Get Involved

On Sunday May 11th I attended the Deaf Michiana Missionary Church in South Bend. I went there with several ASL majors so I was definitely a minority because I was not deaf, and I did not know sign language. This was an awesome experience because I had never been in a deaf church before.
The church met in someone's home. We all gathered in a room about as large as a standard classroom. The room at about ten pews that about 30 people sat on. As the people around me signed and introduced themselves I tried to understand as much as I could. Oddly enough I felt the need to be very quiet and whisper to the people around me in order to understand what was going on even though most people that attended were deaf and would not have heard me. Even when I realized this I still did not talk normally. When the service started the pastor got up and led us through a time of praise and prayer requests. Luckily for me the church had an interpreter who loudly stated everything that the pastor said. This allowed me to understand what was going on, and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole service.
The only part of the service that was not interpreted was the worship time. One lady got up in front of the church and had a machine that made large thumping sounds on the floor. This gave the beat for us to follow. She then began to sign to the beat and everyone copied what she did. I was fairly lost during this whole process because the songs were not interpreted.
One thing that I kept thinking about during the service was how difficult it would be to be a deaf person in a school. Even if they were only partially deaf, there is a lot of interactions and activity that is missed by not being able to hear. Even with an interpreter, interactions between classmates would be difficult and uncomfortable. Another thought I had was how it would feel to be in a completely different environment where you barely knew any of the language. This is the case for many students who are immigrants. I felt uncomfortable in this church because I didn't know what was going on. In a school setting, this would be much worse, especially for a young student. As a future teacher I need to keep this in mind. I must help my students feel more comfortable in their surroundings and create an environment that is welcoming.

To get involved with a group of people different than me I decided to go do my laundry at a Latino Laundromat. It was a very interesting experience. I went there with two other people. When we arrived we took our laundry in and found the nearest washers to put it in. After inserting the quarters and getting the wash started I sat down on a metal table and looked around. The Laundromat was fairly big. There were about 20 people there at all times, and, according to my estimates, were about 50% Latino. Everyone there seemed to be of a low-income class. People seemed to split up according to their race. White people tended to do their wash on one side of the room, while Latino to stay on the other end. I am not sure whether this was purposeful or not, or whether it occurred because their were two different entrances.
The Laundromat was also fairly noisy. There was the constant sound of washing machines and dryers, the clattering of coins coming out of the change machine, the shouts small children playing, and people chit chatting with each other. It was surprising for me to see that not many people seemed to know each other. Other than couples talking together it did not seem like people knew one another. I thought this strange because in a small town like Goshen, I would assume that some people would know each other, or at least get to know people at the Laundromat that they use. In general, the people there seemed courteous yet quiet. The laundry attendant talked to us and was very nice, but other than that we did not have a lot of interaction with anyone else. People generally loaded their wash then sat on benches and waited for it to finish. A couple of them brought books to read while they waited.
Another interesting thing that I saw was a man using his laptop. In a place where poorer people wash their clothes it was odd to see someone working on a laptop while waiting for the their wash to dry. Now that I think about it, its perfectly natural to work on a laptop while waiting for your laundry to finish, but in that atmosphere it seemed out of place.
This was an interesting experience. It was very first time in a large laundromat and it really helped to help me better understand some of their living situations. While I normally do laundry at the college I always assume that after I graduate I will get one of my own. This is not a reality for many people, and it seems like having to do your laundry in public can be degrading and not a pleasant experience. I think this might be while people generally tended to be quieter because they did not want it to become known that they had to go to a Laundromat. It's weird how something as simple as washing onces clothes can be problematic and degrading, and forces people to remember their economic status. I don't often think of things that make one part of the middle class or lower class, but this opened my eyes a little bit more.

As part of my activities to get involved with people different than me on Wednesday night I went to a Hispanic Catholic service at Saint John’s. The service was fairly short and small. Only a dozen or so people attended the hour long service. When I walked into the building I immediately stuck out because I was the only non-Latino person there. Even though I am fluent in Spanish I didn’t really get the opportunity to use it there and get to know people. Because of the small service there was no greeter or anyone in charge other than the priest who led the service. Everyone already knew each other and no one talked at all doing the service and people left immediately after. I was disappointed that I was not able to talk to anyone but at the same time it made the experience more real and better. I say this because it allowed me to see the service as an outsider and as someone who didn’t know what was going on. I have only attended a few Catholic Churches so I was lost most of the time even though I understood 90% of what was being said. Simply knowing the language and words coming out of the priest mouth was not enough to fully understand what was happening. One interesting thing that I noticed was that, while people were very courteous, I was ignored most of the time. People didn’t talk to me or seem to do anything different since they had a visitor.
While I left this service feeling slightly bewildered and disappointed that I didn’t get to talk to anyone, when I reflected on this experience I found it very useful. The feelings that I felt at the church, being looked at strangely and somewhat ignored, even though it was in a caring way, is something that my minority students might feel. Even if they understand English, knowing what is going on and getting to know people can be difficult. I must make the effort to get them involved, and help them make friends with the class and feel connected. I must also engage them at a personal level. At the church I never felt like I was a part of the group, only an outsider who they were allowing to watch. I don’t want any of my students to ever feel that way. I want them to feel comfortable and accepted, and able to learn.

UPDATE FOR FALL 2009
Although I was born in Philadelphia, I essentially grew up in Bogota, Colombia. I have many latino friends and am fluent in Spanish. Because of this background I feel like Latino culture is very much a part of who I am. Being a participant in several LSU events at Goshen College has only strengthened this belief. As a student teacher/observer at Goshen Middle School, and in other schools that I have visited, I have noticed a large number of Latino students. Seeing how these numbers will have only increased by the time that I become a teacher, I felt that it was important for me to think specifically about how to teach Math to Latinos. I think that being familiar with Latino culture and knowing the language is not enough, and to truly be able to teach those that are different then myself, I need to look into studies detailing exactly how to do that.
The most interesting article that I read was entitled: Studying Students Studying Calculus: A look at lives of Minority Mathematics in College written by Uri Treisman. This article looked at the problem of high rates of failure for Black and Latino students in calculus, which is a major problem for any of them looking into a career that uses math. Although this article is written about a study at a Berkeley University it makes several important points that I can apply to my teaching. The first important point of the article was that the initial assumptions of faculty as to why these students are failing at such a high percentage were completely wrong. The reasons that the faculty came up with are actually fairly common beliefs so I will note them here:
1. Lack of motivation
2. Lack of skills developed in previous schooling combined with the fact that Math relies heavily on prior knowledge
3. Parents did not push this kids hard enough or do not have enough education to help them
4. Nothing to do with ethnicity but with income.
The article went on to show how these ideas are flawed in different ways, and eventually go to what the cause was, which in my mind, is counterintuitive. The university studied a group of black students and a group of Chinese students. Chinese students were performing very well in Calculus and other math courses while black students were not. After hours of studies and hypothesis the conclusion was made that the black students worked alone while the Chinese students worked together, and came together to solve problems. Simply by working together and teaching one another these students were getting far better grades than other minority students. An important distinction to make is that it is essential that students of a certain ethnicity are helping student of that same ethnicity. This gets rid of any racial or stereotyping problems, and helps the student feel more comfortable.
This seems counter-intuitive to me because Latin culture, or at least Colombia culture, places high priority on relationships and people. It would seem that this would include areas such as homework, and I would think that students would love to work together in this way. I think that this shows that understanding culture is not enough and can lead to wrong assumptions.
Another important point from the article that goes along with this was that the courses and programs set up to help struggling minority students were simply not working as students who entered them never made it back to the main class.
How can I apply this article to my teaching is the question that I often ask myself after reading anything of interest on education. I must incorporate group work and students helping one another in the classroom. I also cannot rely solely on remedial programs to help struggling students and expect the system to help them. By not relying on such programs and having Latino students work together and teach one another, I can help them become more successful in Math.
This article hammers home a point that I think many teachers, policy makers, and administrators miss. It is not the material of the class or the ethnicity of the student but the setting of the class that is extremely important in determining the success of a student.