I started reading this article and thought — and what is different about what they are doing and what my school was doing for years. We still have a lot of those kids, but most of them ended up at the new school that uncrowded us starting two years ago. At one point we had 57 different home languages. <\/p>\n
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It is VERY rewarding working with those students though. Though difficult. I had a group of them in a portable, teaching them Algebra. They would go through phases — one day cussing at each other, anothing day stealing packs, just lots of little nonsense. I’ve got two in my computer science class, one who is doing extremely well. <\/p>\n
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The bad part, and I grew up with this sort of problem — is that whatever cultural bias existed that cause their problems were not resolved automatically upon landing in the US. If they hated another group back in their home country, they still hated them here, and we got refugees from BOTH sides. And let’s face it, the "Irish" problem still existed in this country until very recently and was alive and well in the small town my parents grew up in (meaning the Protestant\/Catholic problems). <\/p>\n
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I used to tell that to my fellow teachers and I don’t think they still got it. But I was NOT allowed to wear Green on St. Patrick’s day. We didn’t have to wear orange but we were NOT allowed green. <\/p>\n
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