VIEWPOINT (South Bend Tribune 1/2/09)
By MELISSA BEBOUT
Last month, I asked my French class a basic question: "What did you eat for Thanksgiving dinner?" Many ate turkey, but not all. Some gathered with their families for ham or tacos. One had rice with shawa. I didn't even know what shawa, a traditional African steak dish, was.
Here, in this perfectly normal Midwestern public school, we get students from every corner of the globe, and we teach them all — whether or not they actually eat turkey on "Turkey Day" or use another language to give thanks. In fact, for the majority of students in my class, French is now their third language.
Despite these multilingual honors students who swarm my classroom, according to the state we are failing because our students fail the state-mandated tests. These are tests they must pass whether they have been here for 10 years or two weeks. The tests are in English.
It's a familiar plight for schools across the United States. According to the Census Bureau, 20 percent of the population speaks a language other than English at home, while public high schools struggle to provide a quality education to everyone. We teach the new arrivals English as quickly as possible to "catch them up" to their English-speaking peers so they can perform better on tests, succeed academically and go on to college.
Other languages are discouraged so students can focus on learning English, the language of American education, business and law.
Even bilingual education programs, which provide content in the first language while students develop English skills, have been eliminated from many American schools because, as the author of California's Proposal 227 that banned it points out, most bilingual education is provided in Spanish, and Californians speak more than 140 languages.
Meanwhile, Hispanic students are one of the lowest-performing student populations. He says "the reason they're doing so badly is they don't learn how to read or write English properly in the schools."
Supposedly, English- only policies treat students equally since they emphasize English and do not support one language more than others. This policy seems directly related to the "colorblind" attitude that we teachers are encouraged to take: Ignore racial and cultural differences, otherwise you could be perceived as racist. Treat everyone the same.
But not everyone is the same. Being "colorblind" does not recognize the differences in experiences students bring that affect their education. This is not to say we should support stereotypes by expecting certain student groups to perform in certain ways — all students are individuals that have the ability to succeed.
There is another way.
Experts say the key to making minority students successful is to value their differences and treat their cultural heritages and bilingualism as assets to academia and society, rather than deficits. Our students are not a problem to be fixed.
"Multicultural education takes into account the culture, language, and experiences of all people and promotes those attitudes and critical skills that empower all learners to lead productive and meaningful lives in an increasingly interdependent society," says Dr. Gina P. Cantoni, director of International Programs at Northern Arizona University.
The Young Interpreters Program, implemented in a San Francisco Bay school where 65 percent of students learn English as a second language, is one program that uses a multicultural approach that has been very successful. Noah Borrero says this elective class works because students are "identified as important members of the school community, they (are) taught important literacy skills (such as paraphrasing), and they (are) put in authentic learning experiences where their bilingualism (is) utilized and valued." In addition, students have improved significantly on testing and in overall academic achievement as a result of their participation in this program.
But the beauty of a program like Young Interpreters is not just that it raises test scores and helps immigrants integrate successfully into American schools. Multiculturalism teaches students about understanding and respecting the fundamental differences in values between cultures, which fosters understanding between peoples and leads to peace between nations.
Cantoni explains, "In the microcosm of the multicultural classroom, students can learn to reject racism and prejudice and begin to respect and appreciate one another as contributors to a common pool of knowledge. ... It is a small beginning, but it may lead to a willingness to suspend judgment against a group ... and to a reluctance to engage in warfare against them."
Multicultural education offers students a way to communicate with people from other cultures, a skill essential in this global economy.
So, should we insist students learn English? Of course, because the system isn't going to change, and the tests aren't going away. But, I take heart in knowing that when we also teach children how to respect others and use their talents and experiences to contribute to society and resolve problems peacefully, we cannot fail.
Melissa Bebout teaches at Goshen High School. She lives in Goshen.
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