Race & Demographics

Chapter 3 of Olsen's Made in America and the demographic myths presented in Samway & McKeon's Myths and Realities go hand in hand when read together. Chapter 3, titled "We Make Each Other Racial," was a very powerful chapter in Made in America due to its personal testimonies from many students about the racial makeup and relationships at their school. The students gave frank interviews and quotes about who does and does not interact with one another in the school (the information that resulted from their social mapping projects), the dilemma produced with differing ideas about racial relations, and the hardships that exist as a result of this lack of harmony between the different races of the school. These stories were really hard for me to read and understand partly because I do not come from a community with the degree of diversity that these students experience everyday. I really thought about what was meant by the quote "We Make Each Other Racial." How it resounded to me was that the ESL students' misunderstandings and insecurity about the schools they were in was founded on the unknown: because they didn't experience the racial relations first hand. That is to say, actually interact with the different groups much and that they were basing ideas on observations, as were all of the other students giving their perspective. "It's not like we choose to be with our own race, but that's who we are comfortable with and have things in common with, and kids see us and they don't approach us so it gets more and more rigid" (Olsen 78). This excerpt from one of the student interviews lays the foundation of the problem perfectly. I thought it was great that Ms. Stern's class did the social mapping project, though, because it forced them to think about the relations or lack thereof.

Samway and McKeon's first chapter of Myths and Realities presents four myths regarding demographics in relation to TESOL. They are as follows: 1) The number of students who don't speak English is decreasing. 2) Most English language learners were born outside the United States; most ELL students are recent arrivals to the United States. 3) Students who do not speak English are found only in large, urban areas. And 4) Only teachers in urban areas can expect to teach ELL students. If I have learned anything in the last two weeks, it's that with ELL students, in terms of culture and demographics, anything is fair game. There will always be a student population who does not speak English. Differing circumstances lead to US-born students  or long time residents not speaking English. Non-English speaking students are found everywhere, and teachers can expect to teach them everywhere.

Tomorrow I start my practicum experience in an ESL classroom. Reading these two sources for my past readings and thinking about critical forms of pedagogy really makes me nervous about what I am going to encounter in the ESL classes. Will the students have such fighting identities as the students in Made in America? Will the struggle with American-ness be a constant roadblock in the education of these students? Will it be anything like what I am reading? ....Find out on Friday! :o)