Family

I was unable to go to my partnership today due to illness. Everything in this blog will be about things that I have observed in previous visits.

The most important assumptions that I have been making about MayZin in the last few weeks is that she may not have a lot of motivation when it comes to her schoolwork. She has missed school quite often, and when her teachers talk to her about her assignments she is almost always missing homework assignments. I often notice she is unfocused during her reading plus work. She will look around the room, instead of reading the prompt on her computer screen. I also see her drifting off and checking her phone when she should be doing her work. MayZin spends a lot of time talking to her friends during class time, and it can be difficult to keep her attention on the task at hand. I assume she isn’t motivated, but there could be something going on in her home life that I do not know about. She does not talk to me about anything other than her homework, so it is hard to know if there is an outside source. It could also be as simple as she does not like the course, so she does not have a strong desire to do the work. I’m assuming she is not motivated to do the work, but it could be as simple as she is not interested.

            I do not know much about her family life. MayZin does not talk about her life at home. I will often ask her about her plans for the weekend, or how her week went and she does not give me any information. All I know about her home life is what I can infer from background knowledge I have on her culture. Her culture appears to encourage a traditional parenting style. According to CultureGrams, parents have five obligations to their children; these are keeping their children from being bad, telling their children to be good, make sure their children have an education, ensure they are financially supported, and organize their children’s marriages (CultureGrams, Family).  Traditional parenting is defined as “The kind of parenting typical in traditional cultures, high in responsiveness, and high in a kind of demandingness that does not encourage discussion and debate but rather expects compliance by virtue of cultural beliefs supporting the inherent authority of the parental role” (Arnett,J.J pg. 186 2013). Based on MayZin’s cultural background it definitely seems like this would be the case. The little I do know about her it does seem like her parents put a strong emphasis on education. It appears that they do want her to do well. She has told her that her parents want her to go to college, so it is clear her parents have higher education expectations for her. The description of parenting from CultureGrams also allows me to infer that the parenting style used by her parents is more of a traditional parenting style because Burmese parents seem to believe in the idea that they must provide their children with rules that teach them the difference between right and wrong. This seems more like traditional parenting, because CultureGrams does suggest that there is no negotiation when it comes to those rules.

            I wasn’t able to help MayZin with her WIDA standards, because I was unable to make it to Winooski today.

Works Cited:

Arnett, Jeffrey J. (2012-07-02). Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood (Page 168). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

Myanmar: Family (2016). CultureGrams Online Edition. ProQuest. Retrieved from http://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_country_sections.php?cid=198&cn=Myanmar&sname=Family&snid=11

Cultural Identity

MayZin was not in school again today. I continued to sit in her seat and I worked with some of her tablemates. One is a young man who has been very quiet the past few weeks I have visited the classroom. MayZin and him are often working on the same lesson sheet when I am helping MayZin, and I have noticed that he occasionally listens to our conversations when MayZin does not understand a problem. As I worked with him today I noticed that he struggles with many of the same things MayZin does. There is a language obstacle for him, too, but I think his is more of a vocabulary obstacle. MayZin and this young man are both in the foundations of Algebra section of math lab, so they are just beginning to learn different Algebra rules and terms. I believe that some of these terms are hard for him to understand. I see this mostly in working with units. Many early Algebra problems manipulate units, and it can be difficult to grasp if a student does not have a solid grasp of the vocabulary. When I reworded the questions, so the units of measurement would be able to sort out he was able to solve the problem, similar to MayZin. I do not know this young man’s background, so I do not know if this is an English language learning obstacle or a general vocabulary obstacle. Guiding questions were helpful for him, and he was able to get to the answer on his own.

This week was the third week MayZin was not in class during my visits. I began to assume this week that MayZin does not want to take advantage of the help I am offering her. We only get a few short weeks to work together, and I am ready to help her with anything she may need help with, but she is not coming to class when I am available for her. I assume this is because she does not want my help. However, I do not know much about her home life. It is possible that Wednesday nights are long and difficult for her. She may not come to school Thursday mornings, because she may have responsibilities outside the classroom the night before or during Thursday mornings. I will explore more, and see if I can learn more about her home life. There may be a very good reason why she keeps missing Thursday math classes.

I have noticed that MayZin seems to be more bicultural. Jean Phinney defines biculturalism as “the approach that involves developing a dual identity, one based in the ethnic group of origin and one based in the majority culture, in the formation of ethnic identity” (Arnett, 2013, p. 168). A great example I have to show this is in her dress and how she communicates with her friends. MayZin’s clothes are typically completely western attire, except for a brightly colored hijab that she wears along with her western clothes. She is keeping her culture from home by continuing to wear a hijab, but she also wears shirts and jeans one would expect a teenager from American majority culture to wear. She blends both cultures in her dress. Another part of her life where it is evident that she has embraced both cultures is the way she communicates with her friends. MayZin has a fifteen-minute break every morning between her math and reading 180 classes. During this break MayZin will often talk to her friends, young girls around her age who are also Burmese. The group of girls mostly speaks in Burmese, but I often hear a few English words in their conversations. MayZin and her friends have adapted to using both languages in everyday speech. They have embraced both languages, and use them interchangeably. MayZin has an identity in both cultures and blends them everyday.

I wasn’t able to help MayZin with the WIDA standards this week, because she was not in school. I plan to continue working on her writing with her, by asking her to give me the answer to the problem orally and then having her write it down. After she writes the answer down I will proof read it, and give her suggestions that will help her answer be grammatically accurate.

Works Cited:

Arnett, Jeffrey J. (2012-07-02). Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood (Page 168). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

Physical Development

My partner was late to school today. I was unable to work with her in her math class this week, because she did not come to her first class. Today’s class worked on their complex assessment this week instead of their usual math work because all of their teachers were participating in teacher development training. These complex assessments are designed to apply their learning throughout the year. A few of the students were designing their very own Rube Goldberg Machines. I found the complex assessment assignment fascinating, and I am very excited to find out what MayZin is doing for hers.

Today, since MayZin was not in school for her first class I assumed she is not motivated in her schoolwork. She has told me a couple of weeks in a row that she has not been feeling well that week, but looked healthy. Today a few of MayZin’s friends told me she is sick and would not be in school today. I understood that, sat down at her table and observed the classroom, but then she showed up to her second class perfectly healthy. She at least appeared healthy. I assume she does not want to come to school, but she may have something else going on at home. There could be a bigger reason she was not in school on time. MayZin could also really be sick, and just does not show symptoms the same way as other people. There are many factors for why she was not in school on time, and it could be that none of them are she is not motivated to come to school.

MayZin is 16 years old, so it is clear that biologically she has reached adolescence. I do not know enough about her culture to determine what her culture thinks. I do know that in her culture it is important for children to focus on education. Since she is still in school, and her parents are pushing her to do well in school I believe that in her culture she is still considered a child. When MayZin does reach adulthood in her cultures eyes she will be required to start thinking about getting married. It sounds like her family is not having her think about marriage, and wants her to mostly think about her education. Myanmar does not have rituals when a young woman reaches menarche, ”first menstrual cycle”(Arnett, 2013, p.41). The only cultural ritual I was able to find when a young man or woman reaches adolescence is for young Buddhists. When young Buddhists have reached adolescence they are encouraged to become temporary monks or nuns (CultureGrams, Lifecycle). However, this ritual does not apply to MayZin because she is not a Buddhist, she is a Muslim. I believe that her culture still views her as a child, because there is still a strong emphasis on education.

According to MayZin’s WIDA Can Do descriptor table, she has a level 3 writing comprehension. Writing is very important in Algebra, so I am trying to help her with these two standards. Many answers in algebra are sentences, and one must be able to decipher the units of measurement and use them properly. It is difficult to solve for a numerical value, if one cannot figure out what they need to solve. I am trying to get MayZin to the writing standard “revise work based on narrative and oral feedback” (Gottlieb, M., Cranley, M. E., & Cammilleri, A., 2007). One of the most important ways I am doing this is letting her write her answer down, and then I will suggest verbally ways she can fix her answer grammatically.

Works Cited

Myanmar: Life cycle (2016). CultureGrams Online Edition. ProQuest. Retrieved from http://online.culturegrams.com/world/world_country_sections.php?cid=198&cn=Myanmar&sname=Life_Cycle&snid=28

Arnett, Jeffrey J. (2012-07-02). Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood (Page 168). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.

Gottlieb, M., Cranley, M. E., & Cammilleri, A. (2007). WIDA English language proficiency standards and resource guide. Madison, WI: Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.

Cognitive Development

Today was the first day I got to spend with MayZin while she was in class. She didn’t talk about anything other than the work at hand. She is mostly working on basic algebra rules right now. The teacher took a few minutes today to explain order of operations. After the lecture MayZin opened up her Google drive and showed me her which activity she is working on this week. The main objective of the activity is students should be able to write functions in terms of variables they are given. MayZin struggled with this assignment, and there are two reasons I believe that was the case. The first reason is maybe her math classes in the past have been inconsistent over the past few years. The second reason I thought she might be struggling is the vocabulary and terms that are used. A lot of algebra is the ability to interpret and understand the different units of measurement, and language barriers can make that complicated. I believe the language barrier is the likelier of the two reasons for her misunderstanding, because when I rephrased the question and asked her guiding questions she was able to figure out the answer.

I already talked about my assumptions that I had about MayZin this week. When she started struggling with her math activity I automatically thought that she didn’t understand the material, but as I kept asking her guiding questions I realized that she understands the material very well, she just doesn’t understand the language used. The issue was not an inability to understand the content, but a language barrier. When I was able to work past that I was able to see that she understands the content very well.

The example above is a great example of my partner’s cognitive development. According to Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development MayZin is supposed to be able to think logically and abstractly (pg. 63 Arnett, J. J., 2013). Piaget’s stages of development put MayZin in the age range where formal operations are developed. Algebra requires students to be able to think abstractly. Math is no longer concrete and specific numbers. It becomes variables that represent all possible numbers for the rule. Forming algebraic equations and expressions requires the ability to understand abstract ideas. Formal development is the stage where abstract thinking develops. MayZin shows that she can think abstractly because she understands the content, in this case forming algebraic expressions, she just struggles with the language. She shows that she cognitively is ready to do complex work. She knew how to answer the questions when I asked her guiding questions; this shows me that she has reached formal operations. **** Add MayZin's ability to take notes in Reading class using symbols and letters****

Biography:

Arnett, J. J. (2013). Adolescence and emerging adulthood: A cultural approach (Fifth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.