Cultural Awareness in the Classroom; Prompt 4

In order to become a culturally competent teacher, we all must learn to leave any bias we have behind ourselves the minute we step into any classrooom. As a teacher, and for us as tutors, we simply cannot hold any bias for any students in that classroom, it is not fair, and it is immoral. My personal history and my sociocultural characteristics intersects with my students because I come from a different background than a majority of the students I work with in my classroom. I hear the stories of the students I tutor and I can't help but think, "Wow, that would have never happened in my house". Although I think of things like this, obviously I never say them aloud when I am in the classroom. I feel, however, even though I realize these students are experiencing a different childhood than I did, I do not judge the students nor do I judge their families. This non-judgement is very important for us tutors as well as teachers because teachers encounter a variety of students, families, socioeconomic statuses, etc. and teachers cannot judge any of these situations.
One thing I found to be somewhat alarming in my SL classroom was when my students started talking about being drunk and drinking! I couldn't even believe what I was hearing; these were first graders talking about drinking! They were talking about how 'silly' people act when they are drunk and then one of the students proceeded to act like he was drunk. It saddens me to know that even at such a young age, these children are being exposed to drunken adults. In order to take control of the situation, I told the students to settle down and I told them that although being drunk looks funny, it is very dangerous and is only meant for adults. I felt I handled this situation pretty well, but it definitely caught me off guard!

The Culture of My Classroom; Prompt 2

Just by looking around the classroom I visit every week, it is very easy to see how ethinically diverse the classroom is. There is a variety of students ranging from African-American, Hispanic and Causcasian children throughout the classroom. However I had predicted, using what other people had said about the school prior to my visits, that there would not be many Caucasian students and I was very wrong. There is about an equal number of children from each of the above mentioned ethnic backgrounds.
From what I can tell in my group of students that I tutor, English is a second language for many of the students in the classroom. In my group, two out of the three students I meet with speak Spanish at home. And the other student speaks English at home, but sometimes will speak Portugese at a relative's house. Even though these students do not use English as their primary language, their speaking, reading and comprehension skills using the English language is actually quite good. Now, I do not know if this is because they have picked up the skills throughout the school year or if it is due to actually understanding the words. Either way, I am starting to see improvement from the first week in each of my students and it is really great to see this improvement. :)
As far as I can tell from the students in my group in relation to the term cultural capital, it seems that the students do not come from well-educated and financially stable families. From what I have heard from the students I tutor, it seems to me that they come from families with young parents. For example (and not to reveal too much about the family lives of my students), one of my students seemed very tired and when I asked him why he was so tired today, his response was that he was so tired because his mother went out the night before and did not come pick him up until almost three in the morning. Now, whether this student exaggerated or not is one thing, but he was extremely tired and his story (told in more detail to me) made sense. In my opinion, if this student came from a well-educated and financially stable family, he would not have been up so late at night.
Overall, I am enjoying my experience working with these children. I have a question, and hopefully one of you can help me with this, but is anyone else having issues keeping control over their students? Sometimes they get riled up and one starts walking away and the others are off in their own worlds and I feel as though I cannot do too much because I am not the authority in the classroom and I feel like I would overstep my boundaries. Can anyone relate/help?!