Prompt 6:Carlson

All of the students in the classroom are made participants through hand signals, singsong phrases, and repeated instruction that tend to include demonstrations. I have truly fallen in love with some of the phrases employed by my teacher. The ones that she tends to use most often are “your own smart thinking”, “crisscross applesauce”, and “I like the way that…” I think that the first is effective in getting all of the students involved because they all feel empowered and capable. Some of the students try to shout out the answers if they feel another is taking too long to come up with it and that is usually when this phrase is heard. This is one case where I do feel that the students are all put on the same level as one another in the fact that she is reminding them that they are ALL smart thinkers.

As far as “crisscross applesauce” is concerned, it is a perfect example of the sort of singsong phrases she uses to help them understand the behavior that’s expected. I would hear this one during morning meetings on the rug when kids were standing up when they were supposed to be sitting down in their squares. The creation of all these various techniques for getting students to understand the teacher as well as one another is quite effective. In a couple instances, I have found that using these known phrases to help the students understand what I need from them has been imperative. The phrase beginning with “I like the way that…” usually means she is trying to get other students to copy a student that is doing something the way she wants it to be done.

I feel strange saying this, but sometimes I wonder if this creation of classroom specific communications aids as a normalization technique. Carlson warns against the normalizing of cultures in school systems. He states that, “public schools in particular have often promoted such normalizing conceptualizations of community that are based on defining a cultural center or norm”. He then goes on to talk about the margins created through the promotion of these norms. I don’t think all of the phrases emphasize any particular cultural preference, but they do in effect normalize the kids toward certain behavioral patterns. Those having the privilege would be the kids who follow the teachers idea of proper classroom behavior and are thus usually the ones being named and described at the end of the phrase, “I like the way that…” I understand the need for order and as I had said before, I have used some of her phrases to my advantage considering how well the kids respond to them, but I do feel as though this would be considered normalization or I can see how it could be taken there. They are being told what to sing, how to sing it, what actions may be associated with it, and so forth. If these types of communicative techniques exist worldwide then essentially they will differ from teacher to teacher based on their own experiences. Thus, could you say that the teacher normalizes the students based on their perception of a cultural norm? I am probably reading too much into this one, but I do feel that the application and effects are similar, but on a lesser scale than what Carlson describes.