Behrman_Noticing

Although last week was a short week due to the holiday, there is one notable topic that I noticed and reflected on over the break. Prior to Thanksgiving we did an activity that required students to write a paragraph about things for which they were thankful. Several of my lower level ELLs needed some clarification about what “thankful” meant which included me providing several examples and some collaborative brainstorming. On Tuesday we reminded students that there would be no school on Thursday or Friday because of the holiday. A handful of students voiced their confusion as to why there was no school on Friday. This revealed to me that not all of them either celebrate this American tradition or are aware that some people travel long distances to be with their family at Thanksgiving. I wish we would have included more discussions about the holiday, culturally and historically. Although it is not an explicit part of our curriculum, I believe that as a classroom with an overwhelming number of ELL students, this is a vital part of their education and not teaching about holidays is such a disservice to them. 

 In the future, I would talk with my administration about the holiday-related projects/activities that I would like to do with my students and provide them with my rationale. This way if they do come to observe me and see my kids coloring a turkey or cutting out a booklet about Pilgrims, they will not question the purpose of them and view them as means of “easy” teaching, but will already understand the underlying reason for these types of activities. As an educator, this situation helped me notice how important it is to be sensitive to the cultural gaps in education, in addition to the content gaps. It is easy for teachers of ELLs to become so focused on teaching what will be on the test that they lose sight of this other crucial aspect of public education.