Mod 6

When I reflect on the role of teacher leaders to engage in school communities, I realize that the community in which I teach, a lot of the people already know each other.  I have had many students where I know their siblings or their parents, and it is only my second year of teaching.  I cannot imagine having been teaching for years after years and having the siblings and the parents in the classrooms.  I feel that family involvement is a 50/50 kind of thing in this area.  50% of the parents are very much involved with their student's life in school and outside of school.  I have had many emails with concerns for homework they may have brought home or just to see how their student is doing.  However, there are a lot of families that are not as involved.  I see many students struggling to stay awake because of something that happened at home, many without a coat or jacket, many who are starving come breakfast or lunch time because they may not have eaten at home.

However, the one thing that I have not had to deal with much is different cultures in my teaching.  I have mainly Caucasian and very few African Americans in my school.  Therefore, we do not have to differentiate a lot of our teaching because most of the students were brought up in the same culture.  When it comes to poverty level - that is when it is a different story.

Chapters 11 and 12 were shorter chapters; therefore, I feel like they were more to the point.  Chapter 11 reminded me of the opportunity I had to take the coaching position at my school.  I decided to step up and take a leadership position because I knew that I needed to step up my game considering I am a newer employee.  Chapter 12 basically wrapped up the whole book in a nutshell.  I really enjoyed the book as a whole.