefs, my reactions and the decisions I’ve made and I'm making in life.  That is why I consider myself from all these places because parts of who I am was developed and discovered in each one.