Empowering students through knowledge is crucial to the future of America; it has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is in the classroom. Jim Cummins noted that "human relationships are at the heart of schooling", which I find to be key in my practice as a Spanish teacher. I noticed that students come to respect one another and me when they have a sense of trust and a relationship with each other and me. It's nearly impossible to educate students if I don't show emotion towards their success. Students need reassurance as well as a helping hand. They need to know that you care about their academic success just as much as they do, some times more than they care. As an educator, it is important to invest time in creating relationships with students because when academics fail, knowing how to build a relationship with others and being able to communicate emotion will be a life skill students will remember.
One of the many ways student-teacher relationships can be built is through praise. Cummins notes that there is a sense of unintentional rejection in the classroom when it comes to praise. He states, "American southwest reported that Euro-American students were praised or encouraged 36% more often than Mexican-American students and their classroom contributions were used or built upon 40% more frequently than those of Mexican-American students" (Cummins, 3). As a teacher, I focus on giving praise to all my students regardless of their academic success in my class and their ethnicity. I see improvement in individuals who started off the year sitting in the back of the classroom dozing off or being disruptive or disrespectful during instruction the more praise they received. One of my student in particular began to ask how his grade could improve, I said "if you keep coming to class and participating, you will see improvement." Each day he comes to class, I let him know it's a new day to participate and show me what he knows. I encourage him to prove those who doubt him and myself that he is a bright student. At the end of class, I make sure he leaves understanding the main concept and rewarding through praise or a treat for being an active participant in class. He like many other students aren't great with either English or Spanish, so it is my goal to assure that all my students receive acknowledgment for their participation. I make sure the rest of the class gives the student who participates their undivided attention. Praise can be demonstrated in many different ways, and one of those is acknowledgment by the instructor as well as the students peers.
Furthermore, interacting with students inside and outside of the classroom can be a way to demonstrate to students that academic effort can be beneficial in all aspects of life. Giving students the opportunity to learn about their culture and their classmates culture will empower them not only when it comes to communicating to individuals with similar backgrounds, but also with individuals who come from different backgrounds.
I feel that bilingual students learn best when they are allowed to make sense of the information they have been given in their first language. I teach Spanish, which for most of my students it's a second language. I encourage them to translate sentences from Spanish to English so that they are able to understand what the sentence is trying to convey. I know that there are comments such as, "bilingual students must be prevented from using their first language in school because 'how else will they ever learn English?'" (Cummins, 13). If I were to constrict my students from using their first language to make sense of the Spanish language, most of them would struggle to grasp the main ideas. When I teach new grammar concepts, I focus on making the content accessible to my students, which most of the time is by making comparisons to the English language.
All in all, I believe students should feel supported by their educators. Support can be through student-teacher relationships, scaffolding or allowing students to understand new concepts in their primary language. I focus on making the content accessible to students, and I make that possible by allowing them to use their primary language as well as building student-teacher relationships.
Cummins, J. 2001. Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society. Print.
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