MeganB Task 2: Considering the Community

In order to try and find out what places my students visit in their community, I waited until Monday and then made it the question for their daily morning journal. I asked them which places they visited over the weekend and then went back and read their answers during lunch. One student answered Chuck E. Cheese, two others said a football game, and the rest of the class responded with a family members house. I made a mental note that in the future I should have explained that if the students did not go anywhere to include where they would have wanted to go or places that they pass on the way to school, as many of the students raised their hands to say "I didn't go anywhere!" In speaking with another intern, Jen Flanagan, we quickly decided that Chuck E. Cheese would be a great place to visit because it is an environment that incorporates Math and Literacy in a fun way. After noticing that many of my students ride the bus home from school, we also decided that a bus stop would also be another useful place to visit to show that Math and Literacy are important aspects of everyday life.

Jen and I plan to go and visit these places on Thursday late afternoon. We could have went earlier in the day, but since most children would be in school, we wanted to wait until later to see if we could actually witness school-aged children at these places.I assume that the demographic in these two places will be similar to that of the elementary school and surrounding neighborhood, mostly African American. I expect that Chuck. E Cheese will be filled with families, mostly with children due to the games and activities offered there. I expect to see children interacting with other children as well as adults. I assume there will be many opportunities for children to engage in literacy and math in the form of reading a menu, witnessing their parents paying for the check, playing games and seeing scores increase, counting tickets to obtain prizes, reading directions to electronic games as well as those that may be on the back of their children's menu. I do expect that I may see more mothers than fathers escorting the children to this restaurant, as some fathers may not be off work this early. I make this assumption only because I see more women outside when I leave Woodlawn each day. The bus station I expect to be more busy than Chuck E. Cheese and possibly less children present. By late afternoon, I assume that most children will already be home from school, unless they take part in an after school program. I believe we will see adults coming to or from work. I feel that we will see Literacy first, as we will have to read first the Bus sign, telling us if we are in the correct place to get us to our desired destination and then again when the bus is approaching, where we will have to read the front of the bus to make sure it is the correct one. We will have to pay attention to not only the bus number, but bus direction and then when getting on the bus, we will either have to insert a specific amount of money, or a card for which we will have to keep track of a balance.

The first place that we visited was Chuck E. Cheese and my expectations as far as seeing signs of Literacy and Math were met but my expectations of the demographic and social interactions was a little off. I was very happy to see that there were some children present. I had initially been worried that it would be too early for most families to go out to dinner, but thankfully I got lost and our observation began a little late. I had also anticipated the demographic to be similar to Woodlawn, in that it is mostly African American but I was surprised that this was not the case. Most of the families there were of mexican decent.It seemed that the children were accompanied by adults both male and female which surprised me initially since I figured there would be mostly mothers. I thought that I would find children playing together in the gaming area however, most children were accompanied by one or more adults, who kept to themselves and the game they were playing. There was little if any interaction among the children at Chuck E. Cheese which was very shocking since it is clearly a restaurant aimed for children's enjoyment. The staff at this establishment were more than willing to let us explore while the families seemed a little uneasy as we walked through the area. There were many signs of Math as children increased their score, obtained tickets that they would later exchange for a prize worthy of their amount and in the exchanging of money for tokens. As far as literacy, I was happy to see that Chuck E. Cheese hung large signs around the restaurant that directed customers to things like the salad bar, beverage station, and bathrooms as well as directions that were in a larger font for the games and token machine. I was a little disappointed to see that they did not offer a children's menu as they have one large menu posted at the counter.

Upon reaching the bus stop, I was a little nervous to see how the people waiting outside would take to Jen and I snapping pictures of their transportation, since the people at Chuck E. Cheese seemed less than amused. I was pleasantly surprised that all of the four people waiting outside were very friendly and wanted to know all about what we were doing and where we were from.This particular bus stop is a few blocks away from Woodlawn, and when we told the four people this, they were so enthused it was hard not to feel welcomed by the community! I was also worried that at this time, around 5:30pm, that we would not see many children at the bus stop. There were four people waiting for bus 67. Two teenagers and a man with a young child, who I assume was in some sort of after school program, since he was wearing a backpack. The teenagers and the man all had a bus card with a balance that they would have to keep track of as it decreased after each ride. They all had to first read the bus sign in order to make sure they were in the correct place to get to their desired destination.

The first week of school, I left earlier than I do now and witnessed a lot of teenagers hanging outside together on my way home. As a person who has now worked in CPS for a couple of weeks, I realize that the school days are shorter than from where I am from. An outsider, may look at these children and wonder why there are not in school and then make an assumption that this area is unsafe due to a large amount of children dropping out. They may also stereotype these groups of children as gangs and dangerous. At four o'clock in the afternoon, a student could very well have been home from school, changed and then out with friends and an outsider would not know this to be possible. Although I think of myself as part of the school community, I realize that it may take longer to see myself as a Hyde Park Community member. I have made some connections with people who are active members of the Hyde Park community though, which makes it easier for me to give the benefit of the doubt before making assumptions. For instance, an outsider may drive around and see that the majority of people are African American and assume that this is a choice or that if they are not this race they would not be welcomed. I have had the opportunity to work in Woodlawn as a minority and have been so graciously welcomed by the staff, students and parents, so I may be more willing to be open minded than an outsider would.

I believe it will be fairly easy to see a connection between reading, writing and oral language in both of the places we will be visiting. In Chuck E. Cheese, students will have to read a menu to order, where they will use their oral language and then either see the waitstaff writing down their order, or using their crayons on their children's menu to play games/puzzles. At the bus, many times people will have to write down directions if they are traveling to a new destination, read the bus signs, and converse with other passengers or the bus driver in order to make sure they are going in the right direction. I believe that both place will also have a large social factor in which people will be speaking to each other about their day.

Since I started this project by asking the students where they spent their weekend, I thought it would be interesting to go back to this with an even broader question. By asking them what places they have visited in general rather than just over a few days time, I feel that I will be able to get a lot more feedback. Once the children start recognizing that they have been to some of the same places, I hope that they will begin to realize that they are part of a school community. I think it would be great to start using these places as examples when we talk about subjects in class and to also talk about how they see Math and Literacy in these places, as they may think of something that I don't. Most importantly, by giving students the chance to see that Math and Literacy exist outside of the classroom, they may begin to look at these subjects as entertaining and useful for everyday activities!

Task 4: Post-visit

On the Friday after my visit with Jen to the bus station and Chuck E. Cheese, I was checking the Homework Journals for the week. One of the prompts for writing asked the students where they went over the weekend and I actually read a few new responses and decided to visit a nearby laundromat. The little girl wrote in her journal how her Mother took her there over the weekend and I thought it would be a great way to incorporate both Literacy and Math in that you have to read the directions for a wash cycle and use a certain amount of coins to both wash and dry. Since I went on a Friday after school, it was pretty quiet and there were not any children. This was not very surprising to me, as i'm sure most people wait until the weekend.

These visits into the community helped me to realize that I need to be more aware of my students situations and lifestyles. The fact that a trip to the laundromat is a typical weekend activity tells me that many of the students may live in apartments. There is another bus stop right infront of Woodlawn, which many students take home with their parents, which could mean that these families either choose not to have a car or can't afford one. Both of these observations are very different from my upbringing which is why I think I was a bit naive when I went into this assignment. I was expecting to get a lot more entertaining and diverse answers to a questions like, "Where did you go this weekend." It made me more aware of the area and the things that my students experience in a typical day or week. Catherine Compton-Lilly writes that “conducting this research has helped me to recognize my own cultural blinders”. (456) I have to say that this community project made me really rethink the way I thought about the area and made me more aware of any assumptions I was making.

Visiting places in the community that my students often do and then reflecting on it made me remember why I applied to be part of an Urban student teaching in the first place, which was to give myself an experience of elementary school different than my own. Sometimes after reading my second grader's journals, I realize from their responses, that some of them have seen things that I haven't and it is scary. Their worries and fears are much different than mine were at that age and this experience will help me to take this into consideration wherever I end up teaching.If looking back on what they did over the weekend does not excited them, then I need to change my direction and find something that does. It makes me want to find out what their interests are and to come up with new writing topics that will intrigue them. It also encourages me to keep books in the classroom that have characters, plots and places that my students would be able to relate to. I think all three of the places that we visited could be easily used to come up with math problems my students could relate to. In Chuck E. Cheese and the laundromat, coins are needed which gives the students to learn place value and equivalencies. I could easily create story problems for all three places and use addition and subtraction to find the value of a bus card. I realize how important it is to use examples in both Math and Literacy that are relevant to the students, in order for them to become engaged as well as to make connections to everyday life.