Imagine: You are fifteen years old, recently in arrived in the U.S. from Bhutan, just enrolled in the tenth grade at the local high school and HAVE NEVER ATTENDED SCHOOL BEFORE. By the way, the district expects you to meet all requirements to graduate in four years. The state expects you to exit the transitional-bilingual program in three years. Yes, you will get to attend survival English classes and learn how to hold a pencil for a semester. Yes, you will receive sheltered instruction for your English and Social Studies classes. We would love to offer you primary language support in Integrated Math and Physical Science, but we don't have a translator for you language, so you are on your own. But don't worry, if you don't pass you can make up the credit either in summer school or online. In the mean time time your well-meaning math or science teacher finds you a dual language English-Bhutanese dictionary. Oops, you never learned to read in Bhutanese…
Recently the English Language Development program in my district has landed in the hot seat because we have a critical mass of students not passing the HSPE or graduating on time (contributing to an already dismal graduation rate). This wasn't always the case. Ten years ago most of our English Language Learners came from former Soviet Block countries or Bosnia. Most were well educated in their primary language. Many were already bi or tri-lingual. Their acquisition of English mostly consisted of skill transfer between languages. But over the past five years we have had an influx of students from Central and Southeast Asia, East Africa and the Victoria Lakes region and Iraq. Many of these areas are war-torn. All experience profound poverty. School doesn't make it onto Maselow's heirarchy.
Educating adolescents who have experienced the horrors of war and hunger with no opportunity to go to school is a patently different ball game. It often feels like a fool's errand trying to lay the foundation for literacy while simultaneously imparting grade-level content knowledge. Oh, and explaining the weird things Americans do-like Halloween. But my students are hungry for knowledge and desperate to communicate. And they work at it with urgency.
Over the summer there were rumors of talk about developing five and six year graduation plans based on a student's age and literacy level on arrival to the country. I hope it goes beyond talk. These kids (and their family's lives) depend on their being able to navigate a literate English-speaking society. That takes TIME. Well established research holds it takes SEVEN to TEN years to develop cognitive academic language proficiency in a second language. How can we justifiably expect graduation in four years from students who arrive pre-literate at fifteen?
I guess I belong in the minority. I don’t think writing can be “taught”. It’s an art form and as such, you either have it or you don’t. Therefore, it doesn’t really matter where you go to college. For someone with real talent, reading voraciously and widely, especially before the age of 18, is the only way to really “become a writer”. That and a lot of travel. Without those 2 experiences, you can go to “Iowa” or any other fabled place all your life and remain a mediocre writer. I’m talking about creative writing, of course. Literature. If you aspire to be a “journalist”, that’s a different skill and, in my opinion, a different profession altogether.
Tom-Sorry to be a wet towel. It is an under-the-radar problen until the ELL population in a school or district hit a critical mass. Which is happening and will continue to happen more frequently. The face and sound of America is changing whether we recognize it or not. We cannot afford to have a critical mass of people who deperately want to engage in our society and economy unable to do so through little fault of their own. The majority of my students are refugees granted asylum by our government.Yet we cut them loose from all support and expect them to be self sufficent in 90 days. It is an unaddressed thread in conversations about the broader topic of immigration.
Mark-You are right: students most in need deserve reasonable accomodation. I just think reasonable accomodation for U.S. born, English speaking student lacking necessary skills to complete high school 1. looks different, and 2. raises whole other series of unpleasant questions.
Wow. Thanks, Tamara, for illuminating a problem I didn’t even know we had.
I agree, and also believe that we ought to offer the same consideration to every student when we consider what they “enter” with. A preliterate ELL student at age 15 ought to be given time and support to achieve the requirements of a diploma. So should a 15 year old entering high school with a 2nd grade reading level. Time, resources, support… the students most in need all deserve reasonable accommodation. You’re right that our newcomers have much more stacked against them (often), and sadly many schools simply are not equipped to offer, or even diagnose, what is needed.