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conuly
I was SO there - I wanted to see the pragmatics of how the class works without a blackboard! (Ana's teacher has been having printer problems, and not always giving out the homework on time because of it. At first I wondered why she didn't just write on the board for the kids to copy, but then I remembered she has no blackboard. When I said this to Jenn in Ana's hearing, Ana tried to correct me - but honey, when your blackboard takes up about a fifth of the wall and is mostly covered with paper anyway, it doesn't count. This was apparently a deliberate choice so the teachers couldn't resort to teaching as they were taught, working primarily from the board.) The answer, by the way, is that they have a heck of a lot more student participation at all levels than when I was a kid. I can't see these students reading under their desks all the time like I did - it'd be immediately obvious!
I also, while I was there, took a few running tallies in my head. Out of 25 students (two of whom were absent) there's one Asian girl, 5 white kids, 5 probably-Hispanic kids, and the rest are black... and I know for a fact that at least one of the black kids besides Ana is biracial and another one is a recent immigrant. So that's, you know, a fairly mixed class. Evangeline's class is very evenly divided with 5 each white and probably-Hispanic kids, 6 black kids (some of whom are biracial and some others of whom are immigrants... and of course, some of the white kids and many of the Hispanic kids are immigrants too), one Asian kid, and one kid who was out when I made my little count. Only five boys in the class of 18, though. And, of course, things pile together - one of Ana's close friends in her class (they sit next to each other) has a black father and a mother who is a Polish immigrant. Another one of her friends (not in her class) is biracial with a white Jewish mother. So you know, the class is mixed, the kids are mixed (which makes the classes more mixed than you'd know by just counting and making guesses) - it's nice. A lot of the schools in the city are almost entirely Hispanic, or almost entirely black - or even more specifically almost entirely Korean, almost entirely Russian, almost entirely Haitian.
Here's something else interesting. Ana's class has 5 left-handed students. 5 out of 25 - my goodness, that's 20%. Depending on the source you read, anywhere from 85 - 93% of the population is right-handed, so you'd think that the numbers are slightly askew.
Or maybe they're not. It's just as likely that more of the population is left-handed but, due to lack of support in early childhood, writes (and only writes!) with the right hand and that our conventional numbers are wrong because we're looking at the wrong facts. I don't know. I mean, I *really* don't know.
So now that I have an accurate count, I can go get the lefty scissors for the class like I've been thinking for the past year and a half. I also mentioned to Ana's teacher - who apparently hadn't heard this before and didn't know exactly how many lefties she's got (it's a lot) - but then, she's right-handed and probably has never had to think about it before - that a lot of left-handed people find it easier to write when the paper is slanted so they can write more up-and-down and the hand doesn't cover the words as much or make them smear. I should write her a note about it, actually, because she should tell the lefties this not just if their handwriting is visibly worse than other kids', but also if she catches them hooking their hands to write. I've only seen a very few righties do it, but it's epidemic among lefties. I'm constantly working NOT to do that - sure, you can see what you're writing, and sure, your hand doesn't get all smudged, but meanwhile your handwriting is a mess and it HURTS. But nobody taught me properly when I was little. WHY didn't they teach me properly? Because they didn't know. And WHY didn't they know? Because until recently, the MO was to make lefties switch and in some ways attitudes and knowledge are still stuck in the backwater in this respect. (And now, finally, I have that segue into that post I was gonna make, so let's see if I'll do it this time!)
I also, while I was there, took a few running tallies in my head. Out of 25 students (two of whom were absent) there's one Asian girl, 5 white kids, 5 probably-Hispanic kids, and the rest are black... and I know for a fact that at least one of the black kids besides Ana is biracial and another one is a recent immigrant. So that's, you know, a fairly mixed class. Evangeline's class is very evenly divided with 5 each white and probably-Hispanic kids, 6 black kids (some of whom are biracial and some others of whom are immigrants... and of course, some of the white kids and many of the Hispanic kids are immigrants too), one Asian kid, and one kid who was out when I made my little count. Only five boys in the class of 18, though. And, of course, things pile together - one of Ana's close friends in her class (they sit next to each other) has a black father and a mother who is a Polish immigrant. Another one of her friends (not in her class) is biracial with a white Jewish mother. So you know, the class is mixed, the kids are mixed (which makes the classes more mixed than you'd know by just counting and making guesses) - it's nice. A lot of the schools in the city are almost entirely Hispanic, or almost entirely black - or even more specifically almost entirely Korean, almost entirely Russian, almost entirely Haitian.
Here's something else interesting. Ana's class has 5 left-handed students. 5 out of 25 - my goodness, that's 20%. Depending on the source you read, anywhere from 85 - 93% of the population is right-handed, so you'd think that the numbers are slightly askew.
Or maybe they're not. It's just as likely that more of the population is left-handed but, due to lack of support in early childhood, writes (and only writes!) with the right hand and that our conventional numbers are wrong because we're looking at the wrong facts. I don't know. I mean, I *really* don't know.
So now that I have an accurate count, I can go get the lefty scissors for the class like I've been thinking for the past year and a half. I also mentioned to Ana's teacher - who apparently hadn't heard this before and didn't know exactly how many lefties she's got (it's a lot) - but then, she's right-handed and probably has never had to think about it before - that a lot of left-handed people find it easier to write when the paper is slanted so they can write more up-and-down and the hand doesn't cover the words as much or make them smear. I should write her a note about it, actually, because she should tell the lefties this not just if their handwriting is visibly worse than other kids', but also if she catches them hooking their hands to write. I've only seen a very few righties do it, but it's epidemic among lefties. I'm constantly working NOT to do that - sure, you can see what you're writing, and sure, your hand doesn't get all smudged, but meanwhile your handwriting is a mess and it HURTS. But nobody taught me properly when I was little. WHY didn't they teach me properly? Because they didn't know. And WHY didn't they know? Because until recently, the MO was to make lefties switch and in some ways attitudes and knowledge are still stuck in the backwater in this respect. (And now, finally, I have that segue into that post I was gonna make, so let's see if I'll do it this time!)
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 01:00 am (UTC)I am a righty who does not slant my paper at all, and holds my pencil very improperly, so I've never tried this, of course. But she is a professor of language and literacy, and she gave a convincing demonstration.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 01:06 am (UTC)What you don't want to do is have the paper going straight up and down, especially not as a lefty. It should slant somewhat.