In this curriculum and I am focusing on a specific cognitive dysfunction encountered in culturally deprived students: a lack of spontaneous comparative behavior, that is to compare objects and experiences to others to see what is similar and what is different.
Developing this unit I am using Reuven Feuerstein’s theory of mediating learning experience (MLE) from his book
Instrumental Enrichment: An Intervention Program for Cognitive Modifiability
. I am taking from him my specific objectives and citing some of his findings concerning culturally deprived children, the cognitive dysfunction that they manifest, and some techniques of remediation. I have chosen to focus on this student population, especially middle school through high school Spanish learning disable students, because these are the students with whom I work and for whom I have developed the specific lesson plan that follows.
With the purpose of creating inside motivation and understanding of the material, I will introduce the unit by presenting several lessons of comparison from the Reuven Feuerstein’s book. Reuven Feuerstein’s Instrumental Enrichment program has been used in the New Haven system since 1982, with slow learners in middle and high schools. For information about the program, teachers may contact Mrs. Pauline White at The Staff Development Office, East Rock Community School.
I will make a bridge from Feuerstein’s Instrument “comparison” into Languages Arts by analyzing and comparing short stories from Latin-American writers.
Spanish learning disable students, like any other learning disable children, present common characteristics such as:
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- poor reading skills
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- poor reading comprehension
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- poor written and/or oral communication skills
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- poor math skills
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- poor or no problem solving skills
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- poor or no interest in academics
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- low tolerance to frustration
Besides these characteristics, there are other factors in these students which make their present special patterns of behaviors and learning deficiencies, and at the same time requires special instructional techniques in order to help them to improve academically and emotionally. Those factors are: the majority of the families where these students come from live in depressed areas; most of them have illiterate parents with a large family (sometimes with six, eight or more children); most of the time the students live only with one of the parents, generally with the mother, or the grand-parents. Occasionally the father is in jail or has already formed another family. This situation leaves the mother with little time or the knowledge to interact with the children telling stories, talking about the family or past events, or providing any king of cultural transmission. What is worse, the mother has a poor self-concept, thinks of herself as illiterate and inept and passes this attitude to her children. Feuerstein has commented on the effects of such a situation;
This attitude toward such an important and vital aspect of one’s past cannot but result in a rejection of oneself and will affect, in the first instance the nature of the relationship between mother and child. By rejecting one’s own worth as a person, the mother limits her relationship with her child to the fulfillment of his biological needs. Inclination to provide the child with anything beyond his immediate requirements is diminished, if not eliminated. Many such parents openly declare that they are ignorant, illiterate and unskilled people and have nothing to give their children and, indeed, express concern that their offspring will grow up like them, In this manner an entire community may relinquish its responsibilities in shaping the future generations. Clearly, such an attitude will have a considerable impact on the self-image, identification, socialization and moral and cognitive development of the child.
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Feuerstein underlined the importance of the cultural transmission or remediation between mother and child, pointing out that without such mediation, the child will become stuck in the present; he can not become oriented properly for the future. It is very common also that the custodian of the child (mother or grand mother) suffers from a disease which requires that she stay in bed and occasionally requires hospitalization. In such a situation the oldest child, often a middle school student, must assume the responsibility for taking care of the house and the youngest child. The result is a great deal of absenteeism from school.
All of these factors accompanied by a high degree of migration and emigration place these children in a culturally deprived population. Such a group is further deprived of course by its unfamiliarity with the language and customs of the dominant English speaking population. Reuven Feuerstein has commented on the particular problem of such children when they immigrate into a dominant culture: “Clashes between cultures are frequently observed as a result of immigration. This is especially the case when people from culturally different and disadvantaged minority groups are confronted with the requirements of a dominant culture that is largely unfamiliar to them.”
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Feuerstein also says, “It is our view that both level of scholastic achievement and the low level of general cognitive adaptation of the retarded performers especially among socioculturally disadvantaged adolescents are a product of a lack of, or inefficient use of, those functions that are the prerequisites to adequate thinking.”
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He also says: “children from economically and psychologically impoverished homes perform poorly on intelligence tests and function generally at a low level because they have been denied appropriate learning experiences.”
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In this curriculum unit I am focusing on a specific cognitive dysfunction encountered in these students: “Lack of spontaneous comparative behavior”, a mental process by which relationships between objects and events are established.
In this respect Feuerstein states: “Lack of summative and comparative behavior, will limit even further an awareness of experienced time even more than it will restrict perception of other dimensions of the experienced world. An episodic grasp of real need for organizing, sequencing and understanding the relationship between ordered along temporal dimensions.”
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He also says:
Comparative behavior is therefore one of the functions that must be corrected before the various other steps in development. Inducing comparison initially involves making the individual perceive two or more objects or events at the focus of the scrutiny. Inducing such perception is done not simply, so that the individuals will identify discrete entities but to facilitate the establishment of relationships between the objects of his scrutiny in terms of their differences and commonalities. The lack of spontaneous comparative behavior leaves the individual unaffected by the variety of experiences he has undergone.
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In order to help the students to overcome this inability, my main goal is to improve thinking skills by analyzing and comparing short stories in terms of topic, main idea, characters, places etc.
Students will compare these stories with similar ones from the students’ own country.
Attributes by which the stories will be compared will be established. They will include: nationality, language, sex, occupation, weather, food, music, places and feelings. A great deal of emphasis will be placed on using planning behavior, systematic work, hypothetical thinking, looking for cause and effects, making inferences, generalization etc. We will pay special attention to verbal expression because this is one or the most common deficiencies that these students present, for example, have limited vocabularies. When asked for synonyms and/or antonyms or when asked to describe and object, they are unable to present adequate answers. Even when students have an extensive vocabulary, they mispronounce the words and their sentences are not well structured. In this respect Feuerstein also writes about his finding of the relationship between language and cognitive functions.
A lack of verbal skills may also affect a child’s ability to elaborate certain cognitive operations. The absence of a specific verbal code to designate certain attributes of an object will not only affect efficiency at the input phase; on the elaborational level (see
Instrumental Enrichment And Intervention Program For Cognitive Modifiability
by Reuven Feuerstein pages 73, 74 & 75.) Lack of operational terms such as: “opposite”, “relation” and “identity” may keep the child bound to specific tasks that he can handle on a concrete level and may impair his ability to generalize the same operation on tasks differing in content and complexity.
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Input refers to the way we receive incoming information. Elaboration refers to the way we mentally process this information. Output refers to how we express the understanding of the received information.
When Feuerstein refers to “opposite”, “relation” and “identity” these concepts require a more abstract mental process. If the students do not know the meaning of the words or they are not able to process the information mentally, they will never be able to work on a more complex task.
How can we as educators, help such students learn? To address the problem of these students, specific objectives are needed. The general objectives are the same as they might be in any language arts classroom.
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1. Improve reading skills
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2. Improve oral and reading comprehension
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3. Participate in class discussion
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4. Improve communication skills
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5. Dictionary skills
The specific objectives adopted from Feuerstein are as follows:
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1. “To enhance the comparative behavior of the students.” To help the students understand the need for comparison in any life situation such as: when buying food; fruits, vegetables etc. To select the most fresh and healthiest ones, those which have less calories etc. When buying clothes, shoes, to compare material, style, which are more washable, best finished, prices etc. In vocational, which job is more applicable to his/her knowledge, or more convenient in terms of salary, location etc. In academic in math, when reading content tables, bargraphs about weather, population etc.
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2. “To increase and enrich the repertory of attributes by which stimuli can be compared.” Even though these students can identify certain attributes or objects such as color, sizes, shapes etc., they do not have the ability to identify abstract attributes such as: personality, direction, etc.
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3. “To isolate relevant parameters for comparison by increasing the students’ ability to differentiate between elements.” They do not have the ability to look for the most relevant characteristics when describing, two objects or pictures. They have the tendency to choose the most obvious.
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When comparing milk and coca-cola, students would say: milk is white, the other is black, milk comes in a plastic container, the other comes in bottles or cans etc. But they do not say the milk comes from an animal, the coca cola is made by men or in a factory.
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4. “To encourage flexibility in the use of parameters for comparison by increasing the students’ ability to differentiate between elements.”
This relates to an ability to elaborate at a more abstract level; looking for features, thinking of functions of the elements. It also has a lot to do with language because the larger vocabulary that they have the more attributes they can see and label.
This unit will cover two short stories from Central America and Two from Puerto Rico.
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1. “The Christmas Festivities in Costa Rica” In
La Navidad
.
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2. “The Christmas Festivities in Puerto Rico”
In What is happening in December.
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3. “One letter to God” (Una Carta a Dios) Gregorio L. Fuente. Taken from:
Modern Spanish Prose.
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4. “Esperanza” Taken from: Leyendas de Puerto Rico.
The unit will cover four to five weeks or more depending on the understanding of the material first and the facility with which the students could transport the concepts to a more abstract level of comparison.
The first week will center around Reuven Feuerstein’s instrument in comparison, the second week will include the introduction of reading and comparison of the first two short stories.
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1. “Como se cerebra la Navidad en Costa Rica”
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2. “Como se cerebra la Navidad en Puerto Rico”
The third week will include reading analysis and comparison of two other short stories.
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1. “One letter to cod”
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2. “Esperanza”
The fourth week the class will read, analyze and compare short stories selected by the students from the classroom or the school library.
Procedure:
The teacher will say to the students: We will work on a very interesting program which will help you a lot to improve thinking skills. This program concerns comparison. The teacher will explain what comparison is: Why and when we compare. He or she will talk about attributes of objects. Give examples: An apple is a fruit, is red, contains juice, has seeds etc. A banana is yellow, is long, has seeds, is soft.
The teacher will tell the students that if we compare the two fruits, we look for similarities (common things), and differences.
Commonalities
both are fruits
both have juice
both have seeds
Differences
color
shape
size & texture come from different climates etc.
The teacher should give other examples using people. Two siblings, Jose eight years old in 3rd grade and Maria six years old in first grade:
Commonalities
both are human beings
same parents
same house
same school
Differences
different sexes
different ages
different names
different grades
The teacher will ask the students, what other things can be compared?
Possible answers: cars, animals, sports etc. The teacher would say: yes what else? trying to give each student the opportunity to talk. After this introduction the teacher will start presenting the lesson.
(figure available in print form)
Indicate what is common to each pair of pictures and the differences between them.
(figure available in print form)
Indicate what is in common to the things named by each pair of words and the differences between them.
(figure available in print form)
In each of the following exercises, you are given the similarity and differences. Fill in what is missing so that your answers are described by the given information.
(figure available in print form)
Look at the sample. In each of the two frames, make a drawing that is different from the samble in those aspects indicated by the encircled words.
(figure available in print form)
Indicate what is common to each pair of pictures and the differences between them.
After this work on comparisons, the teacher will bridge into short stories. Each story can take one or two days to complete. “How People in Costa Rica celebrate “Christmas.”
Strategy
The teacher will prepare dittos with the stories for each student in the class on short stories.
Procedure
As it becomes evident that the students are having difficulty reading, and in order to set the students more familiar with the subject, a model reading story will be recommended. The teacher will read the story asking the students to read with her/him but silently. The teacher will comment briefly, mentioning the most important aspects of the story such as places, events, etc. Later the teacher will ask the students to read one or two paragraphs of the story and when the reading is finished, the teacher will initiate a discussion by asking questions like this: “who can remember the title of the story?”, “Do you think it was an interesting story?”, “ A funny or a sad story?” etc..
Discussion
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Teacher: What is the story all about?
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Answer : How people celebrate Christmas in Costa Rica?
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Teacher: Very good. When do they start celebrating Christmas?
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Answer : The 24 of December.
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Teacher: Very good. Who can tell me what do we celebrate in Christmas?
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Answer : The nativity of Jesus.
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Teacher: Very good, So, What is the Christmas Party?
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Answer : A holiday, a Party.
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Teacher: Christmas is a birthday party, we celebrate the nativity of Jesus, he was born 1989 years ago, and we as Christians celebrate his birthday. Now Let us see how the people in Costa Rica Celebrate Christmas.
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Answer : They start the 24 and continue until January 1st.
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Teacher: Very Good, and who celebrates the Christmas?
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Answer : Everybody, men, women and children.
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Teacher: Yes, everybody is happy celebrating. The story says that they open chinamos . . . Who can tell the class what chinamos are?
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Answer : Places where people sell food.
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Teacher: What kind of food do they sell?
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Answer : The story only says “Gallos” like Mexican tacos but the school principal who is from Costa Rica says that they also eat tamales, empanadas, palmito etc.
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Teacher: Very good. (here the teacher induce the students to think hypothetically) What other foods do you think they also eat at Christmas?
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Answer : Maybe Puerco Asado (Roasted Pork), rice and peas, salad, candies and guaro made with sugar cane.
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Teacher: Very good, this is a very good assumption, and probably something else different, every country has its own food, something different for each What about entertainment?
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Answer : They have games for children and games for adults.
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Teacher: Yes, let us see what kind of entertainment they have for children.
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Answer: Carrousels, Toboggan, roulettes, trains etc.
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Teacher: Very good, They have a lot of things for children, now let us see what do they have for adults.
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Answer: Roulette, bull fights.
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Teacher: Yes, they also have bull fights, have you ever seen this?
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Answer: Yes, in the movies and on television.
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Teacher: They have this sport in Spain and in many countries in Latin America, What other kind of entertainment they have.
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Answer: Football, bike racing, parties, firecrackers, they also dance in the parks and in their houses.
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Teacher: Yes, it looks like every body has a lot of fun. Let us analyze this story in detail.
The Teacher will go to the blackboard and write the following;
Subject—
How Costa Rica Celebrates Christmas?
Characters Sex Country Language Food Entert Feelings
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men
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women
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children
The teacher will write every answer given by the students in the appropriated spaces above.
The next reading selection would be “How Puerto Rico celebrate Christmas.” With this story the same procedure is followed. After the second analysis has been completed, the teacher will explain to the students the next activity: To compare the two stories. The teacher asks questions and directs the discussion, emphasizing always the most relevant points. The teacher will write the subject on the blackboard, title and attributes by which the two stories will be compare.
Christmas Celebration
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Country—Costa Rica: Puerto Rico
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Location—Central America: Caribean
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Language—
Spanish: Spanish
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Charac.—
men, women, children: men, women
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Time—
December to January first: December, January
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Food—
Gallo, tamales, palmito: rice, peas, pork
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Drink—
guaro from sugar cane: coquito from coconut
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Entert.—
Music, dance, sport, football, bull fight, train: dance, parranda, trulla, tuna, firecrackers
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Emotions—happiness, joy, excitement: happiness, joy excitement
After writing these analysis, the teacher explain to the students; Now we will compare the two Christmas celebrations and write on both sides of the black board,
Similarities
_____
_____
_____
Differences
_____
_____
_____
The teacher should always strive to direct the students to look for the most relevant attributes; as the teacher is writing on the board the students are writing at their desks. The students will write along with the teacher all the analysis of each story and the similarities and differences of each.
Next reading and analysis will be “Una Carta A Dios”;
Discussion
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Teacher: What is this story all about?
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Answer: A man who sent a letter to God.
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Teacher: Yes, this man sent a letter to God, but why?
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Answer: Because he needed money or, he wants God to Send money to him.
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Teacher: Yes, but what did he need money for?
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Answer: Because he lost everything in a storm
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Teacher: So, what is the topic in this story?
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Answer: A farmer lost his crops by a hail storm, and asked God for money.
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Teacher: Good, now let us analyze the whole story, where did this story takes place?
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Answer: On a farm, in the country side.
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Teacher: Good, What was the man’s occupation?
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Answer: Farmer.
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Teacher: Very good, what is the farmer’s name?
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Answer: Lencho.
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Teacher: Was lencho single or married?
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Answer: Married, and with children.
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Teacher: What kind of crops did Lencho cultivated?
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Answer: Corn and beans.
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Teacher: Very Good, But, Were things going well or was there something wrong on the farm?
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Answer: There was something wrong because the farm was destroyed by the hail storm.
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Teacher: Yes, this was later, but what happened before? What was Lencho hoping for?
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Answer: The land was very dry and Lencho was hoping it would rain.
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Teacher: (Cause and Effect) Good, he wanted it to rain, why? What happens when it rains? What is the rain for?
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Answer: Because when the soil is dry the plants die and they need water to grow
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Teacher: Very good, Why did Lencho think it was going to rain? Because the sky was dark and very cloudy, Here the teacher makes the student use hypothetical thinking by asking: “If it rains, what is going to happen to the farm?, “Do you think he is going to make a lot of money?
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Teacher: What happened later? Did it rain?
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Answer : A hail storm came and destroyed the farm.
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Teacher: Very good, what did Lencho do then?
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Answer : He decided to send a letter to God asking for money in order to start planting again.
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Teacher: (Exercise the students in logic use) Very good But tell me, do you think that this is possible?, Can God receive a letter?
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Answer: No.
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Teacher: Why not?
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Answer: Because letters go by mail to the houses and God does not have a house; he is in heaven.
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Teacher: Very good, It is not possible to mail a letter to God, but what happened then?
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Answer: The manager sent the man the money he asked for.
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Teacher: Very good, (Cause and effect) why do you think the man did that?
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Answer: Because he is a good man and he was sad, because of what happened to Lencho.
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Teacher: Very good, he was a very good person. Did he collect all the money that Lencho asked for?
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Answer: No, only part of it.
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Teacher: Yes, and what did Lencho thought about this? Was he happy?
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Answer: No, he thought that the person in the post office opened the letter and took the money.
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Teacher: Very good, now let us analyze the story in detail. Let us make a list of the characters found in the story.
Now the teacher writes on the blackboard a number of columns and asks the students for responses.
Title Una Carta A Dios
Characters Sex Occupation Place Objects Emotions
Lencho
male
farmer
farm
bean, corn
worry, sad
Post office employee
male
manager
post office
letter
s
ad
After this analysis the teacher proceeds to the reading of the next story “Esperanza” following the same procedure.
After writing these analysis, the teacher explain to the students: Now we will compare the two stories looking for similarities and differences as we did before, and we will write them on both sides of the board.
The teacher will emphasize again systematic work and summative behavior by checking every column with the attributes and adding as more attributes as possible. Class discussion is also emphasize.
Any information given by the students will be written in the corresponding column. The teacher emphasizes systematic work by checking the story and looking for the most important aspects. After this analysis has been completed the teacher will start commenting on another story from Puerto Rico. In selecting the stories, the teacher must be careful to choose those ones which have something in common, so that there is a good basis for comparison.
With the second story, the same procedure is followed. After the second analysis has been completed the teacher will explain to the students the next activity: To compare the two stories.
Subject
Una Carta A Dios Esperanza
Country Mexico
Puerto Rico
Charact
. Lencho, Post office
Miguel, Dog
Sex
Males
Males
Language
Spanish
Spanish
Job
Farmer, Manager
Fisherman
Place
Farm, Post office
The coast, San Juan
Weather
Cloudy, Stormy
Cloudy, Storm
Objects
Corn, bean, letter
Fish
Emotions
Worried, sad, depressed
worry, sad, depressed
Similarities
_____
_____
_____
_____
Differences
_____
_____
_____
