Prompt 5

There are a lot of challenges that a teacher could confronted, it all depends on the culture of each of the students. The reason why I said that is because if I as a teacher have a Hispanic student, his/her culture is totally different than a White student and I don’t mean it in a bad way. I think that Hispanic parents are more restrictive when it comes to their children, for example in my culture which is Hispanic, parents usually hit their kids if they don’t behave and here, in America, that is consider domestic violence, but even here some parents don’t lose their culture and keep doing that and when their children are misbehaving in school they tell the teacher (if the teacher is Hispanic) to hit the kid so he/she can listen and behave. Children would never listen if you treat them bad and parents don’t understand that. The more they hit the kid, the more rebellious the kid becomes. The reason why I’m talking about this is because I passed through a situation like this, where one of my students’ parent told me that if her child don’t listen to me, I have the permission to hit him. I’m sure that teachers pass through many others challenges with their students.

Prompt 3

An excellent way to find out more about sociocultural differences is by being creative; doing games and activities that involves sociocultural, linguistic and ethnic characteristics with students. Doing that the teacher would be able to learn more about each student and from there will be better to accommodate them, not affecting learning.  Teachers should know as much as they can about their students in order to interact and have a variety of techniques of teaching for students to learn.  One activity that I really like was the one that we did in class, by taking steps back and forward, by this activity I realized a lot of things that I wouldn’t ever imagine about my classmates. I feel comfortable because I wasn’t the only one who had the same situation. I tried this activity with my high school students and they had a lot in common. With that activity I understood a lot of things from my students, such as; why do they act the way they do, and why their personality is like that. Etc.

Prompt 4

My personal history and sociocultural characteristics don't intersect with my students. I guess that it might be because we all come from the same country and have the same values and culture. Everything is about culture in the Dominican Republic and there are certains things you can't do, for example, you can't talk to a person older than you in a bad way, you need to respect them, and not only that because here in America is the same, but there are other things that are part of our culture that you can't do. As a teacher of these students the advantages that I might have I think is that I can communicate with them in one way or another and they would be able to understand me, and the most important thing is that they respect me, no matter how old I am, they still respect me. So far I have confronted no misconceptions about various cultural group because all of my students come from the same culture, as I said, they are all Dominicans.

Started shaping my teacher identity! :)

I feel great doing what I love, helping these students. I even like the way they refer to me, it's so respectful, they always ask "Miss could you please help me with this?" I get really exciting when I heard those words because they don't speak English and always want to speak Spanish so I tell them that if they don't ask me in English for help, then I won't help, and even though that's not true, they believed in my words. I really want to make a difference and help them and by encouraging them to speak English is a great way to help because that's the first thing they have to learn in order to do their homework. It's like starting shaping my teacher identity. They also called me "Profe" which is the short name for professor, but in Spanish because that's what they speak. Another thing that really show them that they need to respect me is the way I dress. In the Dominican culture an office attitude person, the way they dress, is really important and therefore you need to respect them.

A month working at VIPS!!!

It has been a month and couple of weeks already working with these high school students, they feel really  confident and comfortable working with me. There is not much I can said about my student, they are great and I love them. Sometimes I think that the reason why we get alone is because we all come from the same culture and speak the same language, which it always makes it easy. I learned a lot from my students, although they are all from the same country, Dominican Republic, they are really different from each other, but all of them are really respectful. I wish I could be around others students from another country so I could learn other cultures as well. I think I'm lucky for having these students, they give me no problems.

Wind- Wolf

This is very similar to what we were talking about in the classroom, about the different cultures and how they related to each other. In Delphit white and black students were different because they were raised in different cultures. Wind-Wolf was raised in his country, India so he learned others things that are not part of whites student, and others thought that he wasn't capable enough to be in school, only because he was quiet and seems stupid or slow, but it was because of the different environment. Is a huge change from one culture to another and he was used to his culture in India and that was the only one he knew until they brought him to this white school.  People that come from other countries, even myself feel just like Wind-Wolf. When I came to this country it was really hard for me to get used to the school, classrooms, students, professors and the way they teach, it was totally different from my country and I had no friends, it was like a new world for me. I was quite and seem stupid just like Wind-Wolf, but it was only because of the different culture and environment, after a while I was comfortable and feel like I fit.

First day at VIPS!

My first day at VIPS was great! I got students from Classical and Central High Schools. I was really surprised because ninety percent of the students that goes right to the VIPS office located on Westminister are Dominicans, and so am I. It was great and comfortable for me to work with them and help them with their homework and assigments. As the rest of my classmates, they assigned me to VIPS office, not directly to a school so I get a lot of students from different schools, but must of them are from Central and Classical High Schools. The area that we work at it's not huge, but all the students feel comfortable sharing and giving others that space to work. They also have computers that the students can use for their assignments. There is no professor assigned to this place, but there is a great coordinator, and he is also Hispanic, he is in charge of all the students that goes for help and of all the mentors or volunteers. The students love me and feel really comfortable working with me because the students are Dominicans, they dont't speak English, but Spanish and are in ESL programs, it's really hard for them to communicate in English so they feel comfortable getting my help in Spanish. They are great and very respectful. I also got involved into others programs because I really like the environment and my students. I offered my help to teach the students English along with another college student girl, we are trying to help the students improve their English, and that program runs on Tuedays and Thursday. Another program that I got into is CAAP mentor on Saturdays, that's to help middle school and high school students with their school work. In my first day at VIPS I realized that I wasn't only doing this project learning as a requirement for this class, I am also doing it because I like it, and that's why I decided to get involved into others programs that VIPS offers.