Every day that I work, I am in contact with students with IEPs. 99% of the students that I see have an
emotional, behavioral, learning, or intellectual disability. Their abilities
range from students who cannot read to students who are in honors classes and
going off to college. There is such a variety especially when doing transition
programming, which is basically my job. I help students with special needs
prepare for college, the workforce, vocational training, and/or community
involvement (page 150). My role is to find out what the student would like to
do during and after high school and get them started on their path. If a
student would like to become a chef, we talk to the counselors during the IEP meeting and enroll them in culinary
art courses. The students with intellectual abilities, we try and prepare them
for vocational training and getting them school sponsored jobs with supports.
Students with learning and/or emotional and behavioral disabilities, we try to
find a path for them. Whether it is college, a trade school, or a university.
This is done with surveys and short interviews that I do with them throughout
the year.
Until I got to chapter 5, I didn't know that I
was part of Generation 1.5 (page 188). I was in the middle ground of being an immigrant
student, but wanting and feeling like a U.S. born student. I came to America
from Mexico at the age of 3 and I ended up learning English a few years into my schooling here. I was becoming a
bilingual student. A problem that arose was that I was slowly losing my grasp
on the Spanish language through subtractive bilingualism. I didn't care when I
was younger because I wanted to speak English like my friends at school. Now as
adult, I owe my job to knowing a second language (I am pretty sure that I only
got my job for simply stating that I can speak Spanish). I translate for
parents and students on a daily basis. And although my Spanish is not the best,
I am slowly relearning everything. I even reiterate this to the bilingual
students in school. Practice and maintain any language that you know, it can
lead to you to completely new opportunities.
It is hard to think about relating your
students' ethnicities and teaching at the same time.
On one hand, I would like to treat all my students equally and fairly. On the
other hand, I know that it might create problems with students especially if
they are not used to that type of environment. In watching this module's
videos, I learned that the perception students have of
their teacher can be affected by the teacher's ethnicity. A student may respect
a teacher more just because they share the same
ethnicity. That and while talking to student in a certain tone may be harmless
and necessary, it may offend or upset another student. It is a two way street
in teaching and introducing the pragmatics of the classroom (page 237). The
language a teacher uses can be the difference between having a student's
attention and losing him to a distraction.
I could not agree more with the trouble of balancing between treating everyone fairly and yet considering everyone's cultural beliefs. What I have learned with my students, which sounds similar to your classroom, is that talking about it as much as possible without completely being disrupting helps through the sometimes misunderstood situations.
ReplyDeleteI could not agree more with the trouble of balancing between treating everyone fairly and yet considering everyone's cultural beliefs. What I have learned with my students, which sounds similar to your classroom, is that talking about it as much as possible without completely being disrupting helps through the sometimes misunderstood situations.
ReplyDeleteTony, it's interesting that you didn't care about keeping your Spanish abilities when you were younger and that you were losing them. When did you realize that you really didn't want to lose this ability? I would think that if you just realized this when you wanted to get this job, it would be much too late. So I'm thinking that you must have had this realization much earlier?
ReplyDeleteTony, as an immigrant myself, I know exactly what you are saying. Coming to America at age three all I knew was Arabic. After starting school I started to pck up the english language. My mom at home made sure that all we spoke was Arabic at home but the older we became the more English we spoke. As an adult and getting married I started to interact more with Arabic speaking people and that helped me to keep up with speaking Arabic and when i got hired to work at a public school where the majority spoke Arabic helped me even more to keep up with Arabic. Now when I speak it no oone knows if I was raised here in the States or overseas.
ReplyDeleteI really didn't try and practice my skills on my own for the majority of my childhood and throughout my teens. I did take Spanish courses in high school but only because I wanted the "easy" credit. I used my base knowledge of Spanish to get by.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, as bad as it sounds, when I began my job in translating I was a nervous wreck. I felt that I was unqualified for the level of work that was expected of me. I also felt that I only got my position because of the words "fluent in Spanish" on my resume. So then I felt that I needed to change my attitude about my Spanish skills and began to expand my vocabulary. So this had to be within the last 3 years when I began to turn it around. There were times when I struggled in trying to find the correct words in translations but I am improving.
I find it interesting how subtractive bilingualism works. As someone who is not bilingual, I just would assume it is like riding a bike and would just come back to you. I took Spanish in high school and feel I still van remember the basics (well to an extent). :)
ReplyDeleteI wanted to tell you in the last class we had, intro the education that your story is amazing. I believe that you are an inspiration to many people. When you discussed how you have been working and jumping through so many hurdles to officially become a citizen, floored me. .I find your story brave and courageous; obviously you have the patience of a saint. You can do alot of difference in many kids lives who feel that they can never reach their goals, your life proves you can.
ReplyDelete