Activity 4

Much of what I noticed in revisiting my exploration of Southfield was community-based. In other words, the cultural, linguistic, religious, and racial diversity present in my classroom resonates in the greater community - our school is a snapshot of Southfield. A simple drive through the streets of the surrounding neighborhood makes this diversity obvious – children of all cultures play together and are genuinely interested in each other’s differences. This is one of the few communities I’ve had the opportunity to observe that genuinely celebrates diversity in a unified context. It seems challenging, but the children within the community seem to embrace it; they’re proud to be students at Vandenberg World Cultures Academy. Similarly, the children at Vandenberg seem to be proud of the relationships they have with the children who might typically be alienated at other schools: the students with special needs and the English Language Learners. When students speaking little or no English at all struggle to negotiate for meaning, their multilingual peers are quick to step in and help them translate. When a new CI student was introduced into our classroom during math time, the general ed. students were quick to offer their support and helped to make that student feel welcome and a part of their class. Every day teaching at Vandenberg surprises me, because until now I did not know a classroom without at least one bully to say mean things and hurt other feelings. Certainly, we have our share of chatty students, but not a single one is mean-spirited; I cannot say how much I am impressed by this. I have to credit the Principal and Staff for the stability and attitude of this environment.

That said, in terms of exploring the surrounding community, I was not surprised to see a great deal of multicultural references, especially at the Southfield Public Library who advertised events like “Multicultural Night” in the greater community. Like the greater Southfield community, Vandenberg celebrates its own school-wide “Multicultural Night” in the spring where families are invited to dress in the traditional dress of their culture, bring traditional foods, music, art, etc. This is the biggest and most looked forward to event during the school year. I also noticed this ongoing theme of multiculturalism in the local grocery stores – Hiller’s and Kroger both featuring a full section of kosher, vegetarian, and other traditional holiday food items from other cultures. Much of the packaging for these items was written in the appropriate native language (Hebrew, Arabic, etc.), but noted in English on the shelf tags. Seeing this reminded me of the teacher name plates listed on the outside of each Vandenberg classroom where our names are written first in English and then translated into Arabic, French, and Spanish below.

Of course there were examples of technological and print literacy at the library and numeracy (numerical literacy) on menus and in the grocery store, but for my literacy teaching this year I would like to focus more on the theme of multiculturalism in literacy teaching. In our classrooms, each child receives informational texts like the Oakland Press and the Constitution News (formatted for elementary age students) each Friday. These texts are grounded in the community and the stories of the people that make up the community surrounding our school. Why not use these literary resources to encourage our students to learn even more about the lives of those in their community and to take even more pride in the community they are a part of? My goal for literacy teaching this year is to help children further explore the learning environment that their community has made possible for them. I hope to expand literary learning outside of the four classroom walls this year!