Double Journal Entry #5

Quote

“Teacher attitudes are often reflected in their behaviors toward students, the classroom environment, and perhaps even in student achievement.”  ("Teacher attitudes," 2009)

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Teachers with negative attitudes toward students with ethnicity and language variations have a harmful impact on their students’ learning.  Students are very perceptive to a teacher’s feelings toward them.  I know I could always tell by a teacher’s demeanor whether they wanted to help me learn something or if I was a nuisance to them.  Students who speak a first language other than English often feel like they are unwanted in the classroom; like they are an outsider.  Teachers often refer to these children as “those students” or “them.”  When the students are singled out as different from their peers they often feel isolated.  They begin to withdraw from the class; they are afraid to answer questions or ask for help because of their insecurity with the English language.  Teachers frequently have low expectations for these students, and these low expectations lead to a self fulfilling prophecy where the students don’t perform well.  They suffer a lower self esteem and are less eager to learn, which leads to their own negative attitude towards education.  I can understand why this happens; if I felt like I wasn’t a part of the classroom, I wouldn’t be very engaged and eager to learn either.  What would be the point of trying if nobody seemed to care?

There are some assessment pitfalls that come with a teacher’s negative attitude.  The first is where teachers make assumptions about a student’s dialect based on their race.  They make judgments before they even talk with the student or find out any information on their background and family life.  They just assume a student will have a dialect because they are a particular race.  This is a very bad attitude for a teacher to have; it’s stereotyping.  You can’t judge someone based on what they look like.  They may be from a different race, but grew up here, and have the exact same dialect as the teacher that is making the assumption.  The second assessment pitfall is discriminatory testing.  Testing that is given to determine if a child qualifies as special need doesn’t take into consideration linguistically diverse backgrounds.  If these children are being unfairly tested, then the results would be tainted; some children may be denied special education services when they need them and some could be misplaced in a special needs program when they shouldn’t be.

There are three approaches that can transform a students’ dialectal diversity into an asset.  The first is the awareness approach.  This approach allows the student to express himself in his native dialect, and focuses on comparing and contrasting the student’s native dialect to the Standard English dialect.  The second is the critical pedagogy approach, where students analyze the culture of their language and the attitudes that people have about their language.  The third is the critical awareness approach, which is a combination of the first two.  I don’t have any experience with any of these approaches; I don’t remember any of my peers in grade school or high school having a different dialect.  I do believe that following them would create a positive learning environment for the minority students.  They are still able to use their native dialog alongside learning Standard English, which I think would make the transition smoother.

I believe I am pretty well prepared to teach in a culturally diverse classroom.  I have a very positive attitude and I don’t believe I stereotype people based on their language or culture.  We are all unique and we all have something to offer and something to teach each other.  After reading these articles and the effects it has on students, I will make even more of an effort not to stereotype or be negative about a child’s linguistic diversity. I really liked the article's suggestion to learn a second language so that you can put yourself in a minority’s shoes.  I think that would be a great way to see how they feel when they are trying to learn English.

Source

Teacher attitudes. (2009, September 4). Retrieved from http://ecelinguisticdiversity.wikidot.com/teacher-attitudes