Week 7

The study conducted by Rolόn-Dow is an extensive and comprehensive study of the Puerto Rican population, their historical account and their social status.  However, the research study done with specific age group girls was rather limited in my opinion.  It was not a survey that you’d expect when conducting a study of this nature.  However, the study has a personal touch to it in the sense that the quality of the study was ranked high compared to the quantity in my opinion. 

The research study clearly indicates that the Latino/a population grew from 1 in every 20 individuals in the year 1970 to 1 in every 12 individuals in the year 1990 and it will increase to a projected 1 of every 5 in 2050 as per the research paper.  This growing number tells us that we may not be well equipped to teach these immigrant children or children of Immigration.  As the research study points out our school system seems to care for these children but do our teachers truly care for these students?  There were some contradicting view points among the teachers when interviewed separately.  Teachers are not quite aware of the culture Latino/Latina children come from.  It is easy for teachers to say “multi cultural” instead of “Ethnically Diverse”.   My personal recent experience in a school setting was a proof of ignorance the teachers can have.  In a freshman honors class, I went as an observer.  There were 12 students out of 18 that were non-white.  They were Indian, African American or Asian.  Now based on my newly acquired knowledge and my curiosity I wanted to know where these children’s families originated from.  The teacher had absolutely no clue.  In fact, I had to say that one particular student looks like she is of Indian descent (I recognize my race easily) and she agreed.  So obviously the teacher was just doing her job: Teaching.  It didn’t matter to her where these students’ family originally comes from.  Obviously the students were second generation Asian, African or Indian since they didn’t have any accent and they were not ELLs but part of an honors class.  But I wondered if this was not an honors class and if the students were mainly Latino/Latina, would she have put in the effort to know their country of origin.  Would she have tried to incorporate multicultural curriculum or would she have done culturally relevant teaching? This teacher is truly an aesthetic teacher.  The teachers in Rolόn-Dow’s study are all experienced teachers; three teachers that have 5 years of teaching experience and the rest with at least 10 years of teaching experience. 

I was also intrigued by the differentiation between aesthetic caring and authentic caring.  Aesthetic caring focuses on attention to things and ideas concerning the technical aspects of teaching and learning such as standardized curricula, goals, and teaching strategies. Individuals who care aesthetically are committed to the school-sanctioned practices and behaviors believed to lead to educational achievement as per the findings in the article.  So I learnt that aesthetic care is necessary but what is desired is more authentic care for the students.  I can see how this can be true especially when the students are young and of tender age, elementary and early middle school years.  I do feel at a higher level like High School senior year it may be worthwhile to focus on the aesthetic care than the authentic care.  Having said that, I do feel that some level of authentic care is necessary from every teacher.  Personally if I were to become a teacher I would be more of an authentic teacher than an aesthetic teacher.