After visiting and “touring” Hyde Park I noticed that there were many small, local shops within and around the community. Everyone we passed was extremely friendly and gave a smile and wave as we walked by…this was not what I had expected. It was like a small town feeling in a big city. As a group, we decided to “look into” the local hair salon, Cleopatra’s, farmers market and local deli, and Leona’s pizza restaurant. These seemed like very different locations where literacy could be integrated into each and all were within a walking distance from the school. Students from the school were walking in the small strip mall (where Leona’s and the local deli were located) with their families and were still in school uniform. It was great to see that they went out after school instead of just going and sitting at home, which is what my perception was. I was surprised at the deli how small the store was and there was not much of a selection (compared to what I am used to at my grocery store). The hair salon also had two male workers and one female worker – this surprised me since I had the perception that women would do other women's hair. The salon workers were very friendly and even allowed us to take a tour of their salon. I wasn’t surprised that there were customers in the salon during the middle of the day – as I have learned how important it is to the culture to have your hair done all the time. Leona’s was somewhat empty when we visited which was my expectation as I didn’t think many families would be eating out and spending their money when they could spend it on their families in a more economical manner.
I cannot say enough how beneficial this was to gain knowledge into who my students are and where they come from. I am from the suburbs of Chicago and have always viewed the south side in such a different manner – I am glad I had the opportunity to look beyond what was just told to me. I got to see why my students are the way they are in regards to outside life and mannerisms. The students respect me, themselves, and others and I can see that the Hyde Park community follows this norm. I am privileged I get to work with other teachers, students, and families that come from such a welcoming and caring community. The abundant amount of beautiful parks also plays a key role in the students and family’s lives – they have things to do after school and are surrounded by green grass and flowers (something I would never expect to see in the city). These things play a very important role in a child’s life and I will be able to bring some of those things or ideas into the classroom. I will work my hardest to teach to the students and use ideas/language that is familiar to them that I experienced in the community. I will work to understand why some student’s literacy levels are far below average while others are on track or a bit above. This will take more time on my part as I try to create lessons that suite all students needs while using things from the community that the students can relate to, which will keep the students more engaged and they will then WANT to learn about literacy and how to become better learners in the classroom.
The readings all play a dominant role in looking into the outside community and bringing it into the classroom. A quote from Compton and Lilly that really stood out to me was, “Teachers need to be one part detective: We sift the clues children leave, follow the leads, and diligently uncover the facts in order to fill out and make credible the story of their growth and development. We need to be one part researcher: collecting data, analyzing information, testing hypotheses” (page 32). This in a sense explains why we had to go into our communities in which we are teaching because we have to know who are students are before we try to teach them something. We have to gain their trust. We need to listen to what they have to say – what is going on in their lives, where they are going, what they are doing – these will all help guide us when we want to know who are learners are. With the information we gather we then need to create lessons that are engaging and meaningful to our students. Everything may not work the first time but we have to try again until we find what is best suitable for our students.
I like the way you connected the community investigation to the Compton and Lily article. I thought about that as well. I think it's also important to realize that the "investigation" must be ongoing and continually informing our lesson plans so that we are never relying on assumptions and always viewing students from a non-judgmental perspective. Looks like we'll have a lot to think about in creating our unit plans :)
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