Reflection on Care and my presentation Mona Assaf Wow, Care, where - PDF document

Reflection on Care and my presentation Mona Assaf Wow, Care, where to start. I loved and connected to the entire book. I think that we forget that there is a given but very important reciprocity that occurs between teacher and student. I look at other teachers I interact with and think about why parents ask why I can not continue working with their children. I think that a part of it is that I try to connect, not connect in a superficial way, but to truly connect soul to soul with each of my students. I find that by doing this the classroom becomes of place of authentic caring, I am not there to just care for them in the sense of changing their clothes or teaching them how to do this or that. I am there to serve as a kind of conduit to learning. My own love of learning and joy in intellectual pursuits is reflected in my soul. So when the children and I connect, I reflect that back to them. For if I did not think learning was an amazing pursuit or that each of them has a brain and is very interested in the world around them, then that is what I would reflect back to them. I do see how a teacher can become frustrated and not encourage or take the time it takes to form that deep connection. For me this, my 5 th year teaching has probably been one of the most difficult. At least at the beginning of the year, we are much much better now, but it was not an easy road to this point. I see how Noddings points out there needs to be a “shared” language between the person providing care and the receiver of the care. For the past three years I have had a Spanish speaking assistant. This year we switched, against my concern, that how were we to form relationships if we change assistants every two years! Anyway I gained an African American assistant. So between the two of us there was not common language with 90% of our students! I am not going to lie it was very difficult for the first quarter of school. I was extremely frustrated and felt like I was talking to a room full of walls. No reaction no response no excitement at all. No matter what I did, dress up, talk funny, act things out, sing, dance, books, pictures etc, nothing was working. When I asked my Head Start boss for some advice, she just told me some years are just like that! And that it would be a long year, that I should just know that I was going to “carry” class. Now that is a wonderful example of her not “caring” for me. She did not try to connect with me soul to soul, she did not hear that I wanted to connect but just could not figure out how to. I then realized that the kids were all whispering to each other in Spanish. It was like a light-bulb, when I read Noddings; I was unable to connect with them because we did not have a common language. So important! So during my parent teacher conferences at the end of September (end of modified calendar first quarter), I mentioned to the parents that it was okay if the kids spoke Spanish at school. A few parents questioned me about this, they were concerned I would punish them or make fun. I reassured them that, that would not happen. They also saw that I was able to answer their questions before the translator, translated what they had said. So they saw that I can understand some Spanish. As Noddings so eloquently states, the shared language and mutual respect helped create a safe, supportive and trusting learning environment. The conversations with parents also allowed my “new” assistant to hear how I feel about the kids speaking Spanish and what it means to me, in an indirect way. In a way that is not threatening to her (another tough adjustment), and is responsive to the students’ needs. We both commented and continue to notice (now the end of the 2 nd quarter) the amazing difference it has had on the students’ relationships with us and with each other. I think

we have both, together have seen what an impact it has had. For me Noddings helped me through the process of “naming” it and reflecting on “it” as Brookfield points out is a very key part of the process of becoming a reflective/critical practioner. I also see and have long thought about the fact that one can not be in this state of “open soulness” 24/7, it is impossible. I continue to struggle with this issue. For my life now and my life five years ago is much different. I find it very difficult to articulate, why I do not have patience or that I appear to not be interested in them. Since I am a rather brash and frank kind of person, these conversations never go quit the way I think the other person thought they would. I do not feel bad about being distracted, pre-occupied or irritated about the mundane. People often ask me how I am dealing with working and going to PhD school. I think teaching and going to work is an outlet for me. There I understand and see why they do and say certain things but the adults in my life I see their insensitivity to realties of my life as annoying and rude. Most of my close friends are married, so our meetings revolve around their realities which are much different from mine. They have for the most part lead extremely privileged lives and do not see or recognize their own level of privilege. Noddings spoke to me because she named it, one can not be receptive to others all the time, it is draining and tiring---sometimes you just want to connect and know the person understands why you can not give. With my family I feel that and even in my school (work) I feel that. They may not completely understand why or what I am doing but they connect and try to understand. But some people think one should be like that all the time. Then I think of the people I think this about and I realize that a part of it might be that they do not have anyone to connect to in their own lives, so they expect me to do it, since I am the teacher after all. And my work and reality is so foreign to them that they do not see how exhausting it is. Any way Noddings named the feelings and provided me with a way to start to reflect and think about how and why I react the way I do, to my own sense of needing to be alone and not connect in order to “rejuvenate” myself. So that I can connect again tomorrow. Presentation I am so glad I decided to model the different “caring” and “non-caring” types of teaching. I was a bit concerned going into it that I did not have a very clear way to communicate the two different types of teaching. I think in the end the lose structure of it allowed me the freedom to show what I had come to understand through the readings. I look forward to reading Noddings’s book about families. I have also downloaded her dissertation. I find her theory to be very interesting and a wonderful way to approach education but especially early childhood transformative education. Through the presentation I started to see how to work with adults and encourage them to reflect on their own practice. It is very difficult. I tend to want to step in and solve the problem but that is not a good way to encourage growth and reflection. I know that for me, in the beginning at least, I will have to make a very conscious effort to not look to solve the problem or answer the question for them. I think that once I have done it for a while and see students come to the answers for themselves I will stop having that kind of gut response. I found it very interesting that Ari and Stacia made the connection to Buber, I and Thou even though they did not read the book. Noddings refers to I and Thou several times. It sounds like it is not an easy read but I will check it out.

I have also started to put together a list of books I need to read. Color of Fear. Teaching: other peoples, Ballenger. Article in Young Children about African American children, I actually have this one. I glanced at it.