The quote "First, and most obvious teachers and schools must accept, believe, and act upon the belief that children of poverty are learners." The reason I picked this quote is because I am surprised that this needs to be stated. I simply do not see the need for this statement. As a future teacher, I would like to believe that those already in the field still have faith in the children they teach, regardless of the background of the child. To put it simply all children can learn and to believe something different is wrong in my mind. 1. Literacy knowledge is the knowledge that children gain before their schooling begins. One example used in the article was a girl in a church who knew that reading was what happened when her mom read aloud to her, another example used in the article was about a boy who played with a pen and paper and was able to realize that he had written something. 2.Stereotypes can interfere with the learning process by allowing educators to write off certain students rather than teaching these children in different ways. 3. In this article the teachers and school contributed to poor literacy by simply not taking the family seriously and simply passing the child on. 4. In the article because the family was poor and both parents were uneducated their son was passed on and none of his teachers had any hope in him. This lead to the denial of his education due to his family's status. 5. A few misconceptions between language and literacy are that without language you cant be literate. The mother in the article is a great example when she told the author that she was never able to write her own words, she instead had to copy others. 6. Children must not simply be pushed along and teachers must also realize that children from poor backgrounds are learners and in fact can be taught. It would also be a good idea to teach children in the language that they have known and can learn. 7. We all learn best with what we know. Pushing everyone toward proper English restricts children's ability to learn.
The picture below applies to the article because it shows a diverse group of "people" as a perfect group. If we as both people and especially teachers could get passed what we look like or where we come from and instead focus on who we are and what we can become we could all move forward instead of holding each other back.
Sources: \
Gates, V. (2000). As soon as she opened her mouth. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6DFAmexYq7vMGQxMjI1OTEtMjAyZS00NzJmLTg1OTUtODlmMGQ0ZDIxOTVk/edit?hl=en_US
