WELCOME FOLKS TO ROXANA AGUILA'S 

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            This class was da Bomb!!!!!!!Hello, My name is Roxana Aguila and I am a senior in English. I thought this class was challenging and exciting all at the same time. I learned so much about the community and the schools in Oregon. The  first day of class was a Monday night retreat which was not a very traditional way of starting our first day of class (but this class was not going to be very traditional as  we found out later on in the week went). The retreat really helped our class unite and also build trust with each other. Trust  was important as we all would be facilitating different important discussions with very important people. Throughout the week of spring break we talked to and interviewed key people that are affiliated with or are involved in the Oregon public school systems. Our class focused on Cross Cultural Issues in education especially with the  African American/Latino students in the Oregon public school systems. The different speakers ranged in positions for instance, one was senator, others were teachers, a few were principals, and others were community activist.

            I was inspired and also alarmed of the different issues that schools face and the issues that the two ethnic groups that we were focusing on faced. My spirit hurt for these kids that were simply not making it! I learned that in Woodburn about 50% of the students are dropping out that are Latino. This is was quite alarming to me personally, because I am Latina and care very much about what is going on with my people. Several activists and teachers suggest and some declared that the teachers in Woodburn needed more training on how to teach and motivate students of color. A lot of disappointing issues were discovered by this class but I was also happy that there was honesty from our panels we interviewed. 

            Our class used a non-traditional approach to learning through out this class and this at first was very difficult to adapt to. We discussed everything from what questions we wanted to to pose to the speakers to when we should take a break. Our teachers were not traditional because they were all teachers of color and they let us teach each other. We debriefed each day after our interviews and discussed some of the issues that had risen that particular day. The method of teaching was called circular learning, because everyone is involved and its not just the teacher speaking. With this method there is a lot of repetition and at times this was very difficult for our whole class to adapt to. Everyone was not used to learning this way and it was very frustrating.

            I also thought this method was good for all of us to learn because a lot of us in the class would be going into teaching someday and we need to learn different methods of learning and teaching. From this method I really noticed that my memory was a lot better and the information seemed to just be stuck and not willing to go anywhere. I also thought this method of learning and teaching was good for us as a class to almost learn how it feels to learn new methods or methods that do not flow with our traditional way of learning, so in order to experience what students of color experience in school at times.  
            This class was very challenging but it really impacted me in many different ways. The migrant mothers were the most interesting to me personally because they had real concerns with the system that are sometimes never heard due to the language barrier. The mothers expressed how hard it was to communicate with the school systems and also how difficult tit was to find teachers that were passionate about their job. I thought this a obstacle that Oregon must try to over come if we want to really serve our children who will be the future leader of the nation. This class I would recommend for anyone even thinking about going into teaching because it really will open your eyes to the difficult problems facing the teachers of today. 

 

 

 

Links:

http:/www.ael.org/eric/digest/edor9710.htm
http://education.indiana.edu/cas/tt/v2i2/immmigrant.html
http://www.cde.ca.gov/iasa/migrant.html
http://www.ufw.org/