Looking Up From the Books

The realization that there is more to

teaching than just reading and math
MATC Synthesis Paper

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Master of Arts Degree in Teaching and Curriculum
Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University
Rachel Upholzer
A37551910
November 14, 2014

For as long as I can remember, I have always identified myself as a book lover. I can still
recall my seven-year-old self getting caught in the act of reading a book late at night with a
blanket over my head and a flashlight. When I first started my journey to become a teacher, I
chose my focus to be Language Arts in my elementary undergraduate degree. I felt that the
biggest gift a teacher could give their students was the gift of being literate. However, after going
through my MATC program and teaching overseas in the Middle East for the last three years, I
have come to realize that there is something of equal importance that should be present in my
classroom. Literacy, and truly all aspects of education, includes culture and diversity. It is of
equal importance that a multiculturalism curriculum be present in the classroom in order to
provide students with an equal opportunity education.
When I first began my MATC program, I was very set on specializing in Literacy.
Reading is a passion of mine, but I find it is also one of the hardest subjects to teach to young
children. I wanted to better myself with the best techniques to teach and assess literacy in the
classroom in hopes of making my students more successful. During my time researching the best
reading strategies to use in elementary classrooms, I came across a program called The Daily
Five. This independence enhancing, classroom management program helped students gain the
knowledge of reading through five different strategies including reading with a partner and
independently, listening to a book on tape, writing stories, and phonics work. Although this
program was marketed as a K-5 program, I decided to make my own condensed version of the
program and implement it into my Pre-K classroom (Artifact 2). The results of my modified
program were both positive and telling of my students true abilities. This helped in the
realization that students will achieve more if they are held to higher expectations. Students that
were supposed to only know their letters by the end of the school year were able to write full

sentences and read simple books all on their own (Goal 2). This experience furthered my desire
to become a specialist in the field of literacy education and was the reason I chose to focus on
literacy as I began my MATC journey.
The first class I began with, TE 807, played a crucial role in developing my realization
that a teacher must often stop and reflect on their beliefs in order to improve upon them. This is
evident in my reflective essay on defining good teaching (Artifact 1). Throughout the many
stages of preparation for becoming an educator, I found that my definition of good teaching
varied depending on my current experiences. This self-reflection has played a large role in my
realization that education is much more than just learning to read, add numbers, and write
although I wasnt sure what else to include.
I continued my literacy path by taking TE 836 and TE 838, which delved deep into
analyzing childrens literature and the way in which it is perceived in the classroom and in
society. The literary history of award winning and popular books was one that I neglected to
consider made much impact on which books I would include in my daily lessons with my
students. However, after deeply examining the process of selecting Newbery Award winning
books and the inconsistency of those books going on to become known as classics, I was able to
discover the bearing my book choices might have on my students psyche (Standard 5). For
example, it became a great discussion over the course that Charlottes Web had failed to win the
Newbery Award in 1953 and yet has gone on to be one of the most beloved and famous
childrens novels of all time; whereas Secret of the Andes, the actual winner from that year is
rarely recognized. When considering the plots of both stories, one about a young American girl
raising a pig and the other an Incan boy that goes on a journey to find a family; it is obvious that
could be considered more dimensional than the other. Yet the basic, American tale becomes the

classic. For me, this realization called into question the very framework of my literacy program. I
began to question whether or not I was including enough diversity in my classroom. This is when
I truly realized that there was something missing in my educational philosophy.
I was able to identify that missing piece when I began my EAD 850 course on
multicultural education. Being an international teacher means educating students from many
different nationalities, races, and backgrounds. What started out as an elective course, ultimately
led to my change in focus for the remainder of my MATC program. Multicultural education is
something I am very passionate about. I have seen first hand the impact an American curriculum
plan using textbooks displaying only white children has had on my non-white, non-American
students (Artifact 5). They are unable to make a connection with what they are learning because
they are unable to see themselves within their educational experiences. Within my course, I read
the book, Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empires End by John Willinsky (1998)
and it was the first moment that I realized that children are negatively impacted by post-Colonial
education systems still present in foreign countries. Edward Said, a Palestinian Arab professor
and theorist of post-colonialism described his own foreign education as a tremendous spiritual
woundbecause of the sustained presence in our midst of domineering foreigners who taught
use to respect distant norms an clues more than our own (Willinsky, p. 90). This statement
within this life-changing book left me dumbstruck at how nave I had been to think my only role,
as a teacher was to educate my students in the ways of reading, writing, and math. It was because
of this course and more specifically this book that I found my focus for my masters program:
multiculturalism in literacy education.
I am at an extreme advantage while pursuing my multicultural focus because of my
current teaching post. I am forced to see what a lack of culturally diverse curriculum could do to

a child. For nearly two and a half years, I educated my students on how to read, how to write,
how to add, do science experiments, and think critically; but never once did I stop to think that
there was more for them to learn that could not be found in a textbook. It was not until I
completed my final project in EAD 850 (Artifact 6) in which I analyzed an international
educational policy that I finally looked up from the books, and I started teaching the students in a
way that would make them better global citizens. One of the ways in which I changed my
teaching was in how I chose to incorporate my students native languages, countries, and culture
into my program (Goal 1). Each day that a child is educated in a school that is not taught in their
native tongue, using a curriculum designed by their cultures powers, they begin to lose a piece
of their native identity and start being a reflection of the foreign power that is doing the
educating (Artifact 5). Therefore, it is my job as a international school teacher, where my
students face these exact struggles every day of not hearing their native language or learn from a
curriculum developed by their country, to make up for those factors that could potentially do
harm to my students by including as much of their culture and norms as possible into our
American curriculum (Standard 1).
Although I have the best intentions for my students and my goal is to give them the best
education I can provide, there are certain factors that get in an international students way. One
of those factors is the language barrier previously mentioned. It seems cruel to expect 7-yearolds to not only write a personal narrative about themselves in explicit detail, but to write it in a
language that is not native to them. When first coming to Kuwait, I unfairly judged my students
as uncooperative and lazy. When I asked them to write, many of them wouldnt. I knew some of
these particular students were quite intelligent and therefore my go to explanation was that they
must be an uncooperative student. What I failed to consider was the difficulty that comes with

explaining oneself in a nonnative language. My students were not refusing to write, they were
afraid to write because they knew many of the words would be spelled wrong and their grammar
would not be up to the level they thought Id expect. Linda Christensen, the director of the
Oregon Writing Project and known advocate for social injustice and literacy in the classroom,
has spoken about this very event and the negative impact it has on a childs psyche. When more
attention is paid to the way something is written or said than to what is said, students words and
thoughts become devalued. Students learn to be silent, to give as few words as possible for
teacher criticism (Christensen, 1995, p 155).
Of all the subjects I teach, I find writing the most difficult. There is no definite answer,
no right or wrong way to do something, and it has everything to do with language. Those
seemingly uncooperative students were really just children silently begging for help. I started to
think of ways I could change the presentation of my information to the class, as it was obvious
that the way I had been teaching was not working. It was through my TE 831 course, which
focused on incorporating technology into subject matter, that I discovered a way of developing
new lessons for my second language students that might improve their understanding of how to
write (Artifact 3). Not only can the use of technology help students understand the material
better, it also helps to keep them engaged as well. This was evident during my life cycle unit in
which I was teaching my Pre-K students about the butterfly life cycle. Although they understood
the four stages of a butterflys life, they were beginning to lose interest and engagement in the
material because most of the information was being presented in the form of a story or a lecture.
In order to enhance their engagement, I created a video (Artifact 4) that provided them with the
same information I would have told them in person but in a new and exciting way (Standard 2). I

was able to see the benefits of not only incorporating technology, but also the impact
differentiation could have on my students learning.
After the completion of my first two semester of graduate school, I gave myself a
semester off to reflect on what I had learned as an educator and how that would change my
career path and my opinions on educational policy. After completing courses on both literacy
education and multiculturalism, I discovered how much emphasis is put on literacy that
multiculturalism gets left behind. Not all students come into the classroom with the same toolbox
of resources. The United States preaches about giving students an equal education; however it is
not equality in education we should be striving for, but rather equity in education (Standard 3).
The students that need more help should receive more help. I was spending too much time in my
classroom trying to give each child an equal amount of my time and effort, when I should have
been dispersing that energy by determining who needed it the most (Standard 4). This is when I
started to shift my teaching strategies in the classroom, especially when it came to literacy. I
concluded that not only had my values changed as a teacher, but as a person as well. I was much
more in tuned to whether or not my actions were inclusive of all groups and how my
unconscious prejudices unknowingly have affected my students up until this point. Not only do I
feel as though this self-reflection has made me a better teacher, but it has me a better global
citizen as well.
With my newfound focus and desire to be a multicultural teacher and leader, I decided to
use what I had learned in my MATC program and begin making changes at my school on a
bigger level than my classroom. I applied and received a leadership role in my school as the
grade two team leader and representative on our schools curriculum development team (Goal 3).
This role gave me the opportunity to use the knowledge I had gained through my MATC

program and put it into action at my own school. Working at an international school means that
what we do at our school is not subject to the say of a school board, state mandates, or federal
regulation. Therefore, the teachers and administrators are given most of the power in determining
what programs to use at our school. My principal, with the help of a group of teachers and other
administrators including myself, began to develop a new curriculum that would hopefully bring
our school ahead of the curve in the Middle East (Standard 6). With the help of Mike
Schmokers Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning (2011) and
Jon Wiles Leading Curriculum Development (2009), I was able to determine what is most
important when developing a new curriculum and the steps to take to ensure its success.
Schmoker discusses the need to condense the standards down to what is most essential. The
essential standards are the ones that you can guarantee your students will meet by the end of the
school year. Although the standards that are cut are not forgotten or unaddressed, by created a
list of what are the key standards to meet, you are ensuring a more successful outcome for your
students. To help understand Schmokers ideas and how to implement them into our new
curriculum, I used the advice of Wiles and what he felt was necessary to become an effective
curriculum development leader. While keeping my schools needs in mind, I wrote an essay that
described what I felt were the essential elements of designing a successful curriculum (Artifact
7). I believe that knowing what it takes to be a leader is the first step to becoming one. With the
knowledge that leaders provide a vision for what is possible and a path to follow in order to be
successful (Wiles, p. 18), I now have the mind set of a leader within my school and it is up to me
upon the completion of the MATC program to begin using that mindset to make positive
changes.

There are a lot of changes that have occurred in my life since my graduation from
Michigan State in 2010. I have moved to the Middle East, traveled to over 25 countries, taught
three different grade levels and become a wife. If you had asked me on my graduation day where
I would be almost five years later, the only thing I could have said with certainty was that I
would be in a classroom, teaching. Being an educator is what I was born to do; however, being
the type of educator that my experiences from the MATC program and through working
internationally have made me is something I could have only dreamt of. My initial goal as an
educator was to teach children how to be literate individuals. I saw reading as the greatest gift a
teacher could give to their students and I strived to accomplish this goal in my first years as a
teacher. However, what this program and my students have taught me is that there is so much
more to being a teacher than just teaching how to read and write. I had spent so much of my own
time with my nose stuck in a book that I had failed to look up at the world around me. When I
finally did take a moment to look up and reflect on the world and my experiences in it, I saw
what truly is the most important role of a teacher: providing a space that all children feel
comfortable and confident to learn and grow. By including a multicultural aspect to my degree, I
will be a better-prepared teacher not just in an international setting, but once I return to the
United States as well. We are a country filled with diversity, it is time we start celebrating and
embracing that fact rather than trying to suppress it. My hope is that in the future, multicultural
education will simply be called education and that I play a role in getting our profession to that
point. I look forward to what the future holds for me. I hope that when I reflect on my career 5,
10 or 15 years from now, I will be just as surprised by my accomplishments as I already have
been. I am thankful that I was given the opportunity to learn from a prestigious university that

holds education in the same esteem that I do. The world is full of possibilities, and I look forward
to seizing every one of them.

Works Cited
Christensen, Linda. "Whose Standard? Teaching Standard English in Our Schools." Rethinking
Schools: An Agenda for Change. Ed. David Levine, Robert Lowe, Robert Peterson, and
Rita Tenorio. New York: New, 1995. 128135. Print.
Schmoker, Michael J. Focus Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning.
Alexandria, Va.: ASCD, 2011. Print.
Wiles, Jon. Leading Curriculum Development. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin, 2009. Print.
Willinsky, John. Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire's End. Minneapolis: U of
Minnesota, 1998. Print.

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