Monday, June 4, 2007
Real Life Experience
I was speaking to my mom's cousin who was a math teacher in Patterson for many years and eventually became part of the ESL program there. She was so excited when I told her about taking this class. She is Cuban and for many years she was one of the only teachers in her school to be catering to the Spanish speaking students. She also told me how mnay times students would be considered less intelligent or troubel makers, but the real problem was that they were simply having trouble understanding. Math can be confusing enough for many students so when it was being taught to them in a different language it was jsut extra difficult. She took both in-class and out of class time to work with and help these students understand. She did speak spanish to them but she also took the time to help them learn english and assimilate. No one told her that it was her responsibility to help these students but she felt as a teacher it was her job to help them. Eventually they moved her into the ESL program where it was her main job to help the non english speaking students. As happy as she was to teach these students, she couldn't believe that for so long barely any of the other teachers were accomodating these students. Also, by not taking the time to help or recognize the real problem of them not understanding, other teachers labeled many of these students as "bad" kids. She said that everythign I was learning in this class would be very beneficial to me but she also agreed that as a teacher I should always be bettering myself by making myself more aware of different cultures.
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2 comments:
In today's society, I consider everyone to very lazy. It's hard to find people who are willing to serve others without being rewarded. I can understand their point of view, everyone is so busy and involved with their own lives when you do get a free moment you want to just relax and not have to worry about anything else. But that's not the way the world works. We need to help each other as much as we can in order to insure our future. Is that hard to help even one child a day. Imagine how far that would take us.
I think this is such a great story! Your mom's cousin seemed to really take an interest in these students and it has probably made such a difference in their lives. That is definitely a reward in itself! I agree that it is horrible that these students were labeled as "the bad kids," that is just awful. I think that someone should have noticed before they had reached your mom's cousin. This also goes back to that story that Professor Tomich had told us last week. When she talked about how one boy was placed in special education just because he did not speak the language that well. That school system cost that poor boy many years of his rightful education. I feel that we are all choosing to go into this field for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is that we want to help these students. We are going into a field that is focusing on helping others so I think everyone should be taking an interest in students who are having trouble. i also agree that Math is confusind enough. I can't even imagine trying to learn it without even understanding the language. I feel that stories like this and this class has really showed me how big of a problem this is. However, I think this class is a step in the right direction because we are learning how to fix this problem and how to deal with students who do not know the language. This was really an encouraging story, the way your mom's cousin made a difference in these students lives, and she did it without question.
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