Philosophy Statement on Teaching Diverse Students
The artifacts I selected for Standard 2 (Culture as it affects Student Learning) was a lesson sequence from seminar ESC 609, Internship Seminar and my philosophy of teaching diverse students came from ESC 769, Latinos in U.S Schools. The lesson sequence shows how I planned instruction based upon knowledge of content, students, their community, and curriculum goals. My personal philosophy artifact provides evidence of how I infuse culture, and self-advocacy in my classroom so that students will be readily equipped to thrive in their old, and new culture.
In artifact ESC 769 I wrote a letter urging parents to advocate for their children, and themselves. For too long, we have seen immigrant students assimilating from their home culture in order to fit into their new culture. One form of advocacy that I have taken on is to let parents know about NYC’s “Additive bilingual programs” and Two way immersion” programs for emerging bilingual students. In the artifact from my Internship Seminar class, I created a lesson based off of the diverse L2 acquisition (Entering, Emerging, Transitioning, Expanding, and Commanding). I used this information to scaffold and differentiate my lesson to meet the academic and linguistic needs of my students.
All in all, I will continue to design culturally enriched lessons, and advocate for my students to get the right educational support that they need. Hopefully, by me doing this, it will continue to influence their self-esteem, heighten their language learning, and school achievement. I know the power cultural inclusivity has on my students, and it is for this reason a group of my colleagues and I have taken on the job of keeping a cultural night event at our school annually. Our goal is for our students, parents, the community, teachers, and administration to know that when “cultural factors are recognized, respected, and accommodated,” then we will have a more unified school system.
