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The "So What?" and "Now What?" portions of all aspects of my experience (expectations, observations, and school setting) can be summed up in a few sentences but one topic sticks out to me the most: importance of diversity. I expected to have awkward encounters with students, but the school's take on diversity, importance of differences, and non-judgment didn't allow for that to happen. Diversity within students is essential because it makes them whole-rounded human beings. I can say this with confidence because I grew up in a town with 1 African American person and 2 Hispanic people and the majority of my school's population was not progressive in their cultural thinking by any means. Being culturally aware and accepting of everyone is something that seems like it should be common sense, but there are so many people that don't have those values.

Diversity doesn't just pertain to students though. I found that diversity within a teacher's curriculum and teaching strategies is very important. I observed that it is easy to fall into a slump and to do what is expected of you but nothing more. Having a diverse cumulation of ideas and activities for students is essential to engaging students.

"So what now?" I will bring this knowledge of diversity and importance of it into my professional life when I begin teaching on my own. This isn't something to be taken lightly because it can completely shape a student's experience in school.

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In Mr. Elate's class I was able to observe an educator teach in ways that I could see myself teaching. He never used printed hand-outs, he despised that tactic of teaching. Every project that his students did started with materials that they created. They made paper airplanes and drew their own tables, they created buildings and glued wood together, they wrote notes in their journals about a field trip that they went on, etc. This tactic of teaching really sparked thought and innovation in his class. It also created a different relationship between him and his students, encouraging them that they could do or create anything they set their mind to opened them up and made them more relaxed and ready to learn. I know this is true because the same students that were in Mr. A's class would speak English much more in Mr. Elate's class. They felt comfortable, unafraid, and confident.

Before starting my ESL tutoring, I thought that ESL classrooms would be specifically a language-learning based class. But Mr. Elate being a science teacher helped the students learn about real-life objects and events. His use of tangible resources gave his students a much larger understanding of the words that they were learning. When they talked about architecture, they first learned vocabulary, then looked at pictures, then drew blueprints, and finally created their own houses with wood and wood glue that Mr. Elate bought. It was so inspiring to see how much effort Mr. Elate put into his work. He also had inspiring messages placed all around his room, reinforcing encouragement to use your mind and be confident.

This encouragement was not only rooted in education, but in becoming a good human being as well. Whenever problems arose in class, Mr. Elate connected how it pertained to real-life situations. For example, one day one of Mr. Elate's family art pieces was broken. It was apparent that he was very upset by this. He asked the class who did it but nobody would turn themselves in. Mr. Elate took this opportunity to harp on the importance of honesty and how as an adult, honesty is a value that is necessary to be a good person. It made me think of John Dewey and how he thought that education should reflect real-life events, like in his quote,

"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself"

This take on education is also explained in one of our readings: Five U.S. innovations that helped Finland’s schools improve but that American reformers now ignore. The article talks about how Finland's successful teaching strategies follow Dewey's values.."He was also a fan of practical aspects of education and insisted that both boys and girls must learn all the practical skills that people need in everyday lives."

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It is probably pretty obvious that I am a big fan of Mr. Elate's teaching strategies. I will expand on them later in this section but I need to first talk about the other class that I tutored in. I haven't mentioned it in the previous posts yet because my experience wasn't great in it and I don't want to focus on the negative aspects of my tutoring experience. But nonetheless, I think that I should touch on it a little.

I also tutored in another ESL class taught by a very uninspiring teacher. I don't want to use his real name so I will just call him Mr. A. My expectations going into his class were the same as they were for Mr. Elate's class. But my experiences were drastically different in each class. Mr. A taught math to novice English-speakers, which meant little to no english at all. This is a challenging job, since much of what Mr. A said was not going to be understood even if he was the best ESL teacher ever. But the classroom vibe was gloomy and uninspired from the get-go. Mr. A didn't really have any jobs for me, but quickly had me work with the Spanish-speaking students as soon as he found out that I could translate. But before that, I basically walked around the room while students played games on their iPads/computers or stared at a book with words they couldn't comprehend.

There was no teacher -student relationship in Mr. A's class. He didn't overflow with emotion for his students (to put it nicely) and the students obviously were not huge fans of him either. Each day students either stared at screens or were handed worksheets printed off of the internet. There was no true interaction, no engagement, no excitement to learn. Christopher Emdin spoke about his struggles to engage in class due to similar problems. In a Video Ant that we watched, he says that he was a student who, "...wanted to engage in class but could not find the opportunities to do so given the stifling structures of the classroom".

This made me think back to our very first blog post in class, "Why Teach?". It seemed that the teacher didn't want to be there and neither did his students. It made me really analyze what was going on in Mr. A's head. He probably loved his job at one point, he might have had ideas to engage students each day. But maybe after years of teaching, he grew tired of trying. Maybe it was just easier to sit back and let the iPads do the work. It also made me think of a quote I used in another one of my blogs about ethics. In the TED Talk that I shared, Michael Burroughs states that many teachers would rather “avoid, ignore, and pretend the problems will go away” instead of taking them head on. This seemed to be true for Mr. A's class. (The TED talk can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8juebyo_Z4)

I really wondered if these kids couldn't speak English at all or if the hostile environment scared them from trying. I quickly found out that the latter in my thinking was correct because Mr. Elate had the same students in a different class...

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Before I started my tutoring at Sanford, I had one main preconceived idea about what was going to happen; I wasn't going to be able to connect with students easily due to the language barrier. I've always been able to make strong connections with students but I had never worked with students who don't speak english as a first language (or who don't speak english at all) and I was unsure of how it would work out. I even mentioned this fear in my field notes on the first day

"For some reason I thought since they were nonnative English speakers, that they would be shy or hesitant to connect with a college-aged student teacher..."

But I quickly found that this was not the case at all. The students that I worked with, for the most part, were all very open and easy to talk to, even if they didn't understand what I was saying all of the time. But as I watched Mr. Elate, I gathered strategies for getting my point across (using hand motions, repeating sentences more than once or twice, using things around the room to help explain, etc.). I was really shocked at how easy it was for me to communicate with some of the students who barely knew any English. My expectations were completely changed after just one day tutoring at the school.

Mr. Elate was very helpful with including me into his curriculum, he always found a job or role that I could fulfill for his students. For example, after one of their projects of making paper airplanes and recording flying distances, Mr. Elate told his class to explain to me what they did step-by-step. I was able to tug and pull at their brains by asking questions, teaching them new vocabulary words, and explaining my own experiences each day. Mr. Elate loved this and was grateful to have a native english speaker in the room (since English isn't his first language either).

I also had an expectation that classroom structure would be desks lined up in rows and a teacher writing on the board. I had this preconception because we learned that structure in education hasn't changed much since the 1800's when classes were designed after factory lines. But this was not the case either. Mr. Elate barely ever stood in front of the class, all of the tables faced each other for better communication and interaction, and Mr. Elate encouraged everyone to move around the room during their projects (himself included).

My favorite part of my tutoring actually didn't begin until half way through my tutoring experience. I had been waiting to use my Spanish with a student but I hadn't noticed anyone who spoke it. Most of the students in ESL classes are Somalian. But about a month and a half in, 4 new students were enrolled and they all spoke Spanish. Some of them spoke almost no english at all. Mr. Elate thought it was perfect and allowed me to translate instructions to them that he couldn't convey on his own. It was exciting to see students light up when they noticed I could speak Spanish, and this connection made strong bonds between us. As I taught them English vocabulary, they taught me some Spanish vocabulary as well.

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I had the amazing opportunity to work with a teacher by the name of Mr. Elate. I have followed many teachers in my time as a college student and I can honestly say that Mr. Elate has been one of the most inspiring people that I have come across in education. Mr. Elate teaches the ESL Science classes for 7th graders of all ranges of English-speaking ability. He grew up in Cameroon and lived in Paris for much of his young life, so cultural differences are not foreign to him. He got his ESL licensure through UMN and is a big fan of its program.

I decided to make a section solely based on Mr. Elate because we sort of clicked right away and are very similar in many ways. He is an artist, he creates his own paintings and drawings which he makes into t-shirts that he wears to class on occasion (which I think is awesome). He is also a DJ on his free time, spinning records at local stores and gatherings. He brings this artistic characteristic into the classroom and it helps the students learn in ways that I have never experienced before. Mr. Elate showed me a bunch of educational hip-hop programs that introduce music into the classroom to help students learn (like we studied in EDHD class). I was hooked on his theories of education from the moment we met, I am very grateful to have been able to watch him do his job.

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One of the first things anyone will notice while walking through Sanford Middle School's hallways is that the student body is incredibly diverse. The school take's the importance of individuality head on builds upon the  foundation of different cultures. It is mentioned in their mission statement as well...

"At Sanford our aim is to provide a rigorous curriculum and a culture of learning to foster the education of inquiring students who are knowledgeable thinkers and reflective communicators.

Our staff is committed to the development of each student to ensure each student reaches their fullest potential.

We are an international community that endeavors to embrace our diversity, recognize our similarities and honor our individual differences."

The school is named after Maria Sanford, who was a educator in the mid-late 1800's that advocated for women's rights as well as rights for African Americans. When you walk into the front doors of the school, the first thing you see is a huge mural of Maria Sanford (which was painted by our own DIrecTrack students). Sanford takes pride in its diversity and shows it throughout its teachers, students, curriculum, and art.

(More can be found about the history and scholastic policies of Sanford http://sanford.mpls.k12.mn.us)

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Sanford is about 20 minutes away from my house, which isn't a bad drive especially after I got the lay of the land down. Sanford is in a quiet part of Minneapolis located in the Longfellow neighborhood with a comforting community feel. It reminded me of my hometown, a place where people wave to you on the street even if they don't know you. Bruce Black actually mentioned the neighborhood's ambiance on my first day during orientation. The community is a significantly safe place with caring families throughout.

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Sanford was built over 80 years ago, and you can tell when you walk into the front doors and walk down the halls towards the front office. There are a lot of wooden doors, trimmings, and cabinets throughout the school which creates a traditional schoolhouse feel. But the building was partially remodeled recently, almost doubling the size of the school. The new parts of the school do not match the antique style of the primary half, so there is a drastic change in appearance between floors and hallways which allow insights to how architecture has changed in school buildings within the past decades. It is really a sight to see, and is almost confusing at first. But after my first day tutoring there, I developed a liking towards the unique layout of the school.