Monday, October 14, 2013
Disproportionate Representation by Dianne Flak
Our country thrives on diversity. The United States is a synthesis of the many races, religions, and cultures of the world. In today's day and age, no one group can call themselves any more "American" than another. However, the struggle of minorities to integrate into the "melting pot" of our society has been a battle which is still being fought today. Despite the many changes in the field of education, the issue of disproportionate representation in special education needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. One of the first areas that needs to be improved is the development of standardized tests. Testing companies employ a variety of people, whose areas of expertise contribute to the actual construction of the tests.These companies need to make an increased effort to match the test authors to the testing recipients, in terms of racial make-up, culture and backgrounds. I believe that there should be a wider variety of tests for educators to use to assess students of diverse backgrounds. The example that comes to my mind is the class I had while teaching in an inner city Youngstown elementary school. I had 19 students; 2 girls and 17 boys. The students all had to wear uniforms, navy pants and light blue golf shirts. Before I continue let me preface this by saying that I'm not prejudice in any way. I was a new teacher, from a white middle class background. I was in culture shock. How was I to teach these children when I didn't understand them, their backgrounds or any part of their culture? To make matters worse, I could not tell the boys apart and had a difficult time pronouncing their names let alone remembering them. I noticed very early on how much better the minority teachers related to their classes. Although this was no fault of my own, I realized at that time how important the issue of cultural awareness is. As a result of this experience, I feel it is imperative that test authors be immersed in the culture that they are assessing. The same principle holds true for those students who do not speak English or speak English as a second language. After having read page 137 in our text regarding "Diana V. California Board of Education", I couldn't help but ask myself," How can anyone expect them to successfully take a test in English when they don't speak English? " I speak a minimal amount of Spanish although I took it for three years in high school. If I were asked to take a standardized test in Spanish, I would fail it miserably. The thought of this can be compared to a bad dream. Yet, we as educators do this everyday. The result is an inflated special education population. Several years ago I observed an ESL (English as a Second Language) classroom. The program was run something like a special education resource room where the students come for one period per day for one on one help, and also received support in the English language. The remainder of the day the students were in general education classes with support from the ESL teacher and paraprofessional. To conclude, we as educators need to recognize our own limitations. Not everyone has the background, skills and knowledge to successfully teach a diverse population. There are many inservice opportunities available to educate staff on other backgrounds and cultures. Everyone in the field needs to develop a sense of cultural sensitivity. Just as we recognize the diverse needs of our special education students, we need to start recognizing the needs of our minority students as they continue their quest to assimilate into American society.
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I have spent my career in Cleveland Public Schools and always in schools that had almost an entire student body that was African American. I faced many challenges being a Caucasian teacher of African American students. I had to put myself out there, ask questions about social issues, read, and become better equipt to teach my students. Taking one class in undergrad and a few masters courses in culturally responsive literature and classrooms did not tell me about the cultural symbols like hair, light skin, and ironed clothing. Those were concepts I had to explore and figure out on my own.
ReplyDeleteWow, how true that is! You can't learn it in a classroom or even in an inservice. Sure inservices are great for discussion and advice, but we all know that every school is different and every classroom year to year even within the same school changes. As teachers, it should be our mission to "put ourselves out there" and take some chances. I also have worked in a variety of settings, but mostly in urban settings. I have seen teachers just so afraid to talk to the parents or to get to know them or not even care to make that a priority.
ReplyDeleteI have 2 children in Canfield (where I grew up) and I find the same thing.. so its not race. We separate the student from the parent. We think the only time to talk to them is at conferences and we wait for them to address us or to make the first move. In my eyes, no matter what setting we are in or what race or nationality our students are we need to make connections with the family a high priority. I think education would start to look a lot different;)
I absolutely love your honesty throughout this whole post, Diane! It is true that when you haven't been exposed to certain cultures, problems arise when you are faced with the challenge of having to teach others from a certain culture. I agree with your position on how to develop assessments. If you do not know who is participating in these assessments, then how can you accurately test them? When you have a diverse group of people from different backgrounds developing these assessments, I believe that there will be less bias throughout the assessments. In order to give our students an appropriate education, we must consider their background and how that influences the way they learn.
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