Balancing Act
“Can we sing a song in Spanish today?” a kindergarten student in my service learning class asked. Since bilingual education is not used in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Arizona</st1:place></st1:State> anymore, and total immersion is, students are encouraged to focus on using English in the classroom at all times. For many people in the
The students in my service learning class experience challenges that I never had to face when I was in elementary school. These students have a completely different culture at home, and while they attempt to bring some of it with them to school, much of their culture is left at home so they are able to immerse themselves in the English language and culture at school. This reality makes school more of a challenge for them than it was for me growing up in a white, middle class, English-speaking home. When I would go to school, the culture and language were the same as the culture and language I grew up with. I was not learning a new language or culture when I went to school, I was simply building upon what I already knew, whereas students in my service learning class are struggling to learn a new language while maintaining their own.
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While I observed students continuing to improve in their English skills, I soon learned that acquiring a new language is not a simple task. It is said that it takes people 5-7 years to learn a language (Baruth & Manning, 2004, p. 353). Even after that period of time, some students may still struggle. My service learning mentor taught me a few things about acquiring an ESL (English as a Second Language) endorsement and the specific teaching methods for ESL classes; “You don’t have to be bilingual; you just have to know how to teach them with different instructional strategies such as hands-on projects, visuals, student grouping, and repetition is almost required.” She also informed me that repetition was required because many students go home at the end of the day and do not hear English again until they return to school (Personal communication, March 2007). While the techniques my mentor teacher mentioned proved to be effective, they clearly do not make balancing an original culture with a new one less difficult, especially when they are leaving one at home or school and are not able to practice making a connection between them in either environment.
Perhaps all of us would better understand the trials of learning a new language if we had to learn one and became fully immersed in it. Jennifer Stopla (2005) states, “For too many Americans the idea of speaking a second language fluently remains an enviable but unreachable goal or a seemingly unnecessary luxury.” She suggests that in learning another language, we learn about the culture of that language. Stopla’s statement made me realize that most of us do not understand what it is like to know and feel a loyalty to one culture and language, and feel torn and expected to be immersed in another. It must also be a challenge for children learning English who are made to feel ignorant when in fact, they might be very intelligent and are simply facing challenges in understanding a new language, as most people would.
The importance of providing a multicultural education has become more evident to me through service learning and cultural diversity because I’ve seen how much children love to learn, especially about their own culture. It is important for educators to provide a balanced, multicultural education for students, and as Manning and Baruth state: “For culturally diverse learners to feel genuine acceptance, the teaching and learning process must concretely demonstrate respect for cultural and ethnic differences” (Baruth & Manning, 2004, p. 238). Manning and Baruth’s statement is a work in progress in all schools, but there is always more that can be done as far as including more and more multicultural lessons and curriculum. It is a challenge for teachers to come up with creative ways to address all cultures, but if educators continue to improve and go in the direction I have witnessed, a complete multicultural education might not be so far away.
My time spent in the service learning classroom and in a multicultural education class has brought me many epiphanies, but the most influential have been, the importance of teachers developing acceptance of differences, and recognizing the struggle balancing two cultures and languages, and being understanding of students attempting to learn a new language, while maintaining their own. Children need help learning a new language but their own culture should never be shunned. In White Teacher, Vivian Paley says this about the children in her classroom, “In their play, they reveal the intuitive and universal language that binds us all together” (Paley, 2000, p. 135). She also explains that the children recognized their differences, but they found similar interests and a common bond. If only all of us could be more child-like in this way, we could learn to appreciate differences and understand the challenges of living in a society or culture that is different than our own, without allowing it to divide us.
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