4/25 Reading

Reference: "Made in America", Chapter 10

1) "They all meet on the playing field of a school, interacting across and through the divisions in classrooms, academic tracks, and program separation that have been created by educators" (pg. 228) - I chose this quote because of the 'playing field' metaphor that was given here in this chapter. It is a good visual image of a type of baseball or football field where the players are the educators, the administration and the students and one has to fight against the other to win in the school system. Unfortunately, it is a never-ending battle with schools and bilingual or ESL programs. I see it every day in Bloomington Junior High. My cooperating teacher said if she did not love the kids so much, she would have quit a long time ago because she feels beaten down by the administration. They never seem to support her ideas and do not respect her college education and Master's Degree in ESL enough to help her out, even though she got the degree to be employed in the school. She said sometimes she misses her job at the ELI because they appreciated her efforts there and they always were supportive of her new ideas about curriculum. I saw the same thing at Andrew High School too when I was there, the teacher being beaten down by the system and having to concede to what the administration wanted instead of what statistics and empirical research support in the high school environment. I can only hope that things are going to change in the future and I will not have to fight as hard as these current teachers do.

2) "Separate is not equal. Equal is interpreted as the same treatment for all. This was a race-based legal paradigm" (pg. 230) - I think it almost goes without saying that using precedents set up by a completely different America (that is, the America of the 1950's and 60's) is ridiculous and outdated. America in the Civil Rights Era was a totally different environment than what the students in Bayview are facing every day. Yes, they face marginalization from their Caucasian peers and even by other cultures in their own school, but it is not as if they are being segregated completely from other students, like the African-American students were in that decade and decades before. I do concede that some students go to a school like the Newcomer school, but it is their own choice to do so, not because a law mandates that they do so. They have independent choices to make and are not entirely bogged down by legal business. The idea of 'separate, not equal' made no sense then, and it makes no sense now. Equality has a tricky definition, especially in this age of being politically correct. Equality for me means that students are treated with equal respect, dignity and ability to succeed. It means that every teacher comes into a room and believes that each and every one of their students can achieve and succeed in their classroom. Separation from their peers inherently demonstrates that they are not equal in the eyes of the school district and administration, and I can see why these students feel depressed and like outcasts. They feel as if they are being marginalized because they are not Caucasian, not because of their language. Yes, they should have separate classes for them for the mere fact that it is very difficult for them to keep up in mainstreamed classes. They would be failing out of school if they were in that environment all the time; they probably would pass if the class was extremely small or they had an aide the whole time which does happen but not very often. I do not believe that this separation is because no one believes in them, it is just what is best for them at that given time. I do feel that some students get stuck in this separation and then do not want to leave because of the safety and security of being with people who understand and sympathize with their situation. However, it remains true that they can leave the classroom when they are ready to be mainstreamed so this indicates that situations have slightly improved in that domain, but still have a long way to go.

3) "There was explicit resistance to the idea of using children's home languages in the schools and to the implication that more Spanish speaking and Latino teachers would need to be hired" (pg. 234) [Response to Chacon-Moscone Bilingual Bicultural Education Act] - This completely surprised me. This is what seems to be a great document to support bilingual/bicultural education in schools but Madison completely turned it down. Obviously, no document or act is without its faults but the book did not detail everything about the act so I am not sure what it entails and how it would have been implemented. I think it is so sad that they just turned it down because they did not want to hire bilingual teachers. In California, finding a bilingual teacher would not be difficult at all. Most of the population in California speaks Spanish or Chinese and both of these languages would be a huge asset to any school. Again, it all comes down to money as it always does. Money is a big deal in schools especially since schools do not get enough of it then and still now. It surprises me that education never gets any funding from any government agency, and I recently discovered that the Secretary of Education is from Illinois. I would like to know what he is thinking about our own schools here as well as in the country, especially in places with high bilingual populations like Chicago or Los Angeles. It just makes no sense that schools would not bilingual or bicultural education when that is the audience that they are catering to in their schools. It just goes to show that they do not want to face reality about their population of immigrant students and still want to cater to the Caucasian community instead of to the immigrant population, which to me seems racist and unfair. Using a student's home language in school gives them a sense of pride and makes them feel as if English is not being privileged as much as it does right now. Teachers need to appreciate all the respective cultures in their classroom and have days specifically for their culture, like Hmong, Spanish, Congolese, Vietnamese, whatever you come into contact with, no matter what it is. Students can benefit from knowing about other cultures as well as show off their own!

4) "Will we stand up for equal access and equal opportunity? Will we finally grapple with the ways in which our schools sort or exclude children based on their skin color, national origin, or home language?" (pg. 237) - The book leaves us with this question to contemplate. I think it is not just a question for teachers or administration or Laurie Olsen as an observer, but for the United States as a whole. I think that people have been standing up for equal opportunities in this century, and things have been slowly progressing, so I do believe that there is still hope for these children who come here with their families hoping for a better life and better opportunities. Immigrants have been doing this since the late 1800's, and I think it will continue for a good long time. Current issues in the Spanish-speaking community with immigration spark debate all across the country and coming from my stance as an educator and a person who speaks Spanish, I think that it is a difficult issue even for me to form an opinion on; on one hand, immigration makes us more diverse and brings new ideas to the table, but on the other hand, population growth is not being maintained in the United States and immigrants are only going to big cities for opportunities when there are plenty of places that they can go that can support more people and more jobs can be created. I do not know if that would work, but I feel like it might relieve the larger cities. I think that someday people will be given equal access, but it is going to take a long time. I do not know if it will even be solved in my lifetime; we are just now discussing these issues and they are not even at the forefront of discussion in this country. Right now there are more pressing issues for the government to decide on like the national budget, but we do need people to stand up for these children and make their case for them. Educators are the number one group of people that can do that.