Prompt 3 Ira Shor

We go to college to learn how to teach, so that we can give back to our community. It is our duty to teach and understand different situations to help our students. We as future teachers need to understand that not every student comes from the same perfect ideal background. In every classroom you will have a student who is less fortunate, has learning disabilities, or strives for attention. These are all characteristics that are found in all classrooms. With the different diverse learns is when “a culturally competent teacher should be able to use a variety of assessment techniques appropriate to diverse learners and accommodate sociocultural differences that affect learning. Teachers need to adapt to the sociocultural differences and try different methods of teacher to ensure all students in the class are learning and no one is left behind.
In my classroom, there is a very wide variety of learns, there are, ethnic, gender, and learning levels. My teacher does not know how to interact with all of these students. She does mass lessons on the carpet. For example math, she was teaching how to add three sets of numbers.
Ex. 4+9+6
4+6=10
10+9=19
She does an example, and then does practice, and then they go to their seats for independent learning. This seams great. She does examples, then she lets the class help, then they work on their own. But what about the students who can’t add the two numbers 4+6. They sit there and just give up. The problem to them is too difficult. The teachers allow this, by not walking around to see if the kids are doing their work. They are expected to do the work, and hand it in on the desk. After fifteen minutes or so they move on, so she never knows till she returns home who did the work. At this point it’s too late; she can’t go back and re-teach because they need to stay on the schedule to make sure all the classes end at the same point for the following year. So when this student gets to the next level find the missing addend for example: 4+__+6=19. This student will be even more lost. The hopes of her learning the math she needs will not happen. This will affect her whole life at least thru high school. This is all because of her first grade math teacher, not caring enough to make sure she understood what was being taught.
Ira Shor talks about how “no curriculum can be neutral”. Not every student learns in the same way, teacher cannot have a neutral curriculum there needs to be a stretch in parts to ensure all your students are learning. Shor also says that “the teacher leads and directs this curriculum, but does so democratically with the participation of the students; balancing the need for structure…The teacher brings lesson plans learning methods personal experience, and academic knowledge.” Teachers need to bring in personal experiences to connect with the students. The teacher needs to encourage participations of all students. A teacher cannot call on the same students, because she knows they know the answer and will save her the hassle of re-teaching, and trying to pull it out of some students. Ira Shor talks about how you need to have student interacted in the classroom or you will have problems later on. He stresses how teachers are a huge part of a child’s life and success. We as future teachers must take our job seriously.