Saturday, February 12, 2011

Berenice Amaya-Gonzalez's Interview with a Bilingual Kindergarten Teacher

The teacher I interviewed has been working at Mariposas Elementary for the last six years. She is currently teaching a staggered bilingual kindergarten. This school serves a population of more than 90% Latino students with only 35% of the students being English proficient and more than 95% of the students speaking Spanish as a first language. Ms. Minakata has been teaching for eleven years and has taught bilingual kindergarten, first, and second grade. Ms. Minakata explained that this school district serves low-income families, most of the families are fieldworkers and there is a lot of mobility due to the migration from field to field.

Her professional philosophy is the assertion and conviction that everyone can learn. Every student has the capacity and potential to learn in her classroom. She describes some students as "late bloomers" who will struggle at the beginning of the school year, but will eventually catch up around November or December. She explained that these particular students may need more support and often times with some encouragement they will keep up with the pace "it's like spoon feeding a child, little by little they will learn to work in a classroom." Her philosophy extends to know "the whole child" which includes her students' backgrounds and understand that sometimes the students have not been exposed to school and she has to build this knowledge from scratch. "You are building the learning foundation because some students have no idea what school is all about." She also takes into consideration the neighborhood her students come from and considers the possibility of her students' being expose to violence, "After all, the school and district is located in the east side of Salinas" which is known as a dangerous area.

Ms. Minakata shared that she has seen some progress with her students; she also noticed that some are struggling and knows that these students' parents are working in the fields since very early in the morning, and often parents do not arrive at home until the work is done late in the evening. The children of these families are worried about their parents and often times they do not know who will take care of them. "Learning becomes a struggle for these students." Through her eleven years of experience working with migrant families and field workers, she has noticed a pattern that involves the active participation of these parents during the spring break or when the harvest is done. The parents' presence at home makes a big difference to their children's learning and they also have time to volunteer in the classroom "even if they don't know how to read or write I find ways to integrate their presence and their help in my classroom."

She uses some form of direct instruction as her pedagogy. She also incorporates small groups or centers where children produce independent work or learn from more experienced peers. She also does one-to-one instruction or support to scaffold the students who are struggling. She uses many open- and close-ended questions "at the beginning you have to model them how to answer because even when you ask an open ended questions they tend to use a word to answer." She uses games played in the playground before lunchtime to include movement, and she uses songs with repetitive words to help with memorization, especially during English language development time.

She believes that the purpose of public education is to provide equal education to everyone. As a public entity, certain standards have to been created, written to include all the students. However, unfortunately, equal opportunities are not provided for all students to meet these uniform standards. Standards are written to measure certain skills and competencies acquired during a particular time frame, and some students who do not meet these requirements should be retained. She understands that there are some students' for whom detention can be negative and she studies each student closely and independently before she makes a suggestion about retaining a student.

Ms. Minakata's classroom has been built following a kindergarten design. The classroom has an extra storage space and three bathrooms: two for students and one for staff. This set up is very convenient and less disruptive during instruction. The classroom is decorated with students' creations and some academic displays, such as the alphabet in English and Spanish, the vowels, the months of the year, the days of the week, the colors, and high frequency words. The classroom has four centers, which are tables for students to work on their assignments. There is a big rug where direct instruction takes place as well as the alphabet practice and a place for students to participate in self-exploratory learning when they finished their assignments. Each center has a geometric shape hanged from the ceiling and this is the way students are grouped. There are two extra tables that are used for assessments and independent one-on-one support. Ms. Minakata has a desk, but she uses it as a storage place and seldom sits behind it.

She is always assessing her students' performance directly and indirectly. When she notices certain progress, she moves the students to another center where the students will be challenged through teacher directed games at the beginning and eventually when students learn the process and skill how to work with the material she integrates a new game with other materials. Every six weeks she officially assesses certain skills to evaluate the curriculum and think of other methods to reach to the students who have not performed as well as the others or "to regroup the students, again." She works with her students interacting with them and even at home, she is constantly thinking ways to motivate their desire to learn "I have high expectations for all my students. If I see a child who will benefit from the after school program because I suspect there is not enough support at home, I will talk to the parents." She explains that often the students are under the care of babysitters who do not help the students with homework. When she notices this setting, she interferes for her student to receive the support from the school.

Her enthusiasm about working with young learners is seeing their progress and "when parents share a skill learned at school and give me credit for it is what keeps me looking forward to the next day, to the next year." She accepts feeling overwhelmed sometimes, especially this year with the new curriculum because she did not receive the training until a few weeks after school started. She is learning the information and trying to catch up with the expectations thinking about what is best for her students and trying to meet the requirements the district imposes. She said "I sometimes can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but then something happens, I may see an older student of mine and I would think about the years he is being at this school and I get excited again."

She also told me that when other teachers share the accomplishments of some of her previous students, she finds this action very touching and rewarding "especially if the student was quite challenging." Hearing that this student is making progress is very rewarding for Ms. Minakata.
She shared that it makes her feel valuated when parents request her as a teacher because someone else has recommended her, or just from previous experience. For example, she shared that right now she has the younger siblings of three families who have been with her for several years. One of her students is the fourth child of a family who has requested her explicitly at the beginning of the school year. This seems to be a privilege and praise for her hard work as a teacher.
Ms. Minakata recommended that I obtain my BCLAD credential and shared with me that it makes a difference. "Anyone can teach in English, but a few can teach English and content at the same time." Teaching kindergarten is very hard and requires a lot of work and dedication. Students have no idea what to expect and parents often times don't want to let go of their children, especially if these are the first children of the family or the last ones. "You have to teach parents and children how the school works, what to expect from you, in what ways they can help you and their children." The vowels foundation, syllables, sounds, numbers, colors, shapes "takes a lot of repetition and you need to find ways to make the instruction repetitive, yet fun and new." She also recommended that I get informed about the school district emergency procedures. For example, not many districts deal with "lock down" safety interruptions during instruction, but due to the location of the school, there are times when students have to experience the scary process to be kept inside the classroom. Their routines are changed and instruction has to continue.

She ended the interview by adding that working with young students give you the skills to work and manage older classrooms because students grow, skills and procedures have been acquired. "It's not the same to have one or a few students who may need help, then building the foundation of each student from zero." Ms. Minakata is a well organized teacher who is also a mother of three children. She has her own family and her children also go to school where she is actively involved in the parents' association. She also mentors other teachers who are currently doing their beginning teacher training and I had the opportunity to see her work in close relationship with these new teachers. "I want to give back to the community the help I received when I was in the process to become a teacher." Ms. Minakata is a good role model to have in the classroom and I am very privilege to know her and learn from her.

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