Context and Rationale
Context:
My classroom is a 1st grade class in a small k-8 public school in South Philadelphia. The students are predominantly black and low-income with only 2 or 3 exceptions in either category. The school’s teachers are all women except for 1 and predominantly white, though there are multiple teachers of color, mostly black. The school’s culture is largely based on a preference for students to remain seated and listening to lecture style lessons, even in lower elementary grades. The school also has a strong focus on literacy and math instruction due to pressures of PSSA testing; additionally, there is a new civics initiative this year, which takes up most of the remainder of the instructional time, leaving little time for other social studies lessons or science. In short, the school is not unlike many public schools in Philadelphia, and most concerning issue from my perspective is the lack of science instruction and types of learning other than listening to lectures and taking tests.
My cooperating teacher mostly prefers seated listening/ watching instruction, though she is open to allowing structured movement. For example, I was able to take the students outside to explore the changing temperatures they read on thermometers. The cooperating teacher also regrets how little science instruction the students receive, and she fully supports giving the students access to more science lessons. While the classroom is very structured and, from my perspective, resembles an upper elementary classroom more than a 1st grade, my cooperating teacher is open to alternative lessons and allowing me to experiment so long as we can ensure the children are learning.
The students in the classroom are academically diverse. Many are categorized (through testing) as “below level” in literacy, math, or both, and a handful are categorized as “advanced,” with a larger handful “on level.” There is no one predominant learning style with children loving music, drawing, physical manipulation, writing, reading, and discussions as ways to express and access understanding. The students have a variety of interests ranging from sports to princesses to mystical creatures. My cooperating teacher has noted to me many times that the class is comprised, more so than many other classes she has taught in her 12 years teaching, of students who express great care for each other, and I can see this playing out daily in kind words, cooperation, and offers to help.
Rationale:
It is within this context that I have decided my unit will focus primarily on social studies and science. Both my cooperating teacher and I find these two subjects get left out too often because of the school’s strong focus on literacy and math, but these subjects are important if students are to be well-rounded critical thinkers. My reasoning for designing a unit on adaptations humans make in their daily lives to keep themselves safe is that the students are 6 and 7 years old. Spending more time in school and developing their physical and mental skills at a rapid pace, the students are beginning to grapple with what it means to be responsible. Additionally because the students live in Philadelphia, often in low-income neighborhoods, they are faced with making and witnessing more decisions about safety and well being than many suburban or rural children their ages. Students at their school are given the ability to walk alone, take the bus alone, and navigate spaces with strangers often at younger ages than their suburban and rural counterparts.
This unit sits firmly within the subject of science because it incorporates both first hand observation of organisms and the reading and analysis of others’ observations of organisms. Students must develop their skills in systematic, thorough observation and their skills in evaluating, analyzing, and using the results of others’ scientific observations. The students will be putting themselves in the roles of critical consumers of information; they will be looking at the survival mechanisms of non-human and human organisms and reasoning about their own choices about safety and survival. In order to think in this way students must think as scientists: gathering data, analyzing the data, and only then making choices. Further, students must be willing to amend and edit their choices in the face of new or conflicting information.
Perhaps even more than this unit is based in science it is a social studies unit. While gathering and evaluating information systematically is a scientific pursuit it is also a social one. The students will be grappling with the why of human choices—why should I wear a helmet? That is, what is the benefit to risk ratio that is acceptable to me in my daily life given that my body is temporary and fragile? These kinds of questions are social because they rely on ones own sense of values and each person’s answers may be different from any other person’s. Thinking critically both about what is important to oneself and about what is possible for oneself are social, human pursuits that when shown through a curated lens of a specific curricular unit that 6 year olds can access.
Thinking about the choices people make to keep themselves safe can help 1st graders realize their own agency and maximize the benefits of their choices. I want children to walk away with the sense that they can make choices to keep themselves and each other safe, even as children, and I want them to understand the intentionality of many of the things they and the adults around them do each day. In order to do this, the children must be empowered to bring their background knowledge into the classroom as a valid source. I believe it is only through observing their own lives in tandem with new information that the students can make sense of the world around them (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking). This unit is not an attempt to change the way the students view the choices they (and their caregivers) make about their safety entirely but rather a way to have them examine and make explicit the decision making process. In this way this unit is an attempt to bridge home life and school life in a way that honors the work they and their families do to survive and thrive.
I am interested in this topic because as an educator I only see my students in one arena yet am tasked with not just their academic education but also looking after their safety and wellbeing for a majority of their weekday daylight hours. It seems impossible, from my perspective, to separate bigger life occurrences from academic needs, especially when taking into account that without adults many of my students would be unable to zip their coats, tie their shoes, or even maintain their health and safety enough to learn effectively. Choices about safety and wellbeing affect every moment of my students’ lives, and since I strongly believe that students must have a place to honor their whole human selves in the classroom, teaching a curricular unit about safety interests me personally. Students can build upon their academic skills of observation, writing, speaking formally, analyzing choices, reading, and others while considering topics not usually considered purely academic. As an educator I consider it my mission to create classrooms with academic rigor that are also relevant outside of academia—that take into account that my students are young humans first and members of the school system second, third, or even further down on their lists of priorities.
My educational focus is to reach each child where they are and to assess them in such a way that they can use their strengths effectively. While I certainly want to challenge each child to grapple with new information and ways of thinking, I also want each child to be allowed to use their strengths to their benefit, no matter what those strengths are. Gardener’s theory of Multiple Intelligences tells me that children will have different combinations of different intelligences that both make them unique and allow them to access the world differently. All children deserve access to the richness of the world around them and the ability to express their understandings. For this reason, my assessments have choices between multiple equally rigorous ways of demonstrating understanding. A focus on choice is a focus on bringing differentiation into the classroom not just for students labeled as having specific needs but also for all students. Each student is different from any other even if those differences do not reach the level of a “disability.” Choice in assessment types is my way of honoring diversity and building differentiation into the curriculum rather than simply modifying only for students with educational plans that require modifications.
When distilled my reasons behind designing this unit in the way it has been designed are a few: social studies and science are important subjects students deserve to access, choices about safety are important to young students both in and out of school, blending the home and school is deeply important to me as an educator, and students deserve to show their strengths through academic choice.
My classroom is a 1st grade class in a small k-8 public school in South Philadelphia. The students are predominantly black and low-income with only 2 or 3 exceptions in either category. The school’s teachers are all women except for 1 and predominantly white, though there are multiple teachers of color, mostly black. The school’s culture is largely based on a preference for students to remain seated and listening to lecture style lessons, even in lower elementary grades. The school also has a strong focus on literacy and math instruction due to pressures of PSSA testing; additionally, there is a new civics initiative this year, which takes up most of the remainder of the instructional time, leaving little time for other social studies lessons or science. In short, the school is not unlike many public schools in Philadelphia, and most concerning issue from my perspective is the lack of science instruction and types of learning other than listening to lectures and taking tests.
My cooperating teacher mostly prefers seated listening/ watching instruction, though she is open to allowing structured movement. For example, I was able to take the students outside to explore the changing temperatures they read on thermometers. The cooperating teacher also regrets how little science instruction the students receive, and she fully supports giving the students access to more science lessons. While the classroom is very structured and, from my perspective, resembles an upper elementary classroom more than a 1st grade, my cooperating teacher is open to alternative lessons and allowing me to experiment so long as we can ensure the children are learning.
The students in the classroom are academically diverse. Many are categorized (through testing) as “below level” in literacy, math, or both, and a handful are categorized as “advanced,” with a larger handful “on level.” There is no one predominant learning style with children loving music, drawing, physical manipulation, writing, reading, and discussions as ways to express and access understanding. The students have a variety of interests ranging from sports to princesses to mystical creatures. My cooperating teacher has noted to me many times that the class is comprised, more so than many other classes she has taught in her 12 years teaching, of students who express great care for each other, and I can see this playing out daily in kind words, cooperation, and offers to help.
Rationale:
It is within this context that I have decided my unit will focus primarily on social studies and science. Both my cooperating teacher and I find these two subjects get left out too often because of the school’s strong focus on literacy and math, but these subjects are important if students are to be well-rounded critical thinkers. My reasoning for designing a unit on adaptations humans make in their daily lives to keep themselves safe is that the students are 6 and 7 years old. Spending more time in school and developing their physical and mental skills at a rapid pace, the students are beginning to grapple with what it means to be responsible. Additionally because the students live in Philadelphia, often in low-income neighborhoods, they are faced with making and witnessing more decisions about safety and well being than many suburban or rural children their ages. Students at their school are given the ability to walk alone, take the bus alone, and navigate spaces with strangers often at younger ages than their suburban and rural counterparts.
This unit sits firmly within the subject of science because it incorporates both first hand observation of organisms and the reading and analysis of others’ observations of organisms. Students must develop their skills in systematic, thorough observation and their skills in evaluating, analyzing, and using the results of others’ scientific observations. The students will be putting themselves in the roles of critical consumers of information; they will be looking at the survival mechanisms of non-human and human organisms and reasoning about their own choices about safety and survival. In order to think in this way students must think as scientists: gathering data, analyzing the data, and only then making choices. Further, students must be willing to amend and edit their choices in the face of new or conflicting information.
Perhaps even more than this unit is based in science it is a social studies unit. While gathering and evaluating information systematically is a scientific pursuit it is also a social one. The students will be grappling with the why of human choices—why should I wear a helmet? That is, what is the benefit to risk ratio that is acceptable to me in my daily life given that my body is temporary and fragile? These kinds of questions are social because they rely on ones own sense of values and each person’s answers may be different from any other person’s. Thinking critically both about what is important to oneself and about what is possible for oneself are social, human pursuits that when shown through a curated lens of a specific curricular unit that 6 year olds can access.
Thinking about the choices people make to keep themselves safe can help 1st graders realize their own agency and maximize the benefits of their choices. I want children to walk away with the sense that they can make choices to keep themselves and each other safe, even as children, and I want them to understand the intentionality of many of the things they and the adults around them do each day. In order to do this, the children must be empowered to bring their background knowledge into the classroom as a valid source. I believe it is only through observing their own lives in tandem with new information that the students can make sense of the world around them (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking). This unit is not an attempt to change the way the students view the choices they (and their caregivers) make about their safety entirely but rather a way to have them examine and make explicit the decision making process. In this way this unit is an attempt to bridge home life and school life in a way that honors the work they and their families do to survive and thrive.
I am interested in this topic because as an educator I only see my students in one arena yet am tasked with not just their academic education but also looking after their safety and wellbeing for a majority of their weekday daylight hours. It seems impossible, from my perspective, to separate bigger life occurrences from academic needs, especially when taking into account that without adults many of my students would be unable to zip their coats, tie their shoes, or even maintain their health and safety enough to learn effectively. Choices about safety and wellbeing affect every moment of my students’ lives, and since I strongly believe that students must have a place to honor their whole human selves in the classroom, teaching a curricular unit about safety interests me personally. Students can build upon their academic skills of observation, writing, speaking formally, analyzing choices, reading, and others while considering topics not usually considered purely academic. As an educator I consider it my mission to create classrooms with academic rigor that are also relevant outside of academia—that take into account that my students are young humans first and members of the school system second, third, or even further down on their lists of priorities.
My educational focus is to reach each child where they are and to assess them in such a way that they can use their strengths effectively. While I certainly want to challenge each child to grapple with new information and ways of thinking, I also want each child to be allowed to use their strengths to their benefit, no matter what those strengths are. Gardener’s theory of Multiple Intelligences tells me that children will have different combinations of different intelligences that both make them unique and allow them to access the world differently. All children deserve access to the richness of the world around them and the ability to express their understandings. For this reason, my assessments have choices between multiple equally rigorous ways of demonstrating understanding. A focus on choice is a focus on bringing differentiation into the classroom not just for students labeled as having specific needs but also for all students. Each student is different from any other even if those differences do not reach the level of a “disability.” Choice in assessment types is my way of honoring diversity and building differentiation into the curriculum rather than simply modifying only for students with educational plans that require modifications.
When distilled my reasons behind designing this unit in the way it has been designed are a few: social studies and science are important subjects students deserve to access, choices about safety are important to young students both in and out of school, blending the home and school is deeply important to me as an educator, and students deserve to show their strengths through academic choice.