Blog #3: The Value and Power of Language
It seems that every school in America will claim in their mission statement something along the lines of embracing diversity. But how true is this? The same schools that hang banners from a variety of countries in their foyers are also guilty of silencing students who are linguistically diverse, stripping students of their identity. Christensen reflects on her students' observations that teachers often "whitewash" students of different cultures, reinforcing the English Only laws that plague classrooms around the nation (Christensen 209). In reflecting on her teaching, she created a unit that analyzed not only the roots of linguistic genocide but the act of schools perpetuating inferiority of languages that are not English. I witnessed this in a school that has stuck with me throughout my undergraduate studies and has helped shape my teacher identity.
As a special education major, I began my first practicum in my second year of college. This was initially daunting, because I was teaching seniors who were only a year younger than me. Nonetheless, the experience was mainly a positive one and it was here that my decision to go into Education was validated. But what I'll never forget from this teaching experience was something a teacher told me about a student whose primary language was Spanish. At this school, my cooperating teacher ran the school store during lunch periods with the help of a few other teachers. Because I wanted to acclimate myself to the school's culture, I also helped run the store and met many wonderful students through it. At the school store, we sold concessions items such as chips, candy, cookies, soda, water, and even ramen noodles. My responsibility was taking students' orders, getting their items, and then completing the transaction. Many students weren't able to communicate what they wanted through verbal language, and would point to what they wanted. Other students had some verbal language, but would also often resort to pointing. There was one student who greeted me with "hola" and then asked me for a "coca-cola," so I reached for a can of coke. The student shook his head and pointed to the refrigerator and again repeated his request. Because I wasn't sure how to communicate back, I too pointed to all of the soda choices one by one until I got to the one he wanted, which was grape soda. One of the teachers, who had been watching this, took the grape soda, shoved it towards him, and said, "In this country we call it grape soda. Can you say that? Grape soda?" The student shrugged and left. The teacher turned to me with disgust and said, "We speak English in this country. They need to learn our language and I have no sympathy for them if they don't." In response to this, I suggested that we make a Spanish/English menu for all of the items we sold at the store, since almost 70% of students spoke Spanish as their first language. She didn't like that idea, and responded with, "They need to learn our language."
After completing multiple practicums since then, this experience sticks out in my memory as one that has shaped my teacher identity and philosophy. Here, we have a student who was struggling to communicate his request because he couldn't translate his own language into English. And then we have an educator, whose first language is also Spanish, who let him struggle and then taught him the word in an aggressive manner. And then we have an educator who denies making a bilingual menu to help other students and to reinforce the school's mission to embrace diversity. This experience reinforces Christensen's observations that schools perpetuate an English Only ideology, stripping students of their linguistic and cultural identity and creating an exclusive learning environment. Establishing a learning environment for students of linguistic diversity to learn English while continuing to practice and celebrate their primary language is essential, and I hope to carry this experience and Christensen's ideals with me to better the learning experiences of my students.
As a special education major, I began my first practicum in my second year of college. This was initially daunting, because I was teaching seniors who were only a year younger than me. Nonetheless, the experience was mainly a positive one and it was here that my decision to go into Education was validated. But what I'll never forget from this teaching experience was something a teacher told me about a student whose primary language was Spanish. At this school, my cooperating teacher ran the school store during lunch periods with the help of a few other teachers. Because I wanted to acclimate myself to the school's culture, I also helped run the store and met many wonderful students through it. At the school store, we sold concessions items such as chips, candy, cookies, soda, water, and even ramen noodles. My responsibility was taking students' orders, getting their items, and then completing the transaction. Many students weren't able to communicate what they wanted through verbal language, and would point to what they wanted. Other students had some verbal language, but would also often resort to pointing. There was one student who greeted me with "hola" and then asked me for a "coca-cola," so I reached for a can of coke. The student shook his head and pointed to the refrigerator and again repeated his request. Because I wasn't sure how to communicate back, I too pointed to all of the soda choices one by one until I got to the one he wanted, which was grape soda. One of the teachers, who had been watching this, took the grape soda, shoved it towards him, and said, "In this country we call it grape soda. Can you say that? Grape soda?" The student shrugged and left. The teacher turned to me with disgust and said, "We speak English in this country. They need to learn our language and I have no sympathy for them if they don't." In response to this, I suggested that we make a Spanish/English menu for all of the items we sold at the store, since almost 70% of students spoke Spanish as their first language. She didn't like that idea, and responded with, "They need to learn our language."
After completing multiple practicums since then, this experience sticks out in my memory as one that has shaped my teacher identity and philosophy. Here, we have a student who was struggling to communicate his request because he couldn't translate his own language into English. And then we have an educator, whose first language is also Spanish, who let him struggle and then taught him the word in an aggressive manner. And then we have an educator who denies making a bilingual menu to help other students and to reinforce the school's mission to embrace diversity. This experience reinforces Christensen's observations that schools perpetuate an English Only ideology, stripping students of their linguistic and cultural identity and creating an exclusive learning environment. Establishing a learning environment for students of linguistic diversity to learn English while continuing to practice and celebrate their primary language is essential, and I hope to carry this experience and Christensen's ideals with me to better the learning experiences of my students.
Oh my gosh! I know that things like this happen but it still shocks me every time I hear about them. How can you say you promote diversity when you cause students to shove who they are under the rug? As sad as it is, I think experiences like this are necessary for future educators though. It allows us to see what needs fixing and how we can do better.
ReplyDeleteAmy,
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading this, I had a similar reaction to Ashley and I literally said, out loud, "Oh my god!!!!" That's so awful. As an educator, that teacher should've known better than to speak to a student like that, especially since Spanish was also her first language, I'm surprised she was mean to the boy and didn't take the opportunity to relate to to him on a personal level and build a stronger connection. I'm glad that this unfortunate experience helped shaped your identity though. There needs to be more educators like you!
Now the actions and thought-processes behind this educator are just flat out unacceptable to me, especially since she can actually relate to the student she was belittling like that. I think your idea was genius as a way to help ESL students acclimate to a new linguistic environment. It's all in baby steps. For her to deny that idea is just completely counter-productive to the entire mission statement of being an educator and shame on her for that! People like her are the kind that I have neither tolerance nor sympathy for. And I refuse to for obvious bigots.
ReplyDeleteThank you for being kind to the student, but trying to figure out what soda he was talking about in a nice way by showing all of the soda to him one-by-one). Your comment about the fact that many classrooms and schools feature English only reminds me of my time studying for elementary education certification/degree at RIC. my science professor was excellent. I was in an ESL classroom for that practicum class, and I believe that told us that we should include Spanish and English labels for materials and spaces in class for these students. I have since heard from one ESL teacher in ESL classes, they teach you that you should actually note do that. I'm curious what the best practices are. Based on our reading for this week, it seems to me that omitting foreign language labeling in classrooms is repressive.
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