Janice Heron Research Paper

Janice Heron is the teacher who has the honor of teaching a “golden mean” this year. Janice Heron refers to her class as the “golden mean” due to the fact that her students in this years class consisted of low, middle, and high socioeconomic statuses. This classroom was also made up of an equal percentage of hispanic, white, and black students (Silverman, Welty, & Lyon, 1996, p.125). Throughout her eighteen years of experience with teaching, Janice Heron has had the opportunity of working with students of all socioeconomic statuses and races prior to this year. However, this year, Janice Heron is having a particularly difficult time with four low-achieving students who are in her classroom. These four students include three hispanic boys and
Heron’s previous five years of teaching included working with classrooms that mostly consisted of students of low socioeconomic status (SES) and minorities (Silverman et al.,1996, p.126). Therefore, since her classroom this year is the “golden mean” she has been struggling with reaching across to all students at the same time. In previous years, it worked for Heron to instruct the entire classroom at the same time. However, this year she is worried that some students are falling behind while other students are getting bored because the lessons are too easy for them (Silverman et al., 1996, p.126). Heron is having a difficult time with trying to make class an interesting and comprehensible learning experience for all her students. This may be due to her lack of knowledge in teaching a classroom that is both multicultural and
Heron believes that Juan was being “handicapped by his speech” (Silverman et al., 1996, p.126). Heron has not been making much progress with Juan even though she has tried many different tactics. Another student who is in the lowest reading group with Juan is Jose. Jose comes to school in worn and torn clothes. He also has a hard time with his verbal skills, concentration, and letter recognition. Janice thought Jose may be an at-risk student even though she can see his potential, especially with his math skills (Silverman et al., 1996, p.129). The third student joining Juan and Jose in the lowest reading group is, Rios. Rios, alike to Juan and Jose, is also a hispanic student. Heron believed that Rios has almost no letter association, is unable to make connections between letters and their sounds, and has yet to even grasp the very basic concept of “plus 1” in their math class (Silverman et al., 1996, p.126).
Heron is unsure that if Rios, Jose, and Juan all struggle with their letter recognition and reading due to their hispanic background (Silverman et al., 1996,