There are some major differences between the school systems in America and in Mexico with Latino kids. In the U.S. School systems, there are many more opportunities offered to children, and in many ways so far above the Mexico school systems. But there is one aspect in Mexican schools that arguably is better than in American schools. The Mexican schools struggle with many things and for the majority are not good learning environments for children, but we will see the plus sides of Mexican schools as well. But the negatives outway the positives by a lot. There are things that American schools struggle with when involving Spanish speaking students. Such as when Grande in her book has to sit in the back of the class because she can't understand …show more content…
In the U.S. going to school is the normal thing to do for families and is one of the most important things for a person to do. In Mexico it's different, the normal thing to do is to work for your families. That is the most important thing to do for most Mexican families. Kids in Mexico, have a main responsibility, and it is not going to school and getting an education, it is to help provide for their families unlike kids in America where usually their sole responsibility is to go to school. In the article it states it is not unlikely for a kid to miss many days of school in order to help his or her father or mother with work or chores, or to stay home and watch their younger siblings. And often when a student becomes ill, not much is done by the schools to help, “Because he was ill, Carlos had missed almost a month of school.” It shows how Carlos's being sick, really put him behind, and there was not anything really done about it. This kind of behavior is not as often seem in America. The schools care deeply about attendance, such as when the the father got called about Mago. “... he already saw that Mago had missed school because he got a call from Burbank at work” (200). This text shows that American schools call and do care a lot about attendance. I think that is very important to have the schools care about the attendance of the kids. But in Mexico, because of kids missing many …show more content…
Grandes old school in Mexico was the shape of a square with just one bathroom for the boys, and one bathroom for the girls, these schools were so small because they simply don’t have have funds for anything else larger. In America, kids are provided a lot of the time with free lunches, transportation is usually always given to students through busses. Most of the time books and paper are paid for by the schools as well. Many schools offer a second language class too in America, in Mexico they do not usually offer any of these things. Whenever a school in America has problems, maybe it be a new paint job, different companies can be called to fix those problems because the schools are given the funds to handle these types of problems. In Mexico that is not an option, the students parents are actually responsible to handle those problems. Which I think is very odd indeed. And with the finances of school, kids must pay to get into public school, which a lot of the time is very hard on families, because many families simply can't afford to put all or any of their kids in school. “... because she said it was too expensive to have all four grandkids in phonic school” (48). We see here the grandma talking about the cost of school and how many families can't even afford to put their kids into education. Leaving many, many kids to grow up with no education. And when a person grows up with no
Valenzuela utilizes various compilations of research to construct her exceptional argument regarding the issue of subtractive schooling with regards to 2nd generational immigrant students. She thoroughly analyzes and assesses the multitude of differences between 1st generation and 2nd generation students and their affinity for education. She divides the topic into 3 categories and asserts how each one adds to the issue of inadequate education for Mexican/Mexican-American students in the US public school system. Her research is conducted at Seguin (pseudonym) High School in Houston, Texas. She examines the effects of substandard education in regards to the students and their academic performance. She uses quantitative and qualitative research
I watched this movie a couple years ago, and I remember one of the arguments made was to make sure all the children were learning. One of the younger teachers had explained that the Mexican children needed more attention to catch up on their studies.
Although there was a number of ways families were reasons for children not to go to school or stop going to school, another reason according to the article was that immigrant children were treated differently which caused them to feel ashamed or embarrassed. For the lower income families, children were crammed into classrooms that weren’t capacitated to seat the number of kids that were there. A single teacher could have one hundred children a day, this caused many children to be denied their school options. When a child didn’t know English the would be placed in the lower level classes regardless of their ages. A common memory of many immigrant children was that they felt inferior to American children in many ways like, the obvious language barrier, clothes, and the fact that Americans couldn’t pronounce their
Americans schools have a tendency to try to reform certain parts in one’s school but chooses to ignore what’s being reformed. Although, once Americans schools do reform it would make it a lot easier for the one who is willing to learn to get the education they need. In the essay “Let’s Really Reform Our Schools” by Anita Garland. Garland explains that there needs to be changes in Americans schools. Garland mentions that Americans school are coming to a disaster and they are in trouble. Their needs to be changes in Americans schools to improve one’s education. For starters, the attendance should not be mandatory for the ones that do not attend. Next, the cafeteria food is revolting and needs to be changed. Last, having that huge dance so called
The education system was not equal for everyone. They separated the White and Mexican students with the excuse that the Mexican students did not know the language well enough and needed a different kind of education, so they created schools specifically for them. While the White students had all the new textbooks and nice schools, the Mexicans had what was left. They were given old used textbooks and small poorly built schools. In document 5 it showed two photos. The first photo was of students who attended Mexican Ward School in Texas in 1946. They photo shows students sitting in chairs
While reading this article one of the most shocking sections were when the students were talking to Monzó and sharing their outlook on their place and their language’s place in society. These students even at this early age are feeling how devalued their first language has been. They feel like they have to speak the right* English, only use English in public places, never their first language, and that they must assimilate to the American culture as much as possible. This reminded me of a chapter in Lippi-Green (2012)’s text. Within this chapter Lippi-Green (2012) discusses how in the United States Spanish speakers are not only expected to learn English but they are expected to learn and utilize the right* English determined by the majority and assimilate entirely to American culture. Throughout Monzó and Rueda (2009)’s text the children in conversations expressed their observation of the social order in relation to language and race. This was surprising to me since they are only in 5th grade. During a conversation with one of the children Monzó and Rueda (2009) recorded an alarming statement, “He said that his mother could not be considered American because she did not...
...d to begin with and he fell further and further behind, because the teachers could give him the help he deserved without bringing down the rest of the class with him. At the Latino school Alejandro was in the best possible position, but when he went to Crown High he got lost in the shuffle and dropped out. If the private school was at would have went all the way through highschool I think he would have graduated, or at least would have gave highschool a lot better effort. But to do this public school system need to have more money, money they really can't get from local taxes alone.
...their rules allowing Spanish to be spoken in school along with bilingual instruction. Corporal punishment was restricted and numerous Mexican-American teachers and advisors were hired.
Family is is one of the most important aspects of Mexican American culture. This is like most cultures, but above all a Mexican American family has strong ties and support each member no matter what. Also, old Mexican traditions are celebrated in new ways. The celebrations are different from culture to culture, but each one has new ways to celebrate old traditions (Garcia). One unique thing about Mexican family culture is that there is more multigenerational families in Mexican culture than any other culture. Another one is that crossing the fork and knife across the plate means that someone is done eating. In short Mexican American culture is unique yet it has similarities to other
Secondary education is a highly debated subject. Many critics of secondary education say that inner-city high schools and students are not receiving the same attention as students from non inner-city high schools. Two of the biggest concerns are the lack of school funding that inner-city high schools are receive and the low success rate in sending inner-city high schools graduates to college. Critics say that while inner-city high schools struggle to pay its teachers and educate its student’s non inner-city high schools don’t have to deal with the lack of school funding. Also students from non inner-city high school are not being given the opportunity to attend colleges once the students graduate. But opponents of these critics blame an entirely different issue; and that is illegal immigrant students over crowding and attending high school at the expense of taxpayers. It cost millions of dollars a year for illegal immigrant students to attend high school and this is the main reason why schools are experiencing budget problems. Teaching illegal immigrant students creates a difficult learning environment and that is why students in inner-city high schools are not moving on to a higher education. This paper will explore the controversy and issues of secondary education; it will expose the hidden truths and prove that illegal immigrants are taking a toll on the education system.
Orellana, M. F. (2001). The work kids do: Mexican and Central American immigrant children’s contributions to households and schools in California. Harvard Educational Review, 71(3), 366-389.
Education tends to play a big role in life, especially in America. Though school supplies and uniforms tend to get expensive, by law, children are required to go to school. Americans send their children to school for an average of eight hours a day five days a week. Students learn mathematics, language arts, social studies and science as well as fine arts and health. Although students in America do get a good education in private and public schools, other countries are not as lucky. Latin American countries struggle every year due to insufficient funding for public and private schools. Most Latin American children receive little to no education, and if they do receive an education, it is not a very good one. On average very few students in
Over the past three decades a sudden and steady rise in the Hispanic population in the USA has become evident. While most of these migrants are coming from Mexico and Central America, they are all coming for better work opportunities. (STATS). Over the years more and more migrant families have taken residence in the USA. Now the Hispanic population is the largest minority group in America (SOURCE). As the amount of migrant children has increased, so has the need to incorporate these children into the local school systems so that they might have a chance to catch up with other children of their own age. Since the sheer number of migrant children, primarily of Spanish speaking countries, has increased so rapidly, the need for transitional English language proficiency programs has become more vital to the long term success of educating migrant children. According to J. Wirt, a writer for the National Center for Education Statistics, in general, Hispanic-Americans have a higher dropout rate from school and attain lower levels of education that non-Hispanics (Wirt, 2000, pg. 1). Wirt also continues to state that the more recent a migrant arrives in the United States the higher the chance for one to drop out or not continue to higher education.
As migrant and English language learner the transition of living and studying in México to El Paso, is not an easy for any age student. I immigrated to El Paso when I was in my last year of high school and wanting to pursue a career at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. My father decided for the family and we were moved to a school in El Paso. In the high school I attended for about three months, I was placed on tenth grade and in regular classes. I just had one hour daily of English as a second language instruction. The system back in the 1980’s on ESL classes was not as they are in schools now. They made me feel like I did not had other option but to droop school, which eventually I did when I realized that I was going to be placed in the special education department. My self-esteem went down the hill and I was not willing to comply with what the school wanted. Especially if I was coming from almost finishing high school with an average of 9 of a 10 grade scale, I felt that it was not fair for me to be place in the special education department just because I had limited English proficiency. Fifteen years after I had drooped school, I returned to school and learn English at El Paso Community College, and now I am pursuing my master degree as instructional specialist in bilingual education. Coming from another country with different, or similar, family values affect the students’ learning and the way that other look at those students, especially in schools.
Out of all the American institutions that exist today, the educational system has one of the greatest impacts on the lives of people, especially for immigrants and their children who do not know how to speak English. The English language is a whole new, different perspective for people who come to America for the first time; their whole environment changes as well. The majority of the people who come to the United States are Hispanics, who are usually at the poverty level. Like everyone who come to America, they want to pursue a better quality of life, and in order to do that, you have to know how to speak the universal language, the English language. The myth of education here is that everyone can learn the same way through the English language—but that is not the case.