It was a different feeling this week when we did not attend the Boys and Girls club. I was left wondering how many of my students would be staying at that location during the summer and how many were going off on grand summer adventures with their friends/family. The newspaper that we made will be something that lasts forever and I will be glad to do it again for my students in my own classroom someday. To sum up the weekly readings in the course text, why we integrate arts into the curriculum falls entirely upon how we want our students to leave school intellectually. Statistically speaking, America is not the greatest country in the world anymore judging by the merit we place in academic achievement. To look at a piece of art for its elements, artist background, and purpose is to look at it on a deeper scale than entertainment. The push for more rigorous academia is spelled out in the Common Core state standards movement. More is asked of our young citizens, yet strikingly less is being done about the other side of the coin in the classroom. I believe the arts can be a hip-pocket tool for teachers when they find themselves in need of seeking a different way to get a point across to students. When we were making our final edit for the newspaper, the students keyed in on the fact that their articles may not contain enough information if they asked surface questions to their interview persons. They saw how art goes beyond translation and can evolve into a powerful messenger. I must say the best part of this whole experience was when the kids came up to me at the beginning of the day asking "Do we get to work on the newspaper today?"
According to the article Why Some Parents Don't Come to School, parents often don't feel that they are supposed to "step up to the plate" because they are unsure of the way they can actually make a difference in their child's education (Finders & Lewis, 1994). Some parents claim that teachers don't ask them for their opinions on how to teach their child; instead teachers only objectively tell parents how to teach/raise their kids. Raising children is one of the most energy driven jobs in the universe, and positive connections must be made and kept between the people who do this responsible work. I can guarantee you that there are very few Common Core State Standards posters in living rooms across America. Families have different dynamics and coexist in different ways due to cultural preferences and daily routines. We can either take two routes as teachers on this matter; Acceptance or Manipulation. If we take the acceptance path, we are joining hands with families to enhance our students' possibilities. We can type out a parent letter, and use a translator tool to customize the letter for any parents who speak languages other than English at home. We can explain that we used a translating service and the meaning might not be clear, but if we use simple language to get out points across, we could be building bridges of hope.
Today, my students completed their newspaper called "The Tampa Bay Reporter". They have been in the process for four weeks now, and I could not be more proud of their efforts. Children who weren't originally part of the group stepped in and contributed to the newspaper when they saw that the others were actually having fun. I have to give a shout out to Donovyn who started working on the project the last week and created the weather page with Joshua. As the project comes to a close, I can easily make a text-text connections between what we've been doing and to a concept known as scaffolding. Without the proper scaffolding, these students would have been left to the typical happenings of their afternoons. Being there to support their questions with answers that propelled their thinking forward was a key to their success. |