This chapter is an overview of all the missed opportunities for learning, the avoidance of speaking to culturally different families more because it was 'uncomfortable' and the lack of coordination between the ESL and General Education teachers.
Fortunitly, our group was very adept at noticing missed learning opportunities and made many of the same recommendations about pushing harder and going further to best serve Peley and Raji in their education.
We also got a look at how assessments can be culturally biased and opportunities missed by the student because of cultural differences. Peley was able to score so high on her literacy tests that she should have been recommended for the program but instead only was placed in advanced reading. Raji who was also very literate was placed in an average group. The parents made sure their children could read and write English. It is the value they placed on it and impressed upon their children.
However, the lack of social skills which are needed to maintain literacy were a hold back for these students.
They were not able to make that social connection at school, which many of the theorists' in Mooney's text stress as highly important for development. The reason? The conflict between home and school cultures. Peley and Raji had to live going back and forth between two cultures when they went from home and school. They did not get to share in the benefit of the cultures being the same like the other children did.
Which of this chapter's suggestions for change do you think would be the best and simplest to implement to quickly start turning this situation around?
Have any of us been color blind, and thinking this is the best approach?
On the topic of our group seeing the opportunites, we have to remember these once we are in the field. It's easy to see the chances but we must push ourselves. Professor Ahmad is correct about one thing, through out our years in this graduate program, we must take our walls down. I do think that our group as a whole is doing a great job at doing this.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there is a quick fix, but for me the best idea would have been to have a push in class a few days a week for the ESL program. I also would make sure the ESL program is insync with the classroom programs.
I agree with Dominick that a push-in class would be best. It seems that the difficulties in Peley and Raji's year could have been dramatically alleviated if there had been better home / school communication and if the ESL teacher had coordinated more with the classroom. Those two changes alone would have made a huge difference.
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