Erin's Discovery of Diversity

More than a year ago, I worked as a Broad Summer Teaching Fellow in Detroit Public Schools, and I realized how important it is to learn about my students as early as possible. Because many of the students already knew each other and my mentor teacher, we didn't do the kind of getting-to-know-you activities that would have helped me (and them). Throughout the summer, I began to pick up on things about my students that would have been nice to know much sooner - for instance, that one was helping his younger sister with her homework (a different kind of literacy building) and loved spelling, or that many were what Lenski calls "students exposed to two languages simultaneously." I would call these students the "Spanglish generation" because they may speak only Spanish or a blend of Spanish and English at home, have often learned to read in English (and in many cases feel that they cannot read in Spanish even though many of the literacy skills transfer), and live in the Mexicantown area of Detroit or come from migrant families that move in Chicano communities. Knowing that my students belonged to this unique language community would have informed my teaching, and I could have helped them distinguish between colloquial speech (in their case, Spanglish) and "Standard English."

How did I find out about these students? In art class they painted self-portraits including items that were important to them - this was a great activity to help the ELLs share about themselves. Also, near the end of the program we did self-story maps, partly to prepare students to write their own biography and partly to help them practice diagrams for the brainstorming process. I also spent time talking to them, finding out about their likes and dislikes, and watching their progress. Additionally, I had the unusual benefit of a mentor teacher who came from the same community as the students and knew some of them; in many cases, this kind of information could come from a past teacher, an administrator familiar with the children, or other staff such as custodians, cafeteria workers, or bilingual specialists. It's preferable that the person be from the same community to make sure that their information gives a full perspective; I found that in this way I could scaffold my own learning as I built my teaching skills.