Cross Cultural Issues in Education: Learning Through Listening
Alicia's Page
There were many important topics discussed in ES
499 Spring term.
One of the most important topics that we discussed was the essentialness
of family, and especially parental, involvement in the education of children.This
is true for families of all races and ethnic backgrounds, but we discussed
specifically how parental involvement leads to the educational success
of minority children. I have
long believed that parental involvement is the most important tool
that children have.As a future
educator, I was ecstatic to see that so much emphasis was put on this tool
in our class, and that so many “experts” agreed with me.
Two
of the most fascinating groups that we got to talk to, and the ones that
many of us enjoyed the most, were a group of mothers of minority children
going to school in the U.S., and then we got to talk to their children.This
was such a wonderful experience because it was obvious that the mothers
of the children were very involved in every part of their children’s lives,
and then we got to see how successful their children were because of it.
The
mothers were passionate about the fact that they wanted their children
to be educated.Even though they
didn’t have a lot of education themselves, (one of them said that she quit
school at the age of 15) they really wanted something better than that
for their children and were willing to go to amazing sacrifice so that
their children would be successful.One
of the mothers said that she attended school nearly every day with one
of her sons during his senior year of high school, just so that he wouldn’t
quit.
I
was floored by the dedication that these mothers had for their children,
and it was obvious when we talked to their children, that it had really
paid off. We talked to two
girls who were 17 and 18 year old sisters.These
were two successful students by any standards.They
were hard workers and seemed to not only be “book smart”, but also seemed
to be making very wise moral and personal choices.They
both have plans to attend Western Oregon State University and want to become
teachers.They pointed out that part
of what made them so successful was that education was important to their
families, but that it wasn’t necessarily for a lot of families.One
very interesting note that they made was that one of them said that if
she could do just one thing to change schools she would get rid of all
of the ESL classes because they are a waste of time and not much teaching
or learning is taking place in them.(They
were also not big fans of bilingual classrooms.)
The
importance of family involvement in education can’t be overestimated.All
of the stakeholders that we talked to discussed this fact to some extent,
but these two groups of people that I just mentioned really showed why
it was important and how it could be most successful.I
enjoyed them immensely and wish them all the best of luck with their and
their children’s education.
Some Other Important
Links:
http://www.nethelp.no/Cindy/myth.html This link is about help for bilingual families.
http://www.multi.demon.co.uk/This link is subtitled “Multilingual Matters”.
http://www.multi.demon.co.uk/bakerenc.htmThis is a link to the Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education.
mailto:multi@multilingual-matters.comThis website gives information on finding books specifically about bilingual families.
http://wwwl.csun.edu/This is a link to the California State University Northridge- education and ethnic studies.
Link back to class home page: