The Kohn reading had many different aspects in it, talking about the different aspects of a classroom. The chart we filled out discussing how points in the Kohn reading resonated with our personal experience growing up in school and witnessing things during out school placements really helped me to gather my thoughts about this.
One thing that really stuck out to me was the location of the teacher. Growing up, my teachers were usually always in the front of the room or floating around the room while students did work. My placement teacher is a lot different however. She doesn't use her teacher's desk at all except to put materials on it. When students are working, she's either sitting with them at their tables in groups helping or doing her own prep or walking around making sure students are on task. The classroom I'm in is first grade but they've already been granted so much independence.
Another thing that I think is important to talk about is the furniture in the classroom. My personal experience was mostly just desks and chairs either in rows facing forward, or a horseshoe, or in groups, but it was always desks and chairs. My placement at Alfred Lima has seating for the students where they can sit at a low table with comfy chairs to do their work, or on the rug with lap desks, or at the regular tables and they're allowed to float around the room to change their spot. The students seem very comfortable and it adapts to different and preferred ways of learning.
The last thing I'll talk about is the teacher's voice. From my childhood, I remember for the most part teachers would raise their voice if they needed attention from students or they would clap out patterns to get attention. For the most part, my classes were behaved and paid attention but those occasional times, teachers would yell. I don't think I've heard my placement teacher raise her voice in a negative context. The only exception would be at recess when she had to make sure students could hear her and it was "line up!" To get attention in the classroom, she'll say "class, class?" and they echo back with "yes, yes?" She does it in different voices sometimes and they echo back with those different voices so it makes them excited to listen. I really want to adapt some of her strategies as a teacher because she's truly so amazing and respects the students so much.
Above is a short article discussing the basics of culturally relevant pedagogy and it really helped me to understand the topic a bit more.
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