preschool in three cultures

In one of my courses I had to read a study and analyze the research question and method. I choose to read preschool in three cultures Japan, China and U.S.
In the research book written by Joseph J. Tobin, David Y. H. Wu, Dana H. Davidson, called Preschool in Three Cultures a comparative study is done to compare preschools in three cultures, China, Japan, and America. The researchers went to each country, choose a school and started to videotape a typical school day. They then edited the videos and showed the edited videos to the the school where the videos were taken, educators who are not in the  school but in the same country. Researchers showed the twenty minute videos to educators from other countries. Doing this, researchers made the study intercultural rather than cross-cultural. The purpose of this method is to gain more insight of the outsiders’ culture through their comments and feedback about the other two cultures videos.



A lot of interesting finding were found from this study. And here is some findings from each country:

Japanese nuclear family

Japan:  Movement to the cities and the lack of peer interactions,  created a fear of that next generation would miss the opportunity to learn how to be part of  a group and learn morals and accepted actions in a society. Therefore, preschools in Japan are mainly structured on the Japanese goal to rear a “True Japanese”. Rearing a true Japanese is by showing the fun and enjoyment of joining a group rather than forcing children to be part of the group.

One child per family

China: Since families tend to have only one child, due to the “One child per family” law; parents and grandparents are seen as spoiling the child, making the child selfish. Therefore, the goal of preschool is to “correct” the mistakes of the family in rearing the child, and educate the child to be a good citizen.  In addition, the government places emphasis on the schools to make sure that this child is healthy, educated, and well raised.

U.S: After the Vietnam, Women’s Liberation Movement, fifty percent divorce rate; American family’s construction was changed. The increase of families with dual-careers or single mothers resulted with a need in the need for extended child-care. Preschools therefore were seen as a supportive institution for the family. The pre school's goal is to build self reliance, free choice, and individuality in a child through a controlled environment.

I have found that all of the three countries had the same end result they want their preschoolers to reach which is to learn how to have an effective roll in a group. Nevertheless each country has its unique way to teach preschoolers how to act in a group. The methods each preschool used is so much affected by each culture norm and believe.

Click her for: the full research analyses


Click her for: the research presentation

Cooking food from my culture

Making Zaatar

I have volunteered to be a mystery reader in the school of my two kids, The Children’s school. I have signed up to read for the second graders a story on Friday Dec 13, 2014. The story introduces to students a middle eastern powder, Zaatar. The story began by telling the students about how does a boy likes Zaatar and ate it always. I followed reading the story by mixing Zaatar powder with olive oil and spreading it on a ready pita bread. I then heated the pita bread and the students ate it.

It was a nice experience, the students were happy and willing to taste it and some students cared to eat another piece. I was also happy to students reactions and conversation while cooking. When I placed the pita on the cooking sheet, they imagined it as a mickey mouse face and they started commenting, one of the comments was that they do not like mickey mouse song. Another interesting thing to see, is when I dropped oil on the table accidently. I was busy making Zaatar and would clean it latter. But it was amazing that one student felt responsible and brought tissue and cleaned the table.

This experience also made me know other people in the school. When one of the parents heard that I made Zaatar, she told me that her husband love Za’tar but he is not finding it now baked on a dough. I then showed her the ready pita I brought and told her that this kind of pita has the same taste of the dough she is talking about. I also had an extra box of Zaatar so I gave it to her.

I believe that it is important that students know about other cultures and know about their lives. Sharing with students other culture will raise their cultural awareness and make them respect people who speak, live and even eat things that are different from their own.

showing the ingredients

adding honey to students who want to have it on their Zaatar

Thanksgiving volunteering experience

Michelle, a parent of a student who was in the same school as my children (The Children’s school) was the one who introduced me to the service opportunity. In addition to my two children attending this school, I also spend time there doing my practicum. One day while I was observing the 8th grade class for my practicum, Michelle came into the class and introduced the students to a volunteering event that was to be held at their school Sunday morning Nov, 24 at 9:30 am. Although I have experienced several volunteering activities in Kuwait I have not been able to volunteer in San Diego because it is hard to manage, school, family, and am not sure of places to do charity work. Therefore, I was excited to be part of an event in a place that I am familiar with.

One Nov, 24th, I took my two children Yousif and Zaina with me to The Children’s School. It was challenging to have to get up on a day that I would normally be relaxing or studying on. I went to the school and when I got there, there was about 30 adults working like bees. There was boxes lined in rows on the ground and stocks of food that are needed to be put in each box. For example, the coordinator will say its time for a stuffing and you will see that people will grab stuffing and put stuffing in each box. After the boxes were filled with food, we closed them and the people who were distributing them loaded them to their cars. They were to be delivered near the Mexican border.

It was a nice experience especially for my little ones. I thought it was a good time to teach them the meaning of giving and volunteering. To be honest, they did not help much and went to play with a boy they knew, but I tried to make each one of them to do one task. For example, I told Yousif to distribute bread and Zaina to close the boxes. They were happy to do those tasks. They also volunteered in their own way; they took care of a two year old boy. I was surprised when I told them to come to take a photo with the volunteering team they told me that they could not because they were babysitting that boy. I liked how they felt responsible for this boy and for the task assigned to them.

Indian visitor

In the children's school in La Jolla, the seventh grade are studying cultures. One of the cultures they are studying is India. 

An Indian man who was born in India and moved to the California came to share with the students his Indian culture.

He started by telling the students the geographic of India and its different parts. He also talked about the different religions in india. Hindu, Muslims, Christian and Buddhists are people who are living in India. The government gives holidays to each special festival of each religion. For example, all the country will get a holiday in the Muslims festival Eid.

Due to this diverse society and different cultures and believes in India, people are more aware of cultures that are different from their culture. This diversity made them more able to assimilate with others and accept other people.

Marriage in India is arranged, which mean that families would give the name of their son or daughter that are in the marriage age to an older person in the society. This person would try to match those people depending on their characteristics. Then the families with the boy and girl will meet and those boy and girl will see if they are a good fit for each other.

The food in India is diverse. It depends one the region of the people and their believes. For example, Hindus are vegetarian and Muslims eat a dish called Berianey. South regions eat rice and spicy food. The north region eats wheat and mild food. The people in the middle do get both rice and wheat.

Minni lesson

This is a link to a mini lesson that I taught to the 7th grade in my practicum placement.
It is about Volunteering and I have gave examples of Kuwaiti volunteers.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vw90iLlTsnU60cRIUiRGvi1NDd2KnWlTJSnJkArJfCE/edit

My practicum's journey # 4 "writing"

There are several ways that writing happens at The Children’s School. It takes place often, but in different forms. For example, they might write a long formal essay, a topic in their journal, an answer to a grammar question, etc. In this response I will visit these forms of writing in depth and other aspects related to writing in class.

The teacher uses the whiteboard for his mini lessons where he will write, for example, a sentence and ask the students to correct it on the board. I think that this is a good way to refresh previous grammar skills that the students knew before. The teacher also writes a sentence from a student's essay and asked the students to reconstruct it. The teacher also writes the reading options that the students have to choose from. Moreover, he will uses the board to write the responsibilities of the students when they have special events, for example, when organizing the pizza social event

In the 8th grade, students are writing a persuasive essay. I like the process in which the students are going through to write their essays and the time given to them to complete that task. The students are given about four days to write these essays. The students can work on this assignment at home and it has to be typed. They can use the internet to support their point of view and thoughts. The teacher encourages them to do so without plagiarising or copying others work. He made it clear at the begining that he will know if anyone borrowed others ideas. This is because he knows their style of writing and because he has an application that will show him where a text exists if you type five words into the application. I think that by through this writing process the students are being prepared to what we, as graduate students, are experiencing. After the students write their essays, they will switch their papers with another student so the student will edit the paper and give feedback to improve their peer’s essay. After the students submit the papers, the teacher grades them and gives them back to the students with his comments and feedback. He then asks the students if they can do another draft that would improve their grades. The teacher also told the students that they have to be careful to whom they choose as their editor. This way of collaborative writing embraces how professional writers write and publish their work.

Another piece of writing is writing a personal statement. Since that the students in the 8th grade are moving to high school, the teacher wants to teach them how to write a personal statement and be ready to this requirement in some schools. Before asking the students to write the teacher gave the students a handout with good and bad personal statements. They discussed the good and bad characteristics in those personal statements. Then he asked them to write one.

Another type of writing is writing vocabulary flash cards of the words they are being tested in. The teacher told the students to begin writing few words everyday at home. HE also gave them time to write the words for those who did not finish and for the ones who finished they were practicing their words.

Students also write in their journals that they will write in from time to time. For example, one time the teacher asked the students to write a piece of  advice that they value. He suggested that if the advice is so personal that they write it in a third person perspective.

The students that I am focusing on differ in their writing needs, some has punctuation issues, some are redundant, some have organization problems and some does not like to be limited by a prompt. Overall, I think that they are close to the writing expectation. For example M got in his writing score was 4 out of five, which  think is acceptable.

To help students in writing I suggest to to pair students that has less writing ability with experienced students to help them correct their mistakes and know the writing process. I also think that students might discuss what they want to write and talk about t it before writing.

My practicum's journey # 3

In the 8th grade the students are studying about the American revolution, the book that they are using is History of U.S. ( The new nation 1789 - 1850 ) By Joy Hakim. The students  do not use this book every day. The teacher will hand out copies of the book when they need it. The book includes pictures and primary texts that reflects the genre the book is talking about. Some of these pictures comes in  transparencies, which the teacher could use on the projector. The teacher told me that this book as well as most historical books are written for older kids. This book is written for students in  the 9th grade which will cause some difficulties in understanding its language. While using this books students take notes and for those who struggle the teacher will give them his notes and they have to track them with a highlighter. The teacher said that this allows the student to comprehend the text and to participate making them more confident in themselves. In the past, when the teacher gave a struggling student written notes he was still struggling with the text so the teacher scaffolded this student with an audio DVD that comes with the book. The teacher told me that the students will also go sometimes to the poster s of the American revolution on the wall and have a small discussion of  the picture that he is referring to.

The 8th grade students are  reading one of Shakespeare’s plays, which is authentic to the discipline of literature. They are reading now an adapted version as an introduction to this genre, but as they finish it they will read one of Shakespeare's original plays.

Since in the 7th grade history class the students are studying about different cultures, the teacher will expose the students and give them different texts and articles. I find this ties with what Latter is discussing in his book. He encourages teachers to expose students to multiple sources and contexts.The teacher also told me that he will showing them videos to more support their cultural learning.

Moreover, in the 7th grade the students have to choose a novel that is related to the culture they are studying to better understand the culture through literature. I think some of the novels do not reflect exactly what the culture is about. The teacher’s first assignment for the students is to read the front, back, and introduction of the book. I liked the assignment because usually we tend to read the first page and skip the introduction which tends to be an important piece of the book. He also wanted to open up their imagination and make them sense what  the book is going to be about. Following their reading of  the assigned chapters at home, students have to answer some questions of those chapters.

As for grammar, the teacher is using the Write Source 2000. It has the teacher version and student version. The students’ books did not arrive yet so the teacher is photocopying the practices from his book until they receive their books. The teacher practices will only be used for quizzes.

Another tool that the teacher uses for both classes is the class blog post. The teacher posts academic knowledge to the class blog post.  For example, he posted the instructions that students should follow when they write their  persuasive essay assignment.

To give the students more support understanding the context I suggest that the teacher will first give a brief explanation of the context of the piece they will be reading and then start reading it. This will help students to comprehend the information more. Another way is to read an idea from the book and then ask the students to discuss the book’s idea in pairs. After that the information they read will be discussed with the whole class.