The American public may marvel someday that, once upon a time, school children could be
divided into two groups — black and white — and they all spoke English.Students in Rowan-Salisbury public schools now speak some
29 different languages and represent a rainbow of cultures. Teaching these youngsters
English and helping them cope with U.S. society is quickly becoming one of the toughest
challenges the school system has ever faced.
But it’s one the public schools must tackle
with vigor. Think of the rewards as these barely comprehending outsiders become successful
members of the student body and important links between their own families and the
community around them.
The influx of Spanish-speaking families has been
particularly remarkable. Imagine putting yourself in the shoes of Bob Bloodworth,
principal at China Grove Elementary, where 100 of his 820 students are enrolled in English
as a Second Language classes. Communication with parents for Bloodworth sounds like a
translation nightmare.
Eighty to 85 percent of those 100 children speak
Spanish. The temptation for them would be to form a separate clique where they communicate
only with each other.
But they need English in order to understand their
classes, and they need their classes in order to progress in school, earn a diploma and
qualify for better jobs.
After all, they traveled to the United States
because their families sought la vida mejor, a better life. What they’ll learn after
being here a while is that the United States offers an even better life than manual labor
and service-sector jobs offer. If they can succeed in school, they and their families can
avoid the trap of becoming part of a permanent underclass held down by an inability to
speak English.
If the schools have failed these students in any
way, it is in not drumming up enough resources to address the language barrier more
aggressively. But that’s a claim you could throw at every need within the public
schools — from the hearing impaired to the academically gifted.
The school board must guard against cutting
corners on teaching foreign-speaking students —a danger the federal Office of Civil
Rights apparently has anticipated. The schools have signed an agreement calling for more
teachers as the need for tutoring such students grows.
As teacher Greg McClure put it, “Just because
they’re different or require more service doesn’t give us an excuse not to
educate them.”
Nor does it give other students an excuse to taunt
them with “Yo quiero Taco Bell” or much worse. Children can be cruel. Just when
you expect them to reach maturity in high school, they become the cruelest to people who
look, act or speak differently. School officials must guard against such harassment and
make sure they themselves are not sending discriminatory messages. The days when they
could expect uniformity from their students are long gone. Diversity is here to stay.
Today's 