Blog 6: Demographics and Characteristics

 

Reflections

Alfie Kohn: What to Look for in the Classroom

Video: “Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy” by The Teaching Diverse Students Initiative (TDSi)

Video: Classroom Tour

Alfie Kohn states that one good sign in a classroom is having chairs around tables to facilitate interaction and an open space for gathering. This teacher’s classroom has two rows of about 10 seats grouped together. Each student has a “shoulder partner” and a “face partner.” The teacher is encouraging them to talk to each other and be cooperative. This also shows evidence of student collaboration. The walls in this classroom display information about the people who spend time together in this classroom, which Kohn says is a good sign. Each student who comes into the classroom has a flag that they created with “all about me” information. The TA also has one. The teacher has pictures of her family around her desk.

Although we do not see class discussions in this video, I am assuming that the teacher would encourage it due to the setup of the classroom. The set up of her desks and her emphasis on making sure they all have people around them and the materials that they need (pencils) shows that she wants them to communicate with each other. The classroom jobs/roles also show that the students likely often address one another directly, another good sign that Kohn describes.

For “stuff,” Kohn states that a good sign would be a “room overflowing with good books… sense of purposeful clutter.” This classroom has a lot of things in it, including many diverse books on social justice topics. The walls are covered in student work and posters that display the teacher’s interests. The teacher’s voice in this video appears to be respectful and genuine, however, we do not hear her when she is around students. She has many videos on her youtube channel about her life and teaching where she has the same manner of voice.

In the video “Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy,” Geneva Gay states that “you can talk about visible culture and invisible culture or tangible and intangible… I think the more important are the intangible and these are values, beliefs, feelings, opinions, perspectives, assumptions.” I think that the video of the classroom tour shows that the teacher is giving a safe space for students to show there cultures.

https://crtandthebrain.com/book/ This book, "Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain" by Zarretta Hammond, goes into the brains response to trauma and how a if your brain perceives danger or stress then you will be unable to learn. I think that this relates to our video and reading.