Hello and welcome to the Ethnic Studies 499 " Cross Cultural Issues In Education: Learning Through Listening" spring break field course" student web page.. This 5 day 72 hour marathon course emphasized on "Examining the high ratio of African American and Latino dropout rates in the Oregon Public Education System." Hi I'm Greg Wong  a senior in business and communications and I'm Helen Xongmixay a senior in psychology with a Ethnic Studies as a minor and we will be briefly sharing with you a little about our class, the processes, experience's, along with some key issues that each of us has learned from this course.

Ethnic Studies 499 takes a nontraditional approach to learning, investigating and understanding some of the difficulties that African Americans and Latino students face in the education system. We say non_traditional, because the class was primarily run by us the students, in which we all actively made decision to how the class would reach it's goals for the week. Our goals were to actively engage in the process of preparing for interviews with guest speakers " Stakeholders" who ranged from person's from legislative, teachers, School district Superintendents, Community advocates, Principles, Parent and Students. Also we as a class were responsible for reviewing the key issues learned at the end of each day. We had mentioned that we were to actively engage in the investigation throughout the week. . This took many forms in that each of us experienced and participated in active roles such as facilitators for interviews, facilitator for many class discussions, note taker, observers and if not any of these roles, we were all actively listening during each process.

We had a diverse group of student that for the most part, spent 8-12 hours together at a time, so our views sometime didn't match. " 20 as 1 " was our boding theme for the week, in that we are a group of 20 students that must work together as " 1 " to move forward to reach our goals. This statement also represented that everyone was part of the whole, but more importantly each one of us had a say in the it in order to move forward, this statement was the back bone for our success.

Before any process happened we engaged in a one day 12 hours retreat that taught us the skills that we need to have so that we may achieve group success for the week. During this retreat we were taken through a number of group interaction exercise, which would help us relate to one another. Another key skill that was taught during this time was that of " Listening ". The material given to us would help each of us focus on pulling out the key issues from our interviews, as well as be attentive and respectful for groups as well as " Stakeholders " From here we were ready to begin our investigation. Each day we would engage in interviews with the different "Stakeholders" for that day, asking the questions that we formulated the day before. After each day of interviews we discussed the key topics that we felt were important for that day (debriefing). We wrote these ideas down to archive the issues that we learned for later use. We then went into the formulating of the questions that would be directed toward the next days interviews. This process was repeated for the four days of interviews.

Each interview and debriefing gave new insight to the issues that we were investigating. Below are our insights to what each one of us has learned from the course.

Greg's view's: I was shocked to hear that different causes and disregards that contribute to minorities success in the education system. I was most disturbed to hear that the training and criteria that our teachers are required to know are less than adequate. For most of those teachers or working towards becoming a teacher, that most of them are not required to take classes in Ethnic issues. Why was this alarming? As we look at the demographic of our education system ( locally as well as nationally) a steady increase in minorities are filtering into the public education system and our teachers are not prepared to deal with the diversity and challenges that sit in their classrooms. I was also disturbed to hear from some of the " Stakeholders ", that there is a recognizable discrimination to hold those of color back. For instance we discovered that in some of the parts of the Portland Public School System, students are taken out of their local school environment and shipped to other parts of the city to different environment to learn. The consequence to this out come was that students didn't respond well to the environment or were comfortable with the learning setting, which contributes to a students possible dropout. There are many issue that I found disturbing, so many that I myself want to take an active role to help out and do as much as I can. For myself view, I believe that education for our children now is the key for the way our society will prosper towards the future. The core message that I have learned that we all must contribute to help increase of education for all student, especially those of color by taking an active role in menturing, parenting, teaching or community support. " Our children aren't getting a fair deal and it's up to us to make it right."

Helen's view's: It was alarming for me to hear that some of the key programs that help aid minorities are being replaced with programs that would seem to harm them vs. help them. For instance in Woodburn I was disturbed to hear that some in the legislature wanted to remove the ESL program, in favor of a immersion program. ESL a primary program for students with a non-English background, receive instruction in their native language ( Woodburn, comprised of over 50% Spanish speaking students) and in English to help aid in the transition of learning English. The immersion program would not favor the ESL program in that students of non-English backgrounds would be put directly into regular English programs. This issue became more intense for me, by relating to some of the course readings, in which minority students were put into English only classes in the 1940's, with hardly any support and their success rate was not high. This should be a reflection to how we should handle our current education, but there are those out there that disagree. People of color need support to survive, when their first language isn't English, more over people of color need to feel support in order to co- exist with a different culture with different distinction. " We as Americans, need to provide support systems to help all people of color, so that they may experience success as so many of us have."

At the end of the course the class came upon the 4 issues that reoccurred during the interview process. Community, Connectivity, Culture and Commitment. Community is the support in the forms of outside groups to help students and parents seek resources to help aid them in education, continuing education, social support to make their experience as comfortable as possible. Culture are the ways that teachers can better educate themselves to help relate to the students. By becoming educated in the different cultures, traditions and issues that each culture faces as teacher can better understand the children that are in their class. Connectivity is the aspect that people of color, students, parents have the resources to find the help that they need. This category is different from Community I that connectivity is the links that get people to the community support groups. Finally Commitment, each on of us has to make a commitment to helping students of color, so they may achieve success with a helping hand. These critical issue that we uncovered are the foundation that needs to be fixed or in place in order for the children or color and the school system to be successful and move forward with education for all.

We both were challenged and intrigued by the issues that were presented to us about the school systems and the flaws that it has towards student of color. We both agree that we as a class gained great experience in bonding which represented the foundation to our success and understanding of the information and material discussed. This bonding has allowed us to experience first hand the interpersonal diversity of team action as well as the important issue of experiencing diversity in itself. The key issue that we both learned was that we all need to help in the efforts to build our Community, Connectivity, Culture and Commitment aspects, in order to help all children to be successful for the future.

The link " Ethnic Studies Home Page" is a link to the Oregon State University Ethnic Studies department. Here you will find course material as well as other students web sites. Enjoy!Ethnic Studies Home PageHere are a few active shots of the investigation process.

  ( Helen facilitating an interview with Tyna)

  ( Greg & Spencer facilitating a interview)

( Active listening and note taking during interviews)

( Helen facilitating during class discussion )
 

Thanks For A Great Time Everyone!!!!!

 

Here are a few sites to further investigate issues in education:

National Association for Bilingual Education http://www.nabe.org

Oregon Department of Education http://www.ode.state.or.us/

Portland Public Schools~ www.pps.k12.or.us

Stand For Children http://www.stand.org