Ladson-Billings Discussion

Ch. 1- With teacher shortage, is the high turnover rate to blame?

In chapter 1, Ladson-Billings describes the shortage of teachers who are capable of teaching successfully in diverse classrooms. I believe this is so because of the high turn over rate that happens within the first few years of teaching. A teacher lands a job in a diverse community that may not have all the resources he or she was hoping for. Along with lack of resources, the students could care less about learning. As the school year progresses, this new teacher becomes more and more frustrated because he or she is not making an impact on these students as hoped. After giving the school a try for one or two, unfortunately, the new teacher gives up hope and decides another profession might be better. This is a prime example of why the turnover rate is so high and why it is to blame for teacher shortages.



Ch. 2- In the beginning of Chapter 2, the teacher decides to teach Spanish, which made the Spanish speaking students in her class the experts. Do you think this was a wise decision and would you do something like this in your own classroom?

I think that this is a great idea. In a classroom, the teacher is always the expert and sometimes, that scares students into not speaking their own thoughts on a subject. Since the teacher was not an expert with speaking Spanish, her Spanish students were able to take the reigns (somewhat) of the classroom and use their expertise to help the class. This act, I’m sure, made the Spanish speaking students feel powerful and important because they were helping their fellow classmates understand part of their culture.
I would definitely do something like this in my classroom. If my history lesson dealt with how to enlist and become apart of the army, I only know how to teach that from what I’ve read about enlisting. Now, if I have a student in my class who has enlisted in the army and will be joining after high school, I would have him explain his personal experience and the decisions he had to make when enlisting. This gives my class a real perspective of what enlisting is like and it makes the student teaching feel empowered to share his story.