I responded to a comment written recently in the editorial section of the Salt Lake Tribune. I think it highlighted one of the fundamental misconceptions that many hold about why students fall behind.Teaching Hispanic students
Article Last Updated: 05/24/2008 12:04:22 PM MDT
Although the editorial "Pay now or later: Education funding can save welfare, prison costs" (Our View, May 19) draws attention to important issues regarding Hispanic learners, I suggest a different focus.
Having worked primarily with Hispanic learners as a teacher and then as an advocate for almost nine years, I am convinced how bright, intelligent and talented this student population is as a whole.
Therefore, it might be wiser to focus on how to better prepare educators to be effective with Hispanic learners, whether they speak English or not, than to assume that it is the Hispanic learners who need remedial programs.
Barbara (McCauley) Lovejoy Salt Lake City
With all due respect to the letter writer, I believe she falls into the trap most of the populace seems to - let's attack these problems at the teacher level. I think this allows us to vent, but solves nothing.
My students (80 % Hispanic) are not years behind because of language, nor are they years behind because a teacher was not doing his or her job. They are years behind because within their community, education is not seen as their solution. The music my students listen to praises ignorance. Most of the adult population in the community is uneducated, so there is no push coming there. My students, for the most part, run their own lives and set their own hours .... if the choice is Playstation or reading, guess which one wins.
When one does not do any kind of reading development before kindergarten.... and then the only reading that happens is in an over crowded and chaotic classroom... and when this goes on through the entire elementary experience.... OF COURSE they are behind.
My two children have read and been read to since their youngest ages. They have heard educated adult conversation from their earliest stages. Our home is saturated with language and reading opportunities.
My students' circumstances cannot begin to keep pace with that.
Attacking this at the teacher level changes nothing.
~A
8 comments:
"They are years behind because within their community, education is not seen as their solution. The music they listen to praises ignorance. Most of the adult population in the community is uneducated"
whew...good luck defending THAT one! quite the, um, blanket statement about a community you are not a part of (though their kids attend your school) and music you don't listen to... I'm not even Hispanic and I'm offended! ;-)
From my experience in Brazil and now with Brazilian immigrants in the U.S. (Brazilians are not Hispanics, by the way) I can say I see cultural issues as the root problem in education, rather than teachers.
Brazilian students generally do at least as well as the rest of the student body, from what I've seen, but they have practically no culture of reading. It is very unusual to find a bookworm in Brazil, and Brazilian parents in the U.S. don't share the instinct to encourage reading that "gringo" parents seem to have.
Hispanics are another situation entirely. Some are from countries that encourage learning, like Argentina, but the majority in the U.S. come from poor central American nations with little value placed on education beyond elementary school.
The problem is certainly cultural, a matter of values, and should be addressed on that level.
Brook - I am not making a judgement, just observations. I know that their are lots of good REASONS for the circumstance of the community, but I am just dealing with the what, not the why. I know it is a blanket statement, there are always exceptions, but that is the general tone of the community.
My point is to address the real causes. To address the fact that most Hispanic students in my building are YEARS behind (though they have lived here their whole lives) one needs to frame the real issues. To think that change will come by tweaking curriculum or in-servicing teachers is just a fantasy. That is like arming the troops with hand grenades for an air attack; then blaming the troops for their lack of ability to overcome the enemy. The real hindrance, if one wants them to be educated, is the culture. The culture has to be changed, or accepted, but it cannot be ignored as a fundamental part of the equation.
I tend to agree with Brook on this one - it's not as cut and dry as anyone on this blog is truly making known. Reason I can state this is I come from a community with the exact same problems as the Latino community (First Nations in Canada) - and to be honest Andrew - that blanket statement would offend a lot of people.
The real problems usually stem from both sides of the debate - educational systems and from community (not culture! That's a huge misnomer).
Educationally one has to wonder what any Latino kid hears about their history in those texts and their inclusion into the American system - what is their community's role? All they likely ever hear are about some founding fathers who are neither Latino nor cared about Latino's - so what's left...a term called assimilation (a cuss word in most Aboriginal cultures). Basically, the insensitivity is they have to be like every other American - and I don't think that is true - they are from cultures they should be proud of (but maybe schools don't support this).
Community wise it's a matter of developing community in a more stronger way - and discussing the use of education in the role of the community's growth. It likely exists on some scale but it needs to be addressed by parents in the community as to their role in their kids successes. Most people likely feel alienated from the school system so they pay little attention to it and it's meaningfulness - or do not know how they can support their child through these years. They need to be made aware they can speak into their child's education and into the child's school system.
I truly feel their is learning from both sides to be had before they can find a solution that might start working.
In Canada the Aboriginal story up here is a little more gory and more complicated (historically) - but what has been working in past years is more cultural involvement by the schools for an Aboriginal perspective into the classrooms (self identity upheld for the child). Parents start seeing that and they support their child. There are a world of problems that still exist - but the issue is getting chipped away at year by year.
before I respond to t'other post, I have to ask, in all fairness - did you mildly edit/reword this post after my comment, or did I mildly (yet significantly) reword your post in my comment? I don't remember the heavy emphasis on "my students", especially in the music sentence, and I have to apologize if that was my mistaken reading and misquoting, for it is a rather pivotal one to my response.
No, you are correct, I did clarify my pronoun. I always meant "my students" when I said "they" (they ramble off their favorite songs lyrics to me on a regular basis). When I re-read it though, I realized I had gone to another subject since the previous sentence and in my head Daffy Duck said, "AHA!... pronoun trouble..."
So yep, I swapped "They" with "my students".
If you're making these statements about your students only, then I can't really say much of anything against it, as I don't know them from shinola and I assume you know them pretty well. The way I originally read this post though, it sounded like you were making these blanket statements about Hispanics in general, which sounded rather racist and unfounded (white guy in an LDS neighborhood that you are). I could find examples in communities and music of all varieties that would fit the same claims you make of your students. I don't think it's a "Hispanic" thing, and I don't think it's a fair representation of Hispanic communities (or any other communities or music or peoples) to claim the things you did about them. But again, if you're just talking about those people that you know personally, then I can't really say much one way or the other.
other than that, I probably should learn to start with the compliment and not just fire on my disagreements, as I certainly agree with most everything else you said about education in general starting and being maintained in the home.
Sorry about the poor word choice on my part. In fact, the only reason I even used "Hispanic" was to indicate to the Tribune comment writer that I teach in one of those schools to which she refers. The other 20% of my class (African refugees, former Soviet bloc, Middle Eastern) are in the same boat academically. I would never lay the cause at race, to me it is an inner-city/gangish mentality that has to be redirected.
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