Response to Mr. Mike Prompt 2

The fact that segregation is still present should become completely evident by the service learning experience. In the school that I am tutoring in, as well as the one that Mr. Mike is tutoring in, are not doubt segregated schools. Mr. Mike states that the school he is tutoring in consist of zero white children and the majority are Hispanic and African-American. This statistic as related to the school I am tutoring and the school Mr. Mike is tutoring in call be solidified by the information acquired from Infoworks.com.

I have a similar story to the one Mr. Mike states concerning the situation in which a student asked him if he was Hispanic. During one of my service learning sessions, a second grade African-American girl asked me if I was born with that color hair. I have red hair and the only reason I can figure she asked is that African-Americans are very unlikely to be born with that color hair. It may have been asked in order to get me to talk with her. Whatever the reason, I though it was similar to Mr. Mike's in the sense that the students that asked the question were very curios about the new teacher in the classroom. The tough part about teaching is tying to harness this curiosity in a manner in which it can be used in the process of learning. By this I mean, get the students to use this mass of curiosity, that seems to present in many students, to get them interested in the learning at hand.

Mr. Mike also talks about the economic status of some of the students. He learned that not many of the children had rulers in their homes, and this is a reflection of the economic status of the parents. I had a similar situation occur, but it concerned the school's economic status instead of the parents. I tutor the children in math. When one learns math, one of the first practices that are enforced is the use of a pencil due to the fact that many mistakes are going to be made. The students in the class that I am tutoring in have pencils with no erasers. The pencils also look like they have been used since the first day of school. One can only assume that the school does not provide the teachers with new pencils or the parents are not financially capable of providing their children with a functional writing implement. Not having an eraser makes learning math very difficult, just as not having a ruler makes taking and learning measurements difficult.