Tongue Tied 

Teaching Multilingual Children

"language is enchanting, powerful, magical, useful, personal, natural, All-important" The book Tongue Tied By Otto Santa Ana Gives first-person accounts into the lives of linguistic minority students and their experience in coping in school and beyond. Aria by Richard Rodriguez gives an inside story about growing up multilingual. While he was in 1st grade, he considered Spanish to be a private language he spoke at home with his family. His experience in school unfortunately didn't sound like a positive experience from nuns making him scared, afraid, nervous and at times sounds as if he was put on the spot in front of the class. For a young child, it would have been nice for his teacher to be able to greet him in Spanish so he didn't feel like he didn't belong or felt welcomed. He was silent in school until three nuns arrived at his home to speak with his parents. They asked if they spoke with him in Spanish at home and asked his parents “is it possible for you and your husband to encourage your children to practice their English at home?” Due to the fact this was a church asking this of them, they agreed. In the beginning, it worked ok practicing words after dinner. His parents spoke Spanish to each other but when he entered the room they spoke in English. By the time he was 7 he came to believe he was an American citizen but technically he was one since birth. His parents became more involved in the neighborhood learning their names. His family life became more and more quiet as they learned more and more English. They shared fewer words with their parents. They had to learn to speak slower so their parents would understand. He recalls he would have been happier about my public success had I not sometimes recalled what it had been like earlier. The chapter Teaching Multilingual Children by Virginia Collier Virginia has a little bit of a different take on multilingual children in the classroom, Virginia is a professor that recommends guidelines that orient teachers to approach their classes with confidence and offer parents and offers an idea of what to expect for their children. 1 Be aware that children use. First language acquisition strategies for learning or acquiring a second language The picture, that has emerged thus far from first language acquisition research, is that children actively engage in a gradual, subconscious, and creative proof-discovery procedure through which they acquire the rule system of the language 2 Do not think of yourself as a remedial teacher expected to correct so-called “deficiencies” of your students. Instead, whether in English, Korean, Spanish, Greek, or Portuguese, you are working to develop the child's language as an effective instrument of intellectual growth. 3 Don’t teach a second language in any way that challenges or seeks to eliminate the first language Instead of eradication, the most popular view among linguists and bilingual educators requires the teacher's conscious recognition of "bi-dialectism. To affirm the home language means that they will not be told that they are wrong. 4 Teach the standard form of English and students home language together with an appreciation of dialect differences to create an environment of language recognition in the classroom One of the most difficult things for teachers to do when teaching a second language to native speakers of other languages is to fully accept and give complete credence to the different languages and dialects they bring to the classroom. It is the social bias that language-minority students experience most often in school. 5 Do not forbid young students from code washing in the classroom. Understand the functions that code-switching serves. When bilingual people use both languages in speech, alternating between the two, they code-switch. Code-switching occurs at the word, phrase, clause, or sentence level. 6 Provide a literacy development curriculum that is specifically designed for English language learners Guideline #6 immediately generates a question. Which language is best for English-language learner literacy development: the home language. 7 Provide a balanced and integrated approach to the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In the literate world, children become aware very early of the importance of written language through books, the media, signs, printed containers, logos, instructions. and endless forms of environmental print. They might first learn to read stories that they themselves dictated to their teacher, as well as through games, recipes. and maps Virginia stated “language is enchanting, powerful, magical, useful, personal, natural and all important. The reasons for activities in the classroom are to eliminate boredom, raise awareness and make language teaching as well as learning as culturally relevant. The hope is to make the learning process to enrich the lives of students as well as the teachers. After reading both articles I can see how life was different for Mr Rodriguez after speaking English more than their home language at home. I can understand a teacher asking parents to help with homework, or learning their words for school but not asking them to only speak English while at home, that takes away from their family dynamic, it's asking them to change their lives. I agree with Virginia Once a child becomes literate in the home language, literacy skills transfer to second language settings. Home language develops the benefit of a child's cognitive development oral and written. Many of my students are multilingual learners, we have a great MLL teacher that works with our students for part of the day. I have worked in a high school and elementary school. I don't speak Spanish so I have had to find a way to communicate with my students when they come to my office. I use Google Translate on my phone and online translating my emails or notifications before sending them to their parents. I think it important to work with all the school staff from teachers, principals, nurses, lunch aids, and building aids to have a plan when it comes to caring for our students, but when it comes to our MLL students I think it is important for our support staff to know how to communicate. I found a website while looking into this topic I found helpful as a school nurse.

  https://www.valentinaesl.com/blog/22-things-educators-can-do-now-to-support-multilingual-learners

 The article I chose this week was Blaming Mothers: A disability perspective. By Ruth Colker

In too many school districts, if a child has a disability, the mother is blamed for whatever difficulties occur. Most often, she is considered overly aggressive in advocating for her child or negligent for failing to do enough.

I chose this article mainly because I work in an elementary school with many special ed and behavioral children and a mother. I hear comments before and after meetings. When I have to attend IEP meetings for my students we see all kinds of parents, some that are more involved in their child's medical and education and then we have others that don't seem to care or maybe just don't understand This article gave good examples of different school situations with mothers wanting to get the right and appropriate care/education. 

According to the article, blaming the mother is a long-standing cultural tradition in the United States. Leo Kanner, the researcher credited with identifying autism as a specific neurological disorder in 1943, blamed it on “refrigerator mothers,” a term popularized by University of Chicago researcher Bruno Bettelheim, who drew parallels between these mothers and guards in Germany’s concentration camps. The "refrigerator mother" theory had a significant impact on mothers of autistic children. They were often blamed for their child's condition and were made to feel guilty and ashamed, even though they had done nothing wrong. Dorothy Roberts has documented the stereotyping of the mothers of so-called “crack babies,” even though medical research has failed to substantiate any such condition, syndrome, or disorder. Susan Okie calls it “the epidemic that wasn’t,” because cocaine’s effects on a fetus “are less severe than those of alcohol and are comparable to those of tobacco.” Race and wealth play a part as well, due to a woman being poor her baby has a low birth weight. 

There are 5 different examples of blaming mothers

Blame mother for incompetence

Blame  mother for being to assertive

Blame mother for being to passive

Blame mother for working outside the home

No easy solutions

The one I found pretty interesting was Blaming mother for incompetence. They gave an example of a mother that had a child that was deaf at 18 months old.  He had hearing aids by the time he was two, when he was 4 the school district determined he was eligible for special education for hearing impaired and speech. When he was 10 he received a cochlear implant but wasn't able to use it properly.  His communication skills was under 2 and his primary way to communicate was sign language. When he was  12 years old, his mother, Nancy Jimenez, requested that the school district  send her son  to a school for the deaf so he could be more thoroughly immersed in ASL (american sign language) and begin to make adequate educational progress. The school district refused the request and blamed his parents for his lack of progress. His mother was criticized for her son not receiving a cochlear implant til he was 11. This continued for 2 years with no progress. She found a lawyer, David Grey, to help her file a due process complaint on behalf of her son before an administrative law judge (ALJ). The judge held six days of hearings and rendered a decision two months later entirely in favor of the school district.  Her attorney Mr Grey appealed and won when he was 16. The judge found that the school had completely ignored the highly credible testimony of His Mother about the substantial language difficulties that he faced at school. He could not understand  an insult when another child called him a “stupid dork.” The school district’s “blame the mother” strategy ultimately failed, her son won unfortunately it took four years so according to the article he was the loser in this situation. The part of the article most interesting: is how long it took this mother to get the proper education this boy needed. The article was titled Blame Mother for Incompetence, nothing in this article shows she was incompetent. The school was incompetent and failed this family and student.

I started with this article and became interested in what is a refrigerator mom, I never heard of it before. So I looked into what is a refrigerator mom was. I found a video with a good understanding of what a refrigerator mom is. The documentary it is a little long but very interesting and sad to see how these parents were blamed for their child's autism The stories in the video are heartbreaking for these parents, some were told their child couldn't have autism because they're not white and educated. They recommended the child not to grow up with their families. The video shows very strong, dedicated mothers.

 Other People's Children 

Reading this article a few things caught my attention. Those with power are least aware of it or least willing to acknowledge it those with less power are often most aware of its existence. Lisa Delpit presents her views concerning the difficulties children of color face in American schools. The author suggests that these children are denied access to the “culture of power,” with its implied rules and codes that are advanced by members of white middle-class society.  Delpit maintains that to affect positive change, teachers of black students must be more successful as “cultural transmitters” and must find a way to educate these students about the system, while also affirming and validating their own culture. I am not a teacher, I am a school nurse I feel being a teacher can be challenging trying to teach the school criteria based on the school dept but also being able to be successful with their own culture and view while maintaining all the student's cultures and views I would think this would be difficult to keep everyone happy.

 She also states that we must acknowledge the issues of black teachers and parents, whose voices have been stifled by stereotypes, bias, and societal diminishment as part of “the silenced dialogue.”  In the book, Delpit uses her knowledge and experiences to advocate for an educational practice that provides equity for students of color by addressing the miscommunication among cultures that causes black students to fail.

Martha Demientif had a great quote “ We must learn to be vulnerable enough to allow our world to turn upside down in order to allow the realities of others to edge themselves into our consciousness”.

I liked how Amanda Branscomble taught her students she found a way to get to them. She worked with black high school students who were labeled “slow Learners” She found a way to get the students engaged in their educations. She had them analyze rap songs which turned into a base into Shakespeare plays, very similar to the movie Dangerous minds with Michelle Pfiefer who played Lou Ann Johnson.

I have seen this with some of our teachers trying to find a way to keep students engaged in learning,

We have to Listen to the way people talk not to judge them but to tell what part of the river they came from. ( Martha Demeintieff.)

Dangerous Minds

 What is Color-blindness? What does it  Look Like?

• I don't see color. I just see people. 

• We're all just people.

• I don't care if you're black, white, green, or purple-polka-dotted!

• #AllLivesMatter

These are some of the terms we hear and examples of colorblindness. 

Some may think colorblindness is a good thing,  It focuses on commonalities between people, such as their shared humanity. However, colorblindness alone is not sufficient to heal racial wounds on a national or personal level. It is only a half-measure that in the end operates as a form of racism according to Monica T Williams Ph.D. Racism Is a strong term, but it looks at the issue straight in its unseeing eye. In a colorblind society, white people, who are unlikely to experience disadvantages due to race, can effectively ignore racism in American life, justify the current social order, and feel more comfortable with their relatively privileged standing in society (Fryberg, 2010). Most people of color, however, who regularly encounter difficulties due to race, experience colorblind ideologies quite differently. Colorblindness creates a society that denies their negative racial experiences, rejects their cultural heritage, and invalidates their unique perspectives.

Blind means not being able to see things. I don't want to be blind. I want to see things clearly, even if they make me uncomfortable. I found this sentence to give a great perspective on colorblindness. 

My color insight note

I work in an elementary school with 340 students. We have approximately 60 staff members 58 are white and 2 are  black. Our principal is a white male and every teacher including teacher assistants are white, 3 male teachers, and all the rest are women. I have a population of MLL students around 25-30 and 15 black students. I have never really sat down and thought about my students and staff and how many are non-white until I started this class. 

My husband’s grandparents are from Ukraine, they immigrated from Ukraine to Poland and were sponsored by a family in New York to have them come to America. His Grandfather Arsen and grandmother Elgokia, she was pregnant with my father-in-law at the time and his uncle was 9. His grandmother was a seamstress and his grandfather was a locksmith. They later moved to Pawtucket with not much money. They never learned to speak English but both my father-in-law and his uncle learned English in the school system.(this reminds me of many of my student's families) When they came over to New York they said their last name in Ukrainian so we don't know if Our last name is spelled correctly and the proper pronunciation. I found this interesting. They were both 36 with 2 children, they were able to make a living and didn't speak a word of English. They had issues with people giving them difficulty because of the language barrier. I thought about them with this reading and video, coming to a new country with children not speaking English, and how were they treated, We get people who look at our last name and say I'm not even going to try and say that, it was hurtful and disrespectful to them. I found their original document when they arrived in NY in 1956.