Teaching with Multiple-Identity ASSET!

Hoping I can be a technician, kidwatcher, mediator, mentor, and agent

After reading Karen E Wohlwend's Dilemmas and Discourses of Learning to Write: Assessment as  Contested Site, I created the label "multiple-identity asset" to describe how elementary teachers must assume different positions to help their students become confident writers. Although this article discussed the conflict that arises between student interests and mandated standards, I found the types of discourses very informative as a preservice teacher. Most of them I understood at the service level and will be able to apply it to my own teaching.

Whether you want to or not, every teacher will have to be that technician who tracks down each student's mastery of skills. The benchmarks, rubrics, and specific test scores mandated by the higher up will determine what needs to be taught, fixed, or even done away with. I am not against standards because they act as accountability for educators to stay focused. Unfortunately, children who came from a certain background and ability level will prosper since they can abide by the norms to succeed. I visited a classroom of 23 first-graders and was shocked that five of them had never been to preschool or kindergarten. Therefore, there are youngsters out there who are exposed to social and academic rules for the first time in their life!

Good thing the teacher can also adopt the intentionality discourse in teaching, you're able to recognize and celebrate children's strengths. If a kid was doodling on paper, that teacher can identify that as a piece of communication. This idea is similar to an earlier post, about how the scribbles turn to letters, and the letters start to make sense. I am starting to become a kidwatcher, taking notice of what the student can do, encouraging more, and providing correct examples in a nonobtrusive manner.

As an adult, I like to use nonwritten means of getting my messages across. In the multimodal discourse, teachers facilitate children's ability to communicate by allowing them to use colors, shapes, and sounds. Besides print and paper, the instructor looks for communication in the toys, jokes, pop culture, and plays students partake in. I agree with this discourse, except that I'll probably be working a public school that allows little flexibility. Since I was a kid, having students draw first and then write has been a common practice.

Another discourse I didn't fully accept was the maturation kind. I don't know enough about it to say whether I agree or disagree. All I know is, the pressures of schoolwide and state standards are only going to get higher; there is going to be some summer school intervention if a student can't write by the end of first grade. Just kidding, I do advocate and recognize individual progress as the true markers of accomplishment. However, I do question the validity of a "chronlogical sequence of mental maturation".

Photo illustrates societal practices and sociopolitical discourses.
Be a mentor to your students and their family.
Be cautious of too much pulling out.