Learning U.S. Civics through Hands-on Learning and Critical Thinking
My students need a storage unit and bins to store classroom supplies, projects, books, folders, and notebooks. This will assist them with creating hands-on activities and being organized.
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My Students
My school is located in an area in Miami called West Little River, where about 82% of the family households are living below poverty. Many of my students are living in single-parent family homes, homes where other family members are raising them, or homeless shelters. Therefore, my students are struggling financially and cannot even afford to buy the basics such as school supplies.
I teach US History and Civics to 6th and 7th graders at a Title I school, where about 90% of the students are receiving free or reduced lunch.
Because of their environment, these students experience a multitude of problems which interferes with their achievement and success. I grew up in the inner city of Miami and know what poverty is, but despite my struggles, I was able to be successful. The reason that I was successful was that I had teachers and a community that supported me and helped me with what I needed to become successful. This is why I became an educator so not only I can instill the knowledge in them but I can also guide and support them to become successful.
My Project
I am responsible for teaching Civics to 6th and 7th graders. Civics is an important subject to teach because it provides our youth with the fundamentals of the United States government. Therefore, I am preparing the future generations to be active and responsible citizens in the United States and in their community. Because I understand the seriousness of teaching Civics, I want my students to be engaged and doing hands-on activities so I can maximize their learning. A storage unit with bins will create order in my classroom. Previously, we had a storage unit and an organizer where we stored the materials, but it got damaged during Hurricane Irma from the water leaks and flooding in my classroom.
By having a new storage unit and organizer, it will help both me and my students to be more efficient and effective in my teaching and their learning because we would gain more instructional time from the efficiency.
In addition, I teach about 120 middle school students in 5 different periods. That means that I have students coming to my classroom on different days and at different times. As a result, my class gets easily messy and sometimes things get lost. Finally, my students come from homes where many of them cannot even afford to buy basic school supplies. Therefore, I have to provide supplies and tools for many of them so they can participate in hands-on learning. This shows how beneficial it will be to have a storage unit and an organizer to store the materials. I really want to get my class back on track from the damages that occurred from Irma so the students can maximize the most from their learning.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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