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Description:
This article looks at the role of teachers in teaching mathematics to at risk students. Teachers in urban and rural schools of poverty face enormous challenges. Both urban and rural teachers address constraints within their schools that limit their instructional choices, such as working with inadequate resources and accessing limited professional development opportunities. Similarly they confront common limitations from outside their schools that impact their students' readiness for instruction, such as inadequate health care or nutrition. Yet there are differences. Urban teachers may work in dangerous neighborhoods with highly mobile students who are culturally diverse and speak a cacophony of languages. Rural teachers may work in schools that are the central focus of the surrounding community with students who have lived in that region all of their lives, as have their parents and grandparents. Indeed, a teacher in a rural school may even have taught a current student's grandparent. However, whether in an urban or rural setting, it is highly likely that a high-poverty classroom will challenge a teacher's own culturally based perspectives of what it means to teach and of what students should do to learn. This resource is appropriate for all users as it emphasizes the impact of diversity on teaching and student learning. |
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| Date Last Modified: |
2005-10-06 13:05:01 (W3C-DTF) |
