Beaten Down

This semester is quite frustrating to me. I am in a Spanish class that the teacher expects to just run itself. Seriously. She assigns a reading, we read it and answer the questions, then she goes over the questions during the next class. She never budges from her chair and is the most boring teacher I have ever had.

With that aside, it is a literature class. I hate literature classes - I have since high school when I realized that teachers interpret the works the way they want to and it doesn't matter how you (the student) interpret it. If your interpretation of the author's intent and meaning differs from that of the teacher, you're wrong. Plain and simple. That is exactly how this NON teacher is. It is so frustrating. Especially when it comes test time and I have no way of knowing what her ideas are.

This class is the last class have each day I go to school and I always leave feeling beaten down, worthless, and angry.


Dilemma

Everything I have been taught thus far in the teaching program with regard to students that are learning English as a second language tells me that these students would do their best in a total immersion atmosphere. This means that they are taught in only English and not their native tongues. All the "experts" say that this is the method that will make them learn the language the quickest.

I have a dilemma with this. My philosophy is that the language is not as important as the content. The longer we as educators concentrate on language, the further behind these kids get. That is the main reason I chose to pursue a Spanish minor - so that I can help the majority of the kids that fall in this category and hopefully give them a better education. The problem with my philosophy is that it goes against the "experts."

I've done a couple of field observations so far. In the first observation, I was in a middle school and observing two different English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes. In one class, I admitted the first day of observation that I spoke Spanish and observed how they treated me and the teacher as well as their learning. They were cautious to express many things socially and their main communication was with regard to the curriculum. The other ESOL class, I pretended that I didn't speak any Spanish. I witnessed these kids say things that were not appropriate for a classroom - things about their peers, about their teacher, and about me. At the end of my observation (that went over the course of 12 weeks) I went in to the second class speaking Spanish. Their eyes got as big as saucers as they recounted their behavior over the previous 12 weeks. Behavior that was off-task, mostly social, and not curriculum based at all.

Yesterday, I had the privilege to help out in Lexi's kindergarten classroom for literary centers - when the class is divided into groups that rotate around the room to various centers that are set up. The teacher was with one group, the parapro was with another, I was with another, and one group worked at the computers. After the first switch the group I had had one student that spoke nothing but French and one that spoke nothing but Spanish. (Yes, the school followed the immersion policy and these kids were in the general education classroom, but I don't feel that their being placed in the same literary group is what the "experts" meant about full immersion.) Anyway, I have 5 years of French from middle and high school as well as 4 recent years of Spanish so I knew, if I had to, I would be able to communicate with these children. When they first sat down on the carpet with me, they were solemn, quiet, blank expressions, shoulders slumped. I felt terrible! I tried to instruct them in English as to what they were supposed to do, but it was obvious they didn't understand. I broke the rules of the "experts" and spoke to them in their language reiterating every sentence in English and then encouraging English responses from them. Their eyes lit up. It was like someone just threw them a life preserver. They did the activity as instructed and looked to me constantly for positive reinforcement. They knew that I was proud of them and that gave them their boost.

That. That right there is why I want to be a teacher AND why I want this Spanish minor. BUT, it is against what the "experts" say is in the best interest of the child. I'm so torn. What should I believe...what I read in a book somewhere or what I know from experience? Quite the quandary.

I've seen a documentary on PBS about the benefits of bilingual education. In fact Dalton, GA which is somewhat nearby is #2 in the nation for hispanic immigrants and they experimented with bilingual education and it was very successful to the children's English language development as well as their curriculum knowledge. Now that's a success story! I know that the state does not have the resources for this to be possible in every school, but I honestly believe that it should be a requirement of all graduating education majors to also have minors in some language. Think of what a difference that would make further down the road. Afterall, according to law every child is entitled to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE). How is teaching in a language the child doesn't understand appropriate? I imagine they feel as I do when I leave school everyday but they have to deal with it for the majority of their day while I only have to deal with it for an hour and 15 minutes. I feel for those kids.


On a brighter note...

I had a telephone conference with Lexi's teacher today. According to the Georgia Kindergarten Assesment, she has achieved just about everything they would expect except she struggles with the concept of in front of and behind (something I guess I never noticed before because this took me by surprise) and she struggles with recognizing lower case 'b' and 'd' which is very common. According to some other assessment that she took on the computer, her reading is at a 722. I don't know what this necessarily means, but her teacher said that normally they would like for students to be at a 700 when entering 1st grade, so I guess it means that she is reading at a beginning 1st grade level. Something like that.

Anyway, this has gone on for so long that I guess I should close now.