Journal Writing 5:

Journal Writing 5: Respond to the following prompts :

• Looking back at your teaching last semester, what did you discover about the needs of students in your classes? What kinds of “needs” surfaced that surprised you?

• To what degree do you think you really understand the needs of your students? How wide is the “gap” between them and you?

• What might have surfaced in the reading or in your teaching (about the realities of students’ needs) that triggered a negative response in you? Try to identify why this response was triggered and how it relates to your biases.

            One of the things I discovered about the needs of my students is that they are greatly varied. Essentially, every student has a unique set of needs and the needs can change from one minute to the next depending on the environment and the inputs that student is receiving. These needs can also vary in significance. One student may simply need a pencil for an exam, while the other may need to figure out where his family is going to be living once they lose their home. Both of these are examples from last semester.

            One of the particularly surprising needs to me that surfaced was found in the number of students that did not have the required text books to use at home. This is attributed to two things, they did not have enough books to go around, and so some students were given the books on CD instead. Well, as many of these students found out, the CDs were so old they did not work on many of the newer computers, so they were left without any resource to use at home. This was very surprising to me, another thing that surprised me was the attitude of the staff about the issue. Their take was, they can go to the library and use a book there. There was no concern over the fact that about a third of the class did not having a working "textbook" to use at home. Another need that surfaced was the need to know that I cared. I can count at least a handful of students that completely changed the way the act in class and their attitude towards the class as whole once they really figured out that I cared about their success and failures. These students opened up to me and opened up to the class in the way of greater participation and as an ally in my classroom management. Students I would have never suspected as this being important started to come by class during lunch for a little help and would then stay 15-20min after I had answered their question just to hang out. One student even asked him, "Why are you still here?", his response was, I am just hang n' with "the Eagle", which is what some of my students took to calling me. Before he realized that I was there to really help him, he didn't talk to me, did not engage in class and was really just body. After a few chats and me following up on things we talked about and holding him accountable he turned a corner and became a different person in class.

            I think I get most of the big picture needs of my students. I know they need love, encouragement, consistency, an understanding of what I expect of them and a place to be who they are, I also know that some of my students are lacking basic needs, a safe place to live, food, a family that shows them love and support. I even understand that they need to be able to express themselves, often in ways that are certainly foreign to me and I don't always understand why they choose the methods that they do. But none the less they need to be able to be who they are, far be it for me to tell them otherwise. I guess this is where the gap comes in. There are certain types of expression that I just don't understand, mostly the counter culture types of expression. To be honest, I am not sure if it is that I don't understand the need to express themselves in that particular manner or how the need came about. I feel that as a society we are as open to things as ever, not that we don't sill have a lot of work to do, but very few things draw a reaction from society these days. So why do some students feel that they need to take a counter culture stance, when the culture is so open to so many things as compared to the past?

            One of the things that trigged a negative response from me was an instance in class when I assigned my class some things to do that required them to use a computer at home. No sooner did I get the information out as a student that was often a bit defiant said to me that I can't do that because she did not have a computer. My first thought was you are just saying that to be a pain. I politely said to her, "you really don't have a computer?" Her response was "Nope, so I am not going to do it". I told her she could use the computer lab and her response was basically she should not have to do anything outside of class and I could not hold her responsible for things done a computer since she did not have one. At that point I dropped it, and moved on. The thing that I started to think about was that I assumed that everyone in the class had access to a computer at home. I am still not sure if she was just being defiant or not, but I have to give her the benefit of the doubt. By making this assumption I had to have a preconceived notion about the SES of this student based on her skin, color, dress, and a variety of other factors. Furthermore, would I have had the same questions about the student's honesty about not having a computer if she was not always defiant to begin with or if she dressed differently or was a different race? I don't think so, but these are the questions that I have to ask myself. More importantly, I need to make sure that I don't make more serious presumptions about students based on my expectations and perceptions.  We assume so much about our students and to assume to much is at some point going to create issues much larger and much more important than this instance.