Book Review

"New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens"

(1) Your points of disruption--places in the book that cause you to feel uncomfortable or angry or curious.

• One point that I had a hard time understanding was the teachers losing their wits at the students and getting angry. It made me uncomfortable because I know that my students will test me, and I will want to have patience. However I wonder if I will have enough patience and tact to teach them effectively, even when I feel like we’re running out of time or I feel like they just aren't getting something? The goal is for them to know everything they need to in order to be successful, and I can see how the teachers get frustrated when these students they care about are making the same mistakes. I just hope I never blow up while teaching.
• What I didn’t realize was how cultures could cause points of contention in families, like with the Yemeni girl whose family didn’t support her getting a college education as much as American families would.Thinking about the other kids' stories, I wondered a lot about the good and the bad parts of cultures. American culture isn't the best one, that is for certain. However, I think people forget that because of the hegemonic system we have going on in America where we're supposed to be #1 in EVERYTHING. It's hard even for me to think that people can be successful, even in America, if they have a different kind of culture.
• I was shocked at how busy some kids are. It's not even with extra curriculars. They're at work or they spend hours in family courts and other administration offices for paperwork and settling issues that come with being an immigrant, documented or not. That is time they waste worrying about being deported and being trapped in small rooms with hard benches and harsh fluorescent lighting instead of at home worrying about homework. It almost seems like institutional racism, since these issues can cause some kids to go as far as dropping out because they are so far behind from missing class, or being sent back to their "homeland" where they may not finish an education. 
• Another cultural disruption I had was how they pointed out that bringing kids from underprivileged places to visit and live in American homes, just to send them back to their own country, is actually really mean. If we are to introduce people to a life of privilege, we try to force them to go back to their old way of life and not expect them to try to stay. Mohamed’s story touched me. It was a story of how he became an undocumented citizen, and I felt for him. instead of trying to show people america, how hard is it to better their lives where they are?

(2) Descriptions of the stories from the book clarify or provide examples of the ideas we have been discussing in class.

• This book opened my eyes to the vast amount of diversity there is in immigrant students. When I think of immigrants, I usually only think of Hispanic kids and their culture differences, but this book showed me how diverse cultures from Yemen and Sierra Leone and Haiti and others can come together and how those students have to deal with trying to fit into the American culture.This probably won't be the same in a school I teach at. I wonder if International Schools in other countries have the same demographics, since I would like to work at an International School.
• I noticed for the first time just how much language is a cultural capital, especially in America. These kids were smart, but learning English and fitting into American culture while trying to hang onto their own seemed to be the two biggest challenges the students faced. Good English in itself has so many cultural gains associated with it. If you speak fluently and without an accent, people would not question if you're an illegal immigrant or not. However, being an immigrant has it's perks, even in American culture. Sometimes these immigrant children can win people over with their strange backgrounds, but in the book it pointed out that the point of the stories become a comparison of who's story is sadder, and not a comparison of how strong these student's are. 
• While some kids get privileges because of their backgrounds, like the four-year scholarships a few kids got, there are still too many kids who are disadvantaged because of their background and only being able to get low-income jobs. I don’t know how people could even survive in places like New york, where everything is so expensive. This is one issue that points out how meritocracy doesn't work.
• What i did like was how the teachers worked really hard to make those projects the students did mean something to the students. They were really good at inclusive pedagogy. They couldn't be completely culturally relevant, since there were so many different cultures. However, the teachers found ways to incorporate important skills, like writing in English, into the lessons by finding things that everyone could relate to, or finding ways for them to explore a subject they liked. The kids did research projects, each student picking a topic they were legitimately interested in. I thought it was funny how the teachers could tell if a student couldn’t think of a topic. Apparently, the students would chose to study the Bermuda Triangle.

(3) How the stories from the book will influence your thinking about your future work as a teacher.

• What was most heartbreaking but a good grounder was how some kids' stories didn’t turn out like the fairytale American dream stories. I have issues with stories that don't have happy endings, but this was good to remind me that the system is not perfect. Some kids will go straight to work at minimum wage jobs. Some will have children before they graduate and drop out. Some will go to college. Some won't even graduate high school. It made me realize that meritocracy is severely flawed, and while I will hate it and I won’t give up on those kids ever, some people will just have harder lives than others. Things won’t work out and I can’t get too torn up by the unsuccessful stories. This will be hard because in my own American dream, if I work hard enough and the student works hard enough, then they can make it. That’s the ideal, even if it’s not always reality. I'm glad this book kept the reader's reality in check, since it will fuel us to be better and try to improve the system, or even reinvent it. 
• I felt that the biggest issue for the teachers was the time. There never seemed to be enough time to prepare the students for the big world that they were supposed to function in. There are criteria that every student should know by the time they graduate, but I'm beginning to wonder if there is too much information to cover over four years, especially with immigrant children. What I feel like will be key for me as a teacher will be to remember that the skills take priority over the subject. They don’t necessarily need to memorize the skeletal system, but they do need to know how to use a computer to research a subject. The biggest challenge will be incorporating important skill building into learning subject matter.

(Re)Imagined Classroom

If I have windows in my classroom, I'll get shades for it. Thick enough they can't see outside but hopefully light enough to let a little natural light in. That way, kids who may get distracted by things happening outside will be able to focus a little more.

I still think having computers with internet access is something I really want in my classes so all my students will have an opportunity to do research. If not in my own class, then I'd want a lab somewhere in the school that we could go to if the kids needed the internet for any projects.

I feel like the ratio between teaching and conversing and doing activities will be more of a 1:1:2 ratio. I understand now that there are skills I will need to explicitly teach the kids because they need it. Group talking and doing activities will be to help assess understanding of the materials.

Rather than just straight lecture, I will still try to encourage questions of all kinds. I have a policy that I think worked fairly well in my lab that I taught. There are no such thing as HONEST stupid questions. There are such things as "smart-alec" stupid questions. What I noticed is that once I encouraged questions, and had more time where students constructively explored the subject they were learning, they would ask me questions while I was walking around and monitoring them. It was less stressful for those who may think they have "embarrassing" questions and wouldn't want to ask them out loud and in front of everyone. So the key was stressing the importance of questions, and making myself available to be asked questions in a non-stressful situation.

I still want to do field trips, but I also want to make sure that everyone can come who is interested. I also have to be aware of what they are doing in other classes and make sure I don't hinder the students or their teachers being able to do a lesson.

If I have a lot of specimens around the room, I'll have to make sure all of them are durable enough to be handled and have assigned times when people can or can't touch them. I still want to have a lot of things relevant to the lesson but also make sure that those specimens are relevant to the student's own lives and culture. Also in my room I would want to put either a pink upside-down triangle or a pride flag somewhere in the room so students know that my room is a safe room for LGBTQ kids.

I still think the ideal would be near the ocean, forest, and some sort of college. But really, there is always something to explore in the surrounding area. I would want to find projects with locals that have to do with biology, possibly having the students nominate people who they think would be interesting. If students don't know people, I could ask them to think of a subject we learned about that they enjoyed and I could find people.

I honestly don't know what kind of students I'll get. I'm sure I'll see every kind of student come through my classroom, so I really just want to judge it by each situation than try to imagine the kinds of students I expect to see. I want to see equal amounts of young men and women and encourage girls to join our class if I find that boys start to dominate my class.

I still want a seating chart that gets switched up every now and again. I'll let students have anonymous input in who they want to sit by, but mostly to see if anyone is getting excluded or possibly bullied.

I'm thinking of changing up the rules I originally had. I want them to be clear and posted in the room (if students need it in a different language, I'll give them a handout of the rules in their language after class). I honestly don't know what the specific rules would be, but I would try to make them as clear as possible. There will be a three strikes policy. The first time they violate the rule, I'll tell them what they did wrong and the better choice they should make. The second time the violate it, I'll have them call their parents after class or if their parents don't answer, they'll leave a message. Third time, we'll have a meeting with their principle and their parents.

I still would want daily low stakes quizzes over the material we learn in class. Possibly doing it as a warmup/review before class instead of at the end of class. I still like the idea of reviewing commonly missed questions and creating study guides for students based on questions they missed. I want to try really hard to have projects done more in class than out of class. I want assessments to be done more through projects that the students can choose, like doing a movie or doing a written report or something else. I still want to do a science fair but I would want to make time in class to work on it.