RUNNING HEAD: Classroom Practicum Reflection

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Classroom Practicum Reflection

Allison Kask

University of San Diego


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Introduction

Throughout this course, we have gained insight on the importance of incorporating the

culture of every student into the classroom and teaching with all of these cultures in mind. Based

off of these past three weeks observing a fourth grade classroom at S.M Elementary, I have ob-

served some multicultural education practices, however, I do believe that the teacher I am ob-

serving should be incorporating more elements of it into the classroom. The fourth grade team at

my school is made up of three classes and they rotate between all three teachers throughout the

day. The one teacher I am observing focuses mostly on writing, but also incorporates some sci-

ence into her instruction.

Instructional Program

One culturally appropriate practice I observed was students were each assigned to take

home a brown paper bag and fill it with things that are important to them and help to explain

who they are as a person. Each day, a few bags are chosen, the teacher shows what is inside, and

the students try to guess whose bag it is. The student will then pick one item and explain why it

is important to them and why they decided to include it in their bag. I think that this is a good

activity to incorporate into the beginning of the school year so that students may find connec-

tions that they have with one another, or learn something about a peer that they are curious about

and want to learn more about. This is a good way to begin to build a community within a class-

room.

One thing that I learned about S.M that shocked me was that they do not offer foreign

languages to their students. In my elementary school in Connecticut, we would have a Spanish

teacher come in at least once a week and began learning a second language in first grade. With so
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many students at S.M who do speak Spanish as a first language, I would feel as though they

would put more emphasis on learning the language. Perhaps they figure that it would be difficult

to teach students if there were such varying levels of Spanish speakers within the classroom,

however, I think either the students could be separated into levels, or have another language also

be taught at the school in order to promote students becoming bilingual or at least learning an-

other language from a young age and expose them different cultures. Banks’ Diversity Within

Unity Essential Principles Checklist 9.0 questions, “Does your school provide opportunities for

students from different racial, ethnic, cultural, and language groups to interact socially under

conditions designed to reduce fear and anxiety?” (Banks, n.d.). I feel that incorporating language

even for just one day a week would help to meet this goal of a multicultural education because

through a language course, students can also learn about the cultures, traditions and more about

various groups that may speak that language.

S.M states on their welcome page, “S.M Elementary will promote a culture where all

learners will be unified and encouraged to be creative, collaborative, innovative, embrace inclu-

sion, and develop a deep desire to learn” and I do believe that the school genuinely has these in-

tentions. The students have an upcoming spirit week that focuses on kindness. Some of these

spirit days include superheroes: showing that “kindness is power”, Disney: “kindness is magic”,

and backwards: “words that hurt can’t be taken back”. This demonstrates that in an age-appropri-

ate way, the school is teaching students to be aware of kindness and empathy towards their peers

no matter what ethnicity or culture they are (Dare, 2018).

One day in class, I observed two students fighting and not being kind to one another. At

first, the teacher tried to intervene just between the two students, however, more students joined
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in and began to use words that were not kind to each other. The teacher made a decision to stop

what the class was doing and take everybody to the carpet to go over the class rules that were

hung over the door to reiterate the expectations of how students were to treat one another. I

thought this was a good decision because if kindness is so widely preached at this school, the

students and faculty should be employing it. TPE 2, “Creating and maintaining effective envi-

ronments for student learning”, element 6 states, “Establish and maintain clear expectations for

positive classroom behavior and for student- to-student and student-to-teacher interactions by

communicating classroom routines, procedures, and norms to students and families.” (CTC,

2016). If the students are consistently reminded their expectations, then they will be likely to

abide by them and in result, kindness and acceptance will make space for an effective environ-

ment for learning.

In terms of other relationships within the school, the teacher to parent relationship ap-

pears to be strong because there are multiple organizations and events to keep parents in the loop

including coffee chats, grade-level teacher-parent meetings, SSC and ELAC meetings, and more.

The school has an app they use in order to offer resources within the school, district and around

the community to families in order to keep them up to date on what is going on at the school and

provide them with any additional support they may need. The school also has a link specifically

for military families to use for additional resources and support. This open communication helps

to meet TPE 1, element 2, “Maintain ongoing communication with students and families, includ-

ing the use of technology to communicate with and support students and families, and to com-

municate achievement expectations and student progress.” (CTC, 2016).

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In terms of teacher-student relationships, I am not sure how much of a community is be-

ing built in the classroom I am observing. I think the classroom rules and the paper bags were a

great way to begin to form a community, however, through my observations I have noticed that

the classroom is very strict. The teacher is constantly telling the students to be quiet and listen,

when I think they could really benefit from more group work instead. The fourth grade has a

points system and the teacher will often threaten taking away points or recess time for talking, or

not packing up fast enough, which through my observations, has not been a very effective sys-

tem. I have seen little collaboration between students. It is mostly individual work which is diffi-

cult for children to do all day because it is their instinct to socialize and talk and this is how they

are going to get to know their peers and learn about their cultures. The classroom feels very tra-

ditional and does not have much of a sense of community or family which is one of my largest

goals of my future classroom. I would hope that students would feel welcome to come to me

with any problems or worries that they have and I am not confident if this type of classroom is

being built in the fourth grade I am observing.

Inclusion

In terms of inclusion, I feel as though all students are called on equally. The teacher does

not favor calling on any students from my observations. They also sit together in mixed groups

of gender and culture. This meets Bank’s principle 9.1, “Do teachers structure interracial cooper-

ative groups that enable students from different racial and ethnic groups to become acquainted as

individuals?” It helps students to be in diverse groups, however, this again is just a beginning

step. In order to really create a multicultural classroom, there must be more efforts made than

just mixing students together (Banks, n.d).

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My teacher informed me that there were about eight english language learners within our

class. In turn, I asked if those students received any additional help, or went to another teacher at

any point of the day, and they do not. My teacher’s first language is Spanish and she said that she

has had students come into her class right from Mexico before and she has spoken to them in

Spanish, but this year does not ever use Spanish. I am curious if there are any resources or addi-

tional support within the school for these children if they needed them.

Conclusion

Overall, I think S.M has genuine intentions of being an inclusive multicultural school,

however, in order for these goals to manifest, all teachers must be implementing multicultural

pedagogy with these goals in mind as well. I think the class I am observing is moving in some

good directions to become a multicultural community, but I believe there is much more that can

be done. Since it is just the beginning of the year, it is hard to make concrete assumptions about

the level of multiculturalism within the classroom. I will continue to observe elements of Banks’

checklist as the year continues and notice how the classroom environment evolves as time goes

on.
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References

Banks, J. (n.d.). Diversity within unity essential principles checklist. Retrieved from https://

ole.sandiego.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/announcement?

California Department of Education, Commission on Teacher Credentialing. (2016). California

Teaching Performance Expectations. Sacramento, CA., 1-34.

Dare, E. E. (2018). Welcome parents and students 2018-2019. Retrieved from http://

schools.cvesd.org/schools/muraoka/Pages/PrincipalsCorner.aspx#.W3Cjd62ZNE4