The Challenge in Today's Classrooms: Filling in the Missing Holes in Academic knowledge

As teachers welcome their new students in the beginning of the year, they are well aware that their students come from various backgrounds. Therefore,the context of their general knowledge will vary from one another. This general knowledge is known in the academia world as "informal knowledge"(Buehl, 2017), which brings a challenge to the teachers to fill in the missing holes in their academic knowledge and bridge the gaps as much as possible.

In the past two decades the world has changed a lot. Social media has gripped the whole universe and this type of resource can be beneficial but also a nuisance as it can also spread disinformation. This is a well known fact, to teach brand new information is easier then correcting the disinformation and removing biases towards a topic. (This reminds me of the landscaping that I did when I bought my house. I did not like the previous owners landscaping and it took me three seasons to pull out all the shrubs and plant the perennials I liked. And I often thought how easy it would have been to do landscaping from a scratch!) Well, that is not the case with teachers.The students walking in the class will have some background knowledge and related misconcepts

First all let us discuss the types of information the student walks into the classroom. The students acquire their knowledge mostly in three ways.The informal knowledge is acquired mostly by text- to -world Knowledge that is knowledge acquired by various sources media, listening to other people's experiences and opinions also known as Topical knowledge (Buehl, pg. 83, 85 ).This type of information can create biases as the media sensationalizes stories to make their ratings soar. The text-to- self knowledge is the experiences that the person has experienced themselves and text- to- text knowledge is the information that the individual has derived from reading. When a person lacks the direct experiences then the text knowledge becomes the valuable vault of information.

The academic instructor adds the academic knowledge to the informal knowledge. There are students who had the resources to accumulate the academic knowledge outside the school learning. They are surrounded with adults who often engage in discussion about current events, health or community issues and they have done family trips to museums and historical places. Therefore, the teacher's job is only to extend their knowledge using their schema. On the other hand, the teacher has the students that have a lot of informal knowledge but that information does not apply to the discipline taught in school. Thus, these students struggle to master the academic knowledge.

The different background knowledge and the student's personal abilities brings a variety of disparities to the classroom. So what is the role of the teacher? How do they overcome the disparities? Buehl calls the teachers "mediators between the academic knowledge demands of the academics and the informal knowledge of the students (pg. 91)." Meaning that the teachers have to find a middle ground between the rigor of academic knowledge and discourse and the informal knowledge capital which students bring that is different from the curriculum and standards. Moje calls this the third space (pg. 92). I am a Social Science major and Buehl has given some ideas how to bridge this gap and use these techniques in our classroom.

According to Buehl, teaching Social Sciences can be an integrate task because history and political science deal with geopolitical situations, current events connected to the past which can be very different from the student's out of school experience who have lived a sheltered life.The Generational Knowledge can be quite a challenge.With the rapid changes around us the generation gap has increased therefore the teachers have to update themselves in what kind of programs the youth are watching, music and the popular social media tool. As my daughter tole me the other day "You still use Facebook!! Oh but that is for your generation. We don't use FB that much. We use Snapchat."My Political Science professor asked us to down load the news app and the first ten minutes are dedicated to the current events.We are simultaneously taking three actions reviewing current events, connecting with the curriculum and using a social media tool. My emphasis is Political Science and this is a method I intend to adapt in my classroom.

Topic knowledge and the domain knowledge(academic knowledge acquired in school) will be unbalanced for different students. That is a contrast that is hard to erase. At the moment, there are hundreds of refugee students in schools. They have the first hand knowledge of war and violence. No text to text reading can beat that experience. The best method is to allow the student to talk about their experiences and the other students can listen and gain information. I was in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. I remember when the scud missile dropped on an army barrack five minutes away from my home. I still remember I was holding books in my hand and walking from the family room towards my room. I can never forget the the shaking of the building and the feeling that this is it? I die today? This is an experience that no matter how I try I cannot transfer the feelings to someone else. the link below is an article by Marylin Jager Adams ,who has the same idea as Buehl.

http://www.shankerinstitute.org/blog/knowledge-literacy

Another thing Buehl (2017,87) talks about gaining knowledge from experiences (Access to Academic Knowledge).Some times people experience the worst trauma that becomes an international incident and it makes it way to the books. After some decades a an individual's grandchild reads the text and is opposite of the grandparent's experience . I wonder if Buehl is the teacher what how would he react and what action would he take?

Furtheron,he talks about generational knowledge. I remember 9/11, the first two gulf wars , the fall f the Berlin war. But I believe as a social studies teacher I would make this knowledge relevant by connecting the past events to the current events. so they would not think why does it matter to us? So what? It's behind us what do we got to do with it. Th best method is to compare and contrast or draw a Venn diagram so the student's can see a visual connection. Gracy Olmstead has written this interesting article"the importance of Generational Knowledge"

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/olmstead/the-importance-of-generational-knowledge/?fbclid=IwAR1iwQZ-LtFF_USgvCIrgheWI69wux-WwUHA9cLsbV_H8kMC8jNSp76OEt8

Buehl talks about textual allusions that they are the assumed knowledge of the reader. He gives the reference of Martin Luher King Jr.'s I have dream speech. For a child growing up in America they are aware of this knowledge ,about civil rights movement and the background of #Blacklivesmatter. But for child who move here will not be aware . They can read the text but will not understand the cause and effect behind this speechJust as a American kid will not understand a textual allusion regarding their respective country. I wonder what Buehl's suggestion would be for those students? I was doing clinical for my Ell class and the 5th grader I helped, had moved from Egypt a year ago. This student had learned how to read and write English in a span of one year. She read a book with me and there was reference made to Bonnie and Clyde.Instead of skipping or telling the student to Google, I explained to her who they were and how it was connected to the story but not a part of the story plot.

Movies and news sometimes gives a biased perception of an incident or a specific group. This is problematic in history because the teacher has to explain the biases and give the whole picture of the event But students probably would not like that version because of their backgrounds, affiliations or their preference of social media. In the past two decades the world has changed a lot. Social media has gripped the whole universe and this type of resource can be beneficial but also a nuisance as it can also spread disinformation. This is a well known fact, to teach brand new information is easier then correcting the disinformation and removing biases towards a topic. (This reminds me of the landscaping that I did when I bought my house. I did not like the previous owners landscaping and it took me three seasons to pull out all the shrubs and plant the perennials I liked. And I often thought how easy it would have been to do landscaping from a scratch!) Well, that is not the case with teachers.

I like Buehl's idea to challenge their resources through an essential question (96,97) which would transcend tough ideas, themes to the students personal life. They can make the connections and maybe change their perspective. I would love to use this idea in my classroom. I would love to rattle the student's brains, question their views, make connections to new material and come up with some interesting theory.

This is a challenging quest. But one thing is for sure no matter how little topical knowledge the student brings in my classroom. I will make sure that when they walk outside of my classroom they will be brimming with expanded academic knowledge than they walked in for the first time in my classroom.