Sunday, July 1, 2007
Post 2: Linguistic Diversity and School Achievement
For this post, I would like you to do much the same as what was required in post 1b below—provide the main argument for one of the chapters, talk about how Nieto supports this argument, and how you agree or disagree with her. As well, though, I would really like you to dig into the content. For example, how have you experienced these issues of linguistic diversity, either as teacher or student? Or, which theory of student failure or student success did you identify with and why?
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When looking at the chapter on school achievement I had many strong feelings about it. I think that most of the time school failure is blamed on the teachers, who then blame the students. "Johnny didn't have his homework again. His parents don't care about school." When really Johnny didn't get supper last night so homework wasn't important. I think that we have to find a way to work with all of the social and cultural issues our students bring into the classroom on a daily basis. Society isn't yet ready to solve the issues that we see on a daily basis. As teachers we have to find a way to equally educate every student regardless of their background. Mnay of my students come with no support at home, because their parents had a hard time in school or they aren't educated enough themeselves to know how to help. So I spend a lot of time at ARC meetings letting my parents know exactly what I'm doing in the classroom and how they can help out at home. Many of my parents come to me afterwards and tell me how much they appreciate being involved. I realize after those conversations that they haven't been included by other teachers before. How can we truly have school achievement when the parents aren't involved or understand what is happening with their child. That is when society reproduces the same problems as before. Until we make a change things won't get better and we won't have school achievement.
Linguistic Diversity Thoughts...
I feel that I have experienced linguistic diversity from both a student and teacher viewpoint. Growing up in California, I was often the minority in my classes instead of the majority. I distinctly remember being one of two white kids in my fourth grade class while living in San Fransicso. The rest of my class had been mostly Pilipino. When I moved down to San Diego for middle and high school, the ethnicity changed but not the ratio.
Being the extremely bright decision-maker that I was in high school, I chose to take French as my second language. I truly regret that today as I look around my own classroom. Over my five years spent in Shelby County, I have averaged 5 Latino children per year in my classroom makeup. Some of my students speak English well enough to understand most things we are learning, but for about half, the language barrier is perilous. Our demand for Spanish-speaking teachers far outweighs the supply, and I know this problem is far-reaching outside of Shelby County. If I had made better decisions along the way, I know that I could better serve the needs of this certain population of kids in my class.
Nieto was right on with her statement, "In US classrooms, linguistic diversity has commonly been viewed as a temporary, if not troublesome, barrier to learning (p.211)." So many teachers believe that if students just learn English, everything else will fall in place. We have to realize that language isn't the only thing new to these children. They are suddenly immersed in a different culture that they are simply expected to learn on their own. If we truly want to reach our minority populations, our goal must be to move beyond the language and embrace other aspects of their culture, as well.
Well said, so far, folks. You're right, Molly, we have to get past this language issue as quickly as possible, giving all our children, regardless of where they were born an opportunity to communicate what they know in school. As well, Amanda's point is well taken, that we need to stop attempting to find the source of blame and understand the problem--kids aren't learning due to a number of colliding elements, which is bigger than "parents don't care, kids don't try, teachers don't know how to teach, etc." For both of you, what does Nieto suggest as ways forward. That is, Amanda, how did you feel about how Nieto ended the chapter--what suggestions related to resistance, care, social networking did you buy into? Molly, did you buy into Nieto's two-way bilingual model?
I think that Nieto has a point with the fact that we are not serving our Language minority students the way we should be. I feel like the students are being done an injustice because they are only getting the ESL instruction for 45 minutes to an hour a week, because there is only one teacher for the whole county. I also feel like if the students were recieving a 2 way bilingual education all students would benefit. It would be the ideal collaboration setting in which one teacher taught in one language while the other teacher assisted as needed and vice versa. I felt like if the politics were not involved in education then the teachers would be more open to the idea of bilingual education. I also realized that in many ways it is the student who speaks a different language that loses out. For instance we allow the hearing impaired students an interpreter but we don't allow those students who can hear and speak a different language an interpreter. In fact we make them forget about their native language and force them to speak English, and set a time limit on how long it takes to learn the language. It seems to me that the schools are afraid of lossing the controll and having to accomodate all students not just the select few. If the research that is mentioned in chapter 6 is true why are we as schools fighting against helping the students. I thought that our goal was to help the students learn. I think that if I were given the choice I would love to see the two-way model implemented in the schools across the country. In effect JCPS is providing Spanish as a class for the students in Elementary schools and up but can that really be called a bilingual program? I think that it is an ill attempt to meet the needs of students. Also is teaching a Spanish speaker their native language a really effective use of time? It seems that we would look at the information and decide on one of the programs that is effective and try to implement it for longer than a year or two.
The chapter on school achievement (Ch 7) really stirs my interest. Why do some students learn and others do not is a question we have been asking for as long as we have had schools. I was really interested in reading several theories on this subject. As I read Nieto, I get involved in her discourse and find myself wondering what she is basing her comments on. She refers to studies done occasionally, but rarely tells when, where or how these studies were conducted. Then I remind myself she is just talking "theories" and they don't have to be documented by research to be presented. Each theory presented has is merits, but even Nieto qualifies those theories after she presents them. One of my personal theories about learning follows the same lines of how communication takes places. In order to have communication or "learning" you have to have a message sent and "received". For many reasons, we have students in school that are not ready or able to receive the message.
Of all the theories presented in the chapter, I identified more with John Ogbu's theory of "I can if I believe I can". This theory explains, somewhat all the kids who learn in spite of the system. It also relates to the theory on "care" and gives the teacher the charge to be an encourager and advocate for the whole child. Another thing I noticed in the chapter is Nieto
personifies "schools". Schools do this and schools do that, type of comments, when really schools are just buildings and its the people in the buildings that either hold the ability to relate to the students or not. I think every school, whether urban or rural, has effective educators and ineffective ones. (Sad to say sometimes the latter outnumber the former.) Rather than try to change the whole system, why not concentrate on improving the quality of the teachers we hire.
The summary of the chapter does a good job of bringing all the theories together and telling us we still don't have the answer. The paragraph on Catholic education calls to mind the comment I made the other day about public schools being "all things to all people". We continue to call public schools failures, yet we have not defined what it is exactly they are supposed to do. How can you succeed if the definition of success is constantly changing? Until our public schools have clearly stated mission statements, I think it is unfair to judge them so harshly.
I identified with Chapter 7 of Neito very much. I am constantly questioning myself, my students, and others on why some succeed and some don't. I critize the environment, myself and the strategies I use, the lack of diversity, the lack of the value of education, and the fact that maybe some students just don't want to be there.
The theories that I think most identify Spencer Co High are the resistance theory and the reproduction theory. But I don't think the way I identify my school is what Nieto had in mind. We are not from an urban, inner city school but a rural, somewhat poverty stricken community. There is no industry for people to work in, the farms are being swallowed up by housing, and there seems to be no real connection to the community. I do think the school is reproducing the theory that culture doesnt matter. No there are very few blacks, Asians, Latinos in the school but there is the poverty stricken. The school doesn't take this into account. However, I think this isn't the only theory to describe the failure of kids in the school. We as teachers need to address the poverty, the traditions, etc.in the community and not bash them because they may not be the same as ours. But the school needs to become a positive and not seen as a negative. We cant change the poverty of the students but we can teach them to succeed-however that may look. Teach them to value knowledge and teach them to be excited about it. No they aren't going to presidents more than likely (although look at George W.) but we need to create a community within the school and one of caring-meaning set the bar higher and teach the kids to reach it.
The resistance theory is one I see on a daily basis. Yes ,at first I thought of it, like most, as a sign of disrespect and misbehavior. Indeed the student's did misbehave but I found out a deeper meaning why and that changed everything in my thinking process. First, our community doesn 't seem to value an education. Most see as a stepping stone to working in a factory or somewhere along those avenues. This student was no different. I began to notice some trends with SN that weren't good. He was fighting, sleeping in class, didn't have his homework, etc. He looked like a punk so naturally the assumption was he was. But one day I got the opportunity to actually sit down and talk to SN one on one and my assumptions dramatically changed. I realized SN's homelife, realized where he had grown up (white kid in the west end then moved to the south end before moving to Taylorsville). SN was very articulate, focused, and revealed to me that he actually liked school. WOW moment! Then I asked why the defiance or why did he not do as was expected?? Said he didn't want to be riduculed and nobody really expected him to succeed, not even his mom, so why should he? I was incredibly taken aback and I then examined my own stereotypes about other students I had especially the ones I thought of as defiant and a pain I didn't want to deal with. I realized that my students, a lot of them anyway, didn't or wasn't expected to succeed. I changed my environment after that and tried and did for the most part, toughen my standards on my students, expected them to be able to learn something and so by trying to incorporate many more aspects of life into my curriculum. I want to say it was successful. I think it was in tiny steps. SN passed my class and yes he still resisted openly but we had the understanding that he had to his work "on the sly" and he did learn and did very well in my class. And through this class I think I have become even more aware of my way of thinking and where my students may be coming from. And like Amanda says, we need to find a way to equally educate ALL students but it starts with us as teachers.
I have been both a student and teacher of linguistic diversity. I learned to speak english through my older siblings and older neighbor. I wasn't given extra help in school for not knowing the language I was just suppossed to catch on. I agree with Nieto that we need to be positive with our ELL learners. We need to bring their diversity into the classrooms and find a way to use it. I am fluent in Italian and every Friday in my class is language day. I teach students Italian every Friday afternoon. Sometimes I will let my Vietnamese and Kongo students teach us if they choose. I believe that if a student is taught at an early age that it is okay to be different and that we can learn from them too their outlook toward school and learning will shift from negative to positive. Students, to me, are at an advantage when they know more than one language. More and more we see it in our classes and job world. If you speak more than one language it will benefit you in the long run. Many english words have latin root words, and if you speak a european or hispanic language this can help these students to know meanings of english words better than an english-only speaker.
It also bothers me to hear people say "it's america they need to learn english", well if you really think about it the first americans didn't speak any english so what point are they trying to make? If you go to any other country they all know english AND their native language. Are they at a disadvantage because of that? No they are at an advantage because now this has opened a whole new door for them to expand. Their country will hire them first because they will be able to conduct their overseas businesses.
Plant beans, and you’ll get beans”, “Low functioning parents have low functioning children”, “ You might as well go on a reserve a prison cell now”, “ Go on a let social security know where to send his check”, “Their parents don’t care” “We have some poor students that will effect our test scores.” I could go on and on, these are statements that I have heard again and again as teachers and administration talk about students and their academic abilities.
I could pick out an example and relate to it as a teacher from each of the theories discussed in Nieto’s chapter 7.
The Deficit Theory that genetic or cultural inferiority is the cause of academic familiar, “plant beans and you’ll get beans.” I heard this day in and day out last year; we set students up before we even meet them especially if they come from single parent home, black, or Hispanic. The elementary school sends a piece of paper discussing the student and their families…I would call it slander. For example, parent is lazy…turns out dad is a cop and works third shift, the parent was very concerned about his child but work schedule didn’t allow for him to be as active at school as he wanted. Inadequate parents…some of the parents did/do have issues but it didn’t mean that they didn’t want the best for their child….they just didn’t agree with everything the school said or offered.
Treating children and their native dialect as if they were uneducated…they weren’t uneducated they just spoke a different language. I totally agree that the Deficit Theory is currently in practice and our students families are at times harshly judged based on stereotypes of their culture or genetic makeup.
As with Paul, one of the case studies I believe that we need second, third, fourth chances sometimes to get it right or to reach a goal. I’ve been in that boat myself and was fortunate to have mentors who didn’t judge but continued to let me keep trying.
The theory of Economic and Social Reproduction that school serves the dominant classes….I believe it is so. We love the parent that comes to school and volunteers, donates money, or goes on field trips. Their children are given second and third chances to complete work if necessary. I also agree with the books thought on giving certain students the freedom to pick and chose but certain children are treated like soldiers and must conform to certain rules.
I also witnessed conflict when the parenting style and teaching style collide when school/home culture are different and it is the child who will have to adjust or he becomes a Hispanic child who is following the norm of the school.
All of the theories mentioned are alive and well. The testing situation is driving our school and school climate. When reading the case studies the students were being suspended as early as third grade. WOW! That is why our drop out rate is so high, our schools don’t take in consideration a child’s culture, learning style, social or political issues. Our concern is the test.
Wonderfully done here folks. Your stories and examples from the classroom bring the theories to life here and demonstrate how they play out in our everyday lives. Tia, you comments about services for some and not for others point us to the politics of education. If politics is who gets what of scarce resources (and politics isn’t going anywhere—as everything is political), then we must be prepared to fight on the other side for the rights of our all our kids--English Language Learners being one of many categories of students in need of our help. Remembering that our silence or refusal to enter into the ‘politics’ is an implicit vote for the status quo may help us stay active in the struggle longer.
Mary Anne, you remind us that improving the quality of teachers is an important structural consideration for improving school for all children. I am really beginning to understand just how much schools of education are going to have to change if we are truly to prepare teachers for the classroom today--and I am not talking about more classes on classroom management or content. We're going to need to spend a lot more time on thinking about how kids learn, socio-cultural considerations as they impact student learning, the purposes of getting an education, and how to advocate for children and families.
Lee Anne, I'm so glad you shared this story here and in class as itreally illustrates what Nieto is talking about in resistance theory. Your ideas about a school community are also so important if we are to figure out ways to better prepare students once they leave school. Joshephine, you help point out one of the real ironies related to language--that knowing two languages should be seen as a strength and not as a weakness. That we attempt to diminish/dis-privilege one language in favor another, English, is ultimately defeatist in nature. While I understand that it is helpful for us to be able to communicate, perhaps we should be doing more to learn another language ourselves, which would ease the transition of others into our communities. Finally, Ann, I think your examples, unfortunately, speak for themselves, as the deficit theory is still alive and well in our communities, schools and classrooms. Besides not engaging in these discussions, how else have some of you dealt with this issue with your colleagues? Have any of you confronted some of the other teachers or adminstrators about the way they are talking about children? How was that received? What kind of discussion ensued?
Chapter Six’s main idea is that just as the prevalent culture is held in high esteem in the United States, so is the language that is spoken by those who belong to the predominant culture. According to the text, all other languages are considered to be inferior and of little importance. As a person who speaks the language of the dominant culture, it is hard to imagine a world where the majority of the sounds you hear are unfamiliar and difficult to readily comprehend. It can be a frustrating world. I remember in my early years in Germany when I knew absolutely none of the language. Pregnant, I was coming from the doctor’s office on the economy, and, I needed to get home. I hopped into a taxi, and, for the life of me, I could not remember the phrase that I had memorized over and over again in my head that would get me safely home. As I sat in the back of the taxi struggling with the words to say, the taxi driver just stared at me like, “Stupid American.” He offered no help in trying to help me find the words to express the location where I needed to go. He sat there impatiently staring at me. Under tremendous pressure, and, just when I thought he was going to hurl me onto the streets of Germany, it came to me what I needed to say. The taxi driver did not share my enthusiasm with the major accomplishment that I had just made. He hurriedly drove off while occasionally glancing in the rear view mirror with a continued look of disdain at the fact that I had taken up so much of his time because I did not speak the dominant language of the dominant culture. When I reached my destination, I was relieved to be amongst my people who spoke my language. That was just one incidence in Europe for me. I could not imagine a student having to live through this torture all day long, five days a week for the duration of a school year.
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