I thought that is was interesting how, in Grown Up Digital, Trapscott talks about how the adolescent brain changes. I have a lot of experience teaching in areas where “it you don ‘tuse it you lose it” has a lot of meaning. This is anything from native languages, school subjects, to cultural skills.
I teach in Togiak, AK. The school population is about 97% Alaska Native. Yupik is the native language spoken in the village. But...many of the native children speak very little or can not speak Yupik at all. This was a shock to me when I started teaching in Togiak five years ago. I thought that English was going to be the hard language for them not their Native language! English has swept through the villages with a force.
As Trapscott says “the brain starts pruning, reducing connections among brain cells” This means that as the students heard more more English and less Yupik there brains started to reduce the connections associated with Yupik and created more for English.
The article, “Bilingual Babes: Teach Your Child A Second Language” talks about how parents can use the “one person, one language” approach to teach their children two languages. Most families in Togiak have someone at home that is fluent in Yupik. So if that person only used Yupik to speak then the children will learn Yupik so they can communicate with that person.
Also my school has a very low attendance rate. So there are many students that don't come to school for weeks and may even drop out for the rest of the year. These same students tend come back to school the following year. There skill level in my math classes is a lot lower than the rest of the class. This is due the fact that when they were dropped out (3/4 of the school year) they were not using or studying math so their brain started to lose their connections to their math knowledge...”use it or lose it”
The best way to prevent the loss of learning is to have the students present in school at all times. But if they are going to be absent then it is up to the parent to help their child continue their learning so that can be successful. it should be easy for the parents, there are many resources online for learning. Math.com has many resources for math. http://www.math.com/parents/homeschool.html
Sources:
Cohen, I. (n.d.). Bilingual Babes: Teach Your Child A Second Language. Parents Magazine. Retrieved June 2, 2014, from http://www.parents.com/toddlers-preschoolers/development/language/teaching-second-language/?page=1
Tapscott, D. (2008). Grown Up Digital : How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing.
Teaching Math At Home - Parents as Math Teachers. (2005). Math.com Homeschooling. Retrieved June 2, 2014, from http://www.math.com/parents/homeschool.html
Brian,
ReplyDeleteI can't even imagine how difficult it may be teaching in remote villages throughout Alaska. When I taught in Alaska I taught in Anchorage so I did not deal with issues you are having to deal with. However, I did have students who were gone for long periods and sometimes did not return; I worked with military students who move often and sometimes return a few months later or may leave on long vacations mid-year in order to spend time with parents before/after deployments. One way I was able to connect with my students was by creating community based problems. I am not sure if you have used these yet, but if you haven't they can be very valuable. Students in my class enjoyed solving math problems that applied to real life. They also became more engaged during math instruction in class because they saw that math really could be useful outside of school. Examples of some community/site-based problems: http://ankn.uaf.edu/Publications/VillageMath/
Also, I was wondering if everyone in the village has access to the internet? I know in some villages access is limited and often the service goes in and out. I was just curious. Perhaps other people working in villages might have ideas to support you.
When I taught in a village, I always tried to plan out my units so that the tough and tedious ones (like research papers or persuasive essays) took place during basketball season--that was always when attendance was best! I'm not sure if you'll be able to apply to strategy to math, but it worked for me.
ReplyDeleteAnd for Sara, I do believe that literally every village has internet now. Some places it is more limited than others, but it is usually available at the school (at the very least). I was in the Bering Strait district and was surprised at the quality of connection that we would get. We could have Skype chats with people from all over, watch plenty of streaming video, etc. (but not if everyone is doing it at once, of course).
Makes sense John. I thought most villages did, but I know some of the grad students I have worked with have had problems with connecting some evenings.
DeleteEither way, sounds like a neat experience. Thanks for sharing John.
Ideally if any student is absent for long periods of time their parents should help decrease the learning gab lost, unfortunately this is not always the case. I worked in a village school for many years, what I found fascinating was the fact that students didn't seem to have a grasp of grammatical English or their language either. Of course the decline of their language was a result of "us" coming in and teaching in English. But I was surprise by their "slang" language. Often students would say "try come" for come over here or "I jokes" for I am joking. And they were other sayings I can't remember now.
ReplyDeleteAt the school I worked at, since we were Title I we had alot of money that we devoted to technology. So there were plenty of tools to keep the students connected to life outside the village. The school also had good video conferencing equipment and a good size budget to take students on virtual field trips, those were funded by a grant.
Yes, village English is really its own language. It uses English words while retaining Native sentence structure, as well as some figures of speech that don't make as much sense when translated.
ReplyDeleteFor example (and this is one I remember well), the word "let" is often used in place of "made" (as in "forced"). Someone might say, "My mom let me do the dishes last night," which sounds (in English) as though the student was eager to help, when in fact, there is no exact translation for their verb which means "to compel (someone to do something)," so the word "let" began to be used in that context and it really seems to have stuck.
There are great explanations beginning on page 13 of this document, which I recommend to anyone who teaches in a village school (if they haven't read it already): http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/cafe/upload/Central-Yupik-in-the-Schools-Jacobsen-Steven.pdf
In the village where I taught, people didn't speak Central Yup'ik, but everything still held true.
You posted a very interesting blog this week. I have never taught in a native village but I have gone out to them when I was in law enforcement. I also found the mix of language interesting. Obviously, my duties in the villages were very different than yours and the time I spent was very brief (usually just a matter of hours). I can see how your job is filled with challenges that I do not experience now that I'm teaching in Anchorage. It's interesting that so many of the native languages are disappearing. I think that's unfortunate. So much of the history of different native cultures is preserved through storytelling. Telling the stories in a language other than the original language loses some of its meaning in the translation. Perhaps some digital storytelling projects done in the Yupik language can ignite a little enthusiasm in your students.
ReplyDeleteThe use it or lose it reference you made is relevant to most school districts. I see a distinct decline in math reasoning with my students after they come back from summer break. It takes them a while to recover from their two and a half months off. I haven't done enough research into year round schools to see how well they work but it sounds reasonable to conclude that students would fare better without long breaks in their education. Your comments about remembering how to speak different languages was absolutely correct. If we don't continue practicing, the connections in our brains diminish. I had a good friend who studied French for years. She commented one day that she knew she had a good grasp of the language when she started to have dreams in French. Her brain had created so many connections based on that language that it extended into other areas of her thinking. I wish you luck as you continue to encourage your students. Thanks for sharing some of your experiences and frustrations.