The American Dream
I didn't want to make it seem that I am just throwing in random Spanish tidbits within my English website. Therefore, I only find it appropriate to include an essay I have written in regards to Bilingual Education.
Since I will be teaching Spanish to a majority of students that have English as their primary language, I believe that it is important to have a strong understanding in both languages.
Overall, this essay discusses the importance of English imersion and respecting a student's native language. In that case, English immersion should be shared with the native language of foreign students - it is very important that they do not lose their connection with their home language.
In order to achieve the American dream, I firmly believe that there should be more support in implementing bilingual education into all public schools rather than English - immersion. First of all, many minorities believe that these bilingual education programs will be beneficial. Secondly, I believe that it is very important that non – English students have the privilege of maintaining their native language. Thirdly, this enforcement of English will cause conflict at home; and lastly, this whole idea of English reinforcement distorts the idea of what it means to be an American.
In order to achieve their American dream, many minority students desire that the public school system offer bilingual education. As a matter of fact, in 1994 survey demonstrates that 20 percent of blacks and Hispanics feel that “ ‘…students who want to keep up with their native languages…should be able to take many classes in Spanish or other languages all the way through high school…as long as it improves their self esteem,’” (Hochschild and Scovronick, 2004, p. 179).This just goes to show that these students of a different culture want a crack at education just as much as American students. These students are in pursuing a bond within the native AND American cultural ties. Most importantly, these students represents that they are willing to compromise over any barrier (languages) in order to achieve their American dream. Unfortunately, too little of America’s public schools provides such a quality opportunity for their non – English students.
There is a mass scarcity of actual school programs that allow non – English students to keep up to par with their native language. According to the text (2004, p. 179), only Arizona and New Mexico have encouraged some schools districts to offer bilingual programs. Unfortunately, Arizona’s hopes in allowing its students to maintain a connection with their native language was dramatically decreased in 2001 due to a statewide English – immersion program that only allowed students to continue their bilingual education if they had some type of an available waiver (Hochschild and Scovronick, 2004, p. 179). This rather promotes a trap for those students who can barely speak a word of English. Such a trap forces these students to be placed into too many public schools that do not provide adequate bilingual teaching methods; and to be forced into such an undesirable situation causes these students to become lost within the school system. Not to mention that this puts a dramatic blockade on their pursuit of their American dream. To conquer the American dream is to receive a quality education and depriving these students from their natural language is depriving them of a meaningful education. Of course, to help them have a meaningful education these students need strong support from their families as well.
Forcing a non – English student too quickly into dominantly - English classrooms will spark a dilemma of communication within the household atmosphere. According to the text (2004, p. 177), when their children are spending of a majority of their school day immersed within American English, many non – English parents find it heartbreakingly difficult to be able to teach their children the basic necessities of life, to be able to connect with their children on a social and emotional level, and also find it difficult to maintain the parental control that children need throughout their lives. This is frustrating for parents because they will not be able to effectively guide their children in the direction; and not only will these barriers of different languages cause the children to feel as if their parents don’t care, it also makes the parents believe that they are failing as caring parents as well. Thus, this mixture of a native and English language will keep on interfering with a crucial aspect of a student’s life – family support. But for any student to fully be successful is his life (a desire of the American dream), he must a fair and true understanding of what it means to be an American.
For a non – English student to be quickly immersed into a dominantly – English school will cause such a student to lose a sense of what it means to be an American. My definition of an American follows along the lines of a citizen being a proud representative of his or her deep cultural roots. Most importantly, a citizen must not be afraid of sharing his or her cultural roots amongst his or her fellow Americans. Within the text an undeclared professor makes this statement: I can confess that this is a much better definition of an American than what I have previously prescribed. This statement proves that to be an American, one must respect and must be accepting of others and their cultures. The idea of an American is to go against white power. Time and time again, America boasts about how we accept everyone. Well, from this quote, I get the impression that too many of our minorities feel as though that to be an American is to ask the question, “What would a white person do?”. In that case, to shove non – English students in an American classroom is putting the idea in their heads that if they want to be an American, you can only speak English. If they want to be American, they must dress like an American; and if they want to be an American, they must forget about their native ideals and cultures and automatically transform into the white American way. Well, the white American wayis not the American dream.
To conclude, as a future Spanish teacher in secondary education, I strongly believe that any American student’s dream will be attainable through less of an English enforcement and more through bilingual education within the public schools. Bilingual education will help decrease the problems in communication between the parents and the students who are learning English and their native languages. But in order for bilingual education to be effective, more schools have to offer such a program; and most importantly, every single American citizen must continue to show interest; and finally, bilingual education will create a positive definition of what it means to be an American.
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