S6 E1: Supporting Disadvantaged Students

Drs. Lisa Dieker and Rebecca Hines are back again for Season 6, and they're bringing in some of their friends for this season. In today's episode, Dr. Pamela Carroll shares some helpful tips on supporting disadvantaged students.

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Transcript

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Lisa Dieker 00:01
Welcome to Practical Access this is Lisa Dieker

Rebecca Hines
And I'm Rebecca Hines and Lisa as you know, today's guest is an expert in many things, but I am happy to introduce Dr. Pamela "sissy" Carroll who is the dean here at UCF in the College of Community Innovation and Education. We're asking her today some questions about what I think is her true passion which is something we have in common, we are both former English teachers and so we though we'd try to get Dr. Carroll off of the high perch and ask her, you know, Dr. Carroll thinking back to your days as a teacher I know one of your passions is to help those kids who may be at disadvantages economically and other societal factors. What can we do, that's our topic today, what can we do for those kids who are coming to school, wether they are little kids, wether they are coming to your middle school class, what's the first thing we need to think about in terms of kids who are coming from backgrounds that might have a disadvantage. 

Dr. Carroll 
Well, thank you for inviting me to chat with you two wonderful colleagues and educators first of all.  When kids come into our classrooms, the first thing we have to do is understand what they bring with them, not what they don't have. We have to think about the opportunities to interact with them, and children wether they're elementary, middle, or high school kids, they bring stories with them. Some stories we want them to keep bottled up because they are particularly appropriate maybe for sharing in school, but if we can get them to tell stories, to share stories verbally and then to begin to write stories, to exchange stories with each other, we can really begin to build literacy skills that way. So, even if they are children who are among the over 6,200 in Orange County last year who were living in homelessness, or the almost 10,000 if you include then Osceola County who are living in homelessness for instance. They may not come with new clothes or clean clothes or having had breakfast until they get to school, they can come with stories, they can come with imagination, they can come with other people's ideas to share so we take advantage of that. We can talk to them and we can listen to them to show them that their ideas matter and so even if they, a lesson that a middle school student taught me is that even if they don't have the ability to use academic language or to spell very well they still have ideas that they need to get out so sometimes we just have to sit and listen to them and help them articulate their ideas. Help them form their stories, write it down for them and help them shape those ideas. 

Lisa Dieker 03:40
I love it, I love it. I think you know my own mother was a librarian so I feel very blessed that books were not only in my life, but I could get them for free all the time, you know the library is such a gift. I know you're passion has been, on our downtown campus, to really bring life to many of those students that you just mentioned that you care so deeply about. So, I wanted to kind of go with the parent role, so I'm a parent, I have maybe limited choices of books. We do know the library is free and available, but that also takes ability to go get a library card, but I have a book. What's your first advice to parents who are trying to shape literacy in their child like where do they start? What are some things that they should be doing at home? Especially some of those parents who maybe don't have the background and maybe say "hm, I don't know, I'm not the best reader myself, how do I help my child?"

Dr. Carroll 
You know, one thing that I think that it is natural for us to assume is that parents are readers, that they know how to read, so if we start there and assume that a child and a parent can read together then we've got a real plus. Maybe the parent reads a page and then the child reads a couple of sentences and then the parent reads some more and the child reads some, so it's that kind of back and forth. It takes time and it takes the parent sitting down with the child and putting away the dishes or the sweeping or the television or the cell phone, but that's the way that both the literacy skills develop, that the parent can, you know, read a paragraph and then ask the child what's going on in the story so comprehension begins to develop and is checked and then the child can read a little and then the parent can ask "what's going on?" You know, so it's that kind of back and forth and eventually the parent can ask the child to talk about how the story is growing so it's really talking about plot development and character development and those kinds of things. You could ask the child to do things like draw what's happening in the story, you know, those kind of literacy skills that aren't using words but are using other methods of demonstrating what they understand. Um, you know, one thing that a researcher at University of Texas Austin is encouraging is that pre-service teachers who are working in communities with adults who are learning English for instance might work in groups with adults and the pre-service teacher would read a book and the adults who might be speakers of English might read the same book but in Spanish. So, for instance The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and so wouldn't that be great to have a group of pre-service teachers who are reading that book and they'll read the first chapter and then a parent who is a native speaker of Spanish read it in Spanish so their home language is valued in that exchange, but then they get to talk about the book across languages.

Lisa Dieker
Love it, Love it!

Rebecca Hines
I think that's a great example of, and you segued nicely into the teacher part which I was about to ask about. From my experience in working both as an English teacher first and then later as a teacher of kids with disabilities, especially kids with emotional and behavioral disorders, you know you mentioned early on this idea of stories and story telling. I think some teachers feel a little uncomfortable with the stories they hear which you also mentioned, but what advice would you have for teachers who are like "oh, that really resonates I want to hear the stories, but I don't know when to say oh, that's too much of a story." So, how as a teacher do I encourage story telling but keep some parameters in which I feel comfortable. 

Dr. Carroll 08:05
Yeah, you know one thing that I personally have found useful is to kind of build an assignment with a fence around it. Kind of give them a yard but build a fence around that yard so they can play in it. So you might say, in today's classroom, because really in the US mire children have cellphones than they have pluming in their houses. So, if the children wanted to go out and do a, take pictures and do a narrated tour of a particular area, either in their neighborhood or their school or a church or a store or something that is important to them and as a teacher you would wan to specify where that place is or give them some choices because you don't want to say well, go to your home and take pictures because that could be devastating to some children, they may not have a home for one thing or they may have a home that will be an embarrassment to them so you might say well, go to the school and find some spot that's x, y, or z. It might be the most beautiful spot in the school, the most unusual spot, you know whatever and have them take some pictures and write about it, do a little narrative. Or it might be a high school group that's going to do some history or you may have pre-service teachers who are doing it on the campus on which they're taking their classes. So, they're practicing doing some kind of note taking, some digital literacy, by taking pictures, maybe doing a voice recording and coming back and sharing that information, doing a little debriefing, they could even do it on augmented reality with goggled and things like that if you wanted them to, but it gives them a focus so the storytelling is shaped by the assignment and it's not just off the top of their head.

Lisa Dieker
I love that you used the yard and the fence analogy I think that's what teachers need to remember because again, we wants kids voice to be heard, but as you said so well, sometimes we want to moderate that voice to be sure that it is appropriate for our settings at that point in time. So, with that, you know, I'm going to lead you into a little bit of a different direction but kind of along the same lines. I know you're just as passionate about preparing great teacher hence the reason you're a dean and we really, really appreciate your leadership in our college. So, what about literacy for teachers. What do you think is the best way to help shape teachers, not just teachers, but teachers working in downtown, urban, children that are homeless, second language settings, what do we need to be thinking about in our work preparing teachers, or as practicing teachers to do that better, or to recruit more people into the field. 

Dr. Carroll 11:24
UCF in our teacher preparation programs have been doing a better job of, recently I think, of getting pre-service into schools, into school settings more often and more intentionally to work in those settings so they understand, number one that children are children and children want to learn and it doesn't matter what their backgrounds are so much as you show them you are there to teach them and you still have expectations for them regardless of what their background is. Children have no say in where they were born, what circumstances they were born into, wether they were born with a disabling condition or not, but they do have the ability to help inform their own future. So our job, it has to be so invested in helping them step into their future, um, and that's where I hope that today's teachers are moving with students, not holding them back but helping them move to the future. We have to recognize that the children who for instance are growing up in poverty, who are going to school hungry, who are coming to school without any books in their homes or without families who are reading to them or telling them stories and that kind of thing that it doesn't do those children any good to pat them on the head and say "bless your heart, I'm just going to let you sleep this morning because I know that you know things were bad at your house last night." That child will not progress and become a thinker and a learner if he's allowed to sleep through all the lessons so we have to still have standards for that child so he or she learns. We have to push them and sometimes that seems mean but we can push them with kindness and gentleness and reasonable standards. We can structure their learning in a way that they can achieve and we support them while they achieve. Their achievement and their pace will look different than somebody else's pace because they don't have the support at home that another child may have, but it doesn't mean they don't achieve, they just achieve differently. 

Rebecca Hines
And Sissy I think that sums up lots of student populations including kids with disabilities and kids of all abilities really. I would like to ask my final question, a simple one possibly. What's the one thing you think every teacher should read?

Dr. Carroll
A little bitty children's book called 100 Dresses about a child who's growing up in poverty but brings with her, she wears the same old ratty dress to school every day, but every day she's creating in her mind an entire gigantic wardrobe and I love that story because it shows the power of a child to overcome her circumstances with her creativity and her imagination and her classmates make fun of her and they don't think that she brings anything to school with her and of course at the end of the story she shows them that she does. She's created this whole portfolio of dresses, um, out of paper, but still it's this magnificent portfolio. 

Rebecca Hines
Perfect.

Lisa Dieker
Love it.

Dr. Carroll
I think that would be a good one.

Lisa Dieker
So, (audio malfunction), we've been influenced by siblings in our journey and I just wondered if you were comfortable and would be willing to share with us not only your journey, but how that's changed your trajectory as a teacher because I think people often don't understand teaching isn't innate, it just doesn't naturally happen, that lots of life journeys and different pathways. Do you mind sharing any of that with us just to help our listeners understand the influence of being a sibling and the pathway that's had influence on you in life.

Dr. Carroll 16:07
Yeah, I'm happy to. My older sister, five years older, had severe disabilities, intellectual, she lived until she was 53 but was always diapered, fed, did not have language, but physically grew up. Was very loved and loving and that was her main expression, she'd smile, laugh, hug people and all of that. But I think her influence was really strong on our family and I have to say my twin brother, my older brother, as well as myself, because we saw that by her being different and yet the way my family treated her though love and care and her reflecting that back that different wasn't bad she was just different and the willingness of my grandma who lived next door and basically raised my sister so that my parents could deal with all the sports and schedules and stuff that my brothers and I were dealing with. My mom could manage all of that while my sister was at my grandma's house. It just, it really kind of taught me that you respect people for what they have and what they're able to bring to show you and she showed me love. She showed me the value of just life and love and what it brings out in people, not what you're able to do for people but what you bring out in people. And I think that really has shaped me, you know, people will say "well, why weren't you an exceptional edu teacher if your sister was so handicapped" and I just, I don't really have an answer for that except that I've found my best expression in reading and writing and had a ton of talent for that.

Lisa Dieker
Well, I think you were a special edu teacher through your love of literacy and what we've seen here in your leadership. I know inn January you're heading off to bike and enjoy life as your next journey, but we cannot thank you enough for being on the podcast and again, your leadership. So thank you Dean Carroll, thank you for joining us on Practical Access and if you have questions you can post them to our Facebook page or send us a tweet @accesspractical, thank you!

Dr. Carroll
Thank you Drs. Dieker and Hines and for all you do for all of us.