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According to Judy Marquez Kiyama, funds of knowledge is bodies of knowledge that are made over time based on a person’s cultural influences and are essential for a person’s wellbeing. She talks about a child learning this at a young age from family and can help in how a child learns. What "funds of knowledge" entails as I understood it is the experiences and knowledge that a student has prior to coming into the classroom that they learned at home or in life. This is also stated  as the information that a child knows from home life or community that they use to survive, get ahead, or thrive. This is to be used because it is very important and can connect learning for a student as stated by Wiltse.  These definitions of funds of knowledge made me understand and acknowledge  from this project that a lot of my values and “funds of knowledge” I have come from my childhood . As a child my parents would read to me and buy me my favorite books which made me enjoy reading. My family places importance on working for what you want and working hard to achieve it. My important object was one that was given to me after my grandmother passed away. These rocks symbolize the time and dedication my grandfather took out of his day to pray for everyone. My portrayal of Santa is my privilege, being that many African Americans cannot apply to some job postings because it specifically wants a white Santa.  My cultural discomfort from the time I visited my friends house during the holidays taught me, what we can learn from one another and how we all can find something similar if we just take the time. It also shows what we can learned from one another by seeking the answers and asking in a respectful and polite manner. Throughout this projected I learned a lot about myself and about my literacy from this project. Understanding my funds of knowledge to become a better teacher, and how I can implement this in my classroom and interactions. Understanding my areas of strength and areas of growth and my fears and being able to self-reflect I can become a better teacher. It is very important to consider the individuality of oneself in regards teaching process, and how it affects how we will teach and interact with others. It is very important that a teacher can identify and see students aren’t illiterate but to use their funds of knowledge to build on and to help them understand the information. A teacher who doesn’t see the student will not be a good teacher and will dismiss the students. In knowing this I can use children’s cultural experiences to build an education for that child so that they can achieve anything they want to. This class has taught me to look at literacy in a different perspective and not just one single way. It also has taught me different definitions for literacy and how to use literacy and what good literacy is and how to integrate picture books in different ways.  I will teach them to show respect, be humble and kind. I want a classroom of children who are kind, understanding, persevere. We are role models for the future generation and I hope to show my class a role model that shows there is more to education than just learning a subject. However, it is how we use our education to change the world.

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Strength on Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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Strength on Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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My strength culturally and professionally on teaching culturally diverse students comes from my experience with Santa .
I am able to go into many different classrooms during the season and read to many children, and talk about the book "Twas the night before Christmas." In this adaptation of this story, it featured an African-Amercian family, and Santa. This was eye opening that the kids did not even notice,all they saw was a family,and Santa.  From this experience of hearing of the children's various cultures, it also prepares me for how a book can open up a discussion to allow me to get to know my students better.   This photo was taken during one of my visits to a  school  reading to some of the students.

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Struggles with Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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Struggles with Teaching Culturally Diverse Students

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My biggest struggle with teaching culturally diverse students comes from the fear of being unable to connect to the students.  While working with many different diversities in Gwinnett. I am afraid my students will see and and think that I am unrepeatable, uncaring of their many different cultures. I want my students to see me as someone who always wants to understand and know them as a person first and then focus on teaching content. I choose a picture of myself to represent my fear of being disconnect because of who I am.

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JT
Passionate, determined, , kind
Enjoys, teaching, Christmas, and Chick-fil-A
Who feels excited, hopeful, and happy
Who fears failure
Who would like to happiness, and peace within the
Resident of Loganville, Georgia
Witcher

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For this picture, I choose my favorite chair, with one of my favorite Christmas books. When I am feeling over-whelmed , I enjoy reading reading anything Christmas related. This helps me relax and bring back the happiness because for a short while I am reading about one of my favorite holidays. I also sit in my red chair that is cozy, that also helps me relax, and enjoy reading a good book.

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In my everyday experience with literacy, I engage in readings for my college classes, social media, singing, and text. I chose a screenshot of my social media, in which I engage in discussions with people with various opinions, informational articles, memes, and other content. This also has various wording/phrases that you may only see in conversion and on social media messages. Social media has become an ever-present form of literacy everyday.

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Hard work and Perseverance:
These accurately describe the expectation from my family. My family believes in working hard to achieve our goals, as nothing comes easy. We also believe in persevering when times get rough to achieve our goals. It has always been my goal while in college to become part of KDPi. I had to work hard, and persevere through many challenges to get to my goal, but little did I know I would also become the President of the chapter here at GGC. I choose the picture of the night I was inducted to KDPi symbolizing all the hard work and perseverance had payed off.

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In the work I do as a portrayer of Santa Claus, there are people and areas that place importance on skin color.There are many job postings that are only available to certain Santas because they are white. However, just because I am white does not mean I make a better Santa than a Santa of a different ethnicity, or race. One of my Santa friends was the first African American Santa for the Mall of America. I hope that we can move past looking at outward shell, and realize we are all the same on the inside. I choose this picture of me as Santa that is displayed for clients to see. This picture represents this privilege, by show what I look like and my race

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This pile is more than one object, but they mean a lot to me. They belonged to my Great-grandfather who was a pastor. He took a rock every time he went to pray, regardless of the size of the rock. This tradition/practice, I continue each time I pray at the rock pile. This is just a small reminder for me all the prayers that have been prayed and all the answers that have been seen. This helps me decompress as a pastor and reflected on the life and example of my great-grandfather. This picture is in my backyard were the rock now resided, they have only been moved twice. Once to my grandmother's house and then to mine.

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I choose this picture to represent my favorite characteristic- humor. This picture accurately describes my cousins and I. We try to always laugh even through the bad times. We always choose to to seek the positive, even when it may be hard. This picture was an impromptu picture, and we choose to have a silly picture, even thought we had just lost my other grandmother a few weeks before. I choose this characteristic because, if you stay around long enough you will know I have a quick wit .

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When  I first met one of my friends, she invite me over to her house, during the holidays. At first, I felt very uncomfortable because I had no idea about their traditions and cultural. They prepared their traditional food, and after the dinner began talking about the different things they did around the holidays. I eventually, asked in curiosity, and they graciously explained their traditions.  I was afraid I may have overstepped my bounds. I then invited her over to the house, and she got to see how we celebrated the holidays. I choose this picture of our Christmas tree, as a representation of our tradition of decorating the tree together.

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•My parents named me after my Great-Grandfather Johnny Rowe.  I was almost named Larry James, after my grandfather. My name in Hebrew means God’s Grace, and also relates to the Jonathan in the Bible.  My name last name comes from an occupational name for a chest maker.   Fortunately, my last name is well known in Walton County Public Schools, since my grandfather worked there for many years. This has opened many opportunities for me . However, there are famous horse thieves in Kentucky that have the same last name, as I learned as I was started at on my recent vacation. My nickname Toadfrog comes from my Memaw who said  I reminded her of a frog curled up.  I am also called Santa because of all my love fore Christmas.