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borders and dreams

borders and dreams In the book Borders and Dreams, Chris Carger shows the readers the hardships of Alejandro, a Spanish-American boy with very little educational background. In her case study of both Alejandro and his family she shows how the limitations of Alejandro, his parents, and an overpopulated school system can make succeeding in an American school nearly impossible. In this paper I will look at all the obstacles that Alejandro faced both before and during his education. Also, I will identify both the things that I felt were done right in his schooling and the things I felt were done wrong. To finish I will give some of the idea's I have that could possibly have helped Alejandro. 1. Describe at least three ways that educators characterize their students' abilities and needs? The first way teachers characterize their students abilities is by labeling them. Throughout Carger's book we see this, both in Alejandro and in Alejandro's sister Alicia who was called "At risk," limited English proficient," "learning disabled," and Linguistically delayed"(p. 54) Labeling is something we in American have to do, it's just our nature. However, labeling can be dangerous because it can be a stigma that they have to live with for the rest of their lives, also I think it gives the child an excuse to fail. They can just say well, I'm dropping out because I'm learning disabled. A second way is by ethnicity or social standing, granted this is a sometimes racist way to characterize children. We do see this in Borders and Dreams, with Alejandro who was put into a Latino private school instead of a regular public highschool. This was possible because Chicago is a big culturally diverse city, with 20000 Latinos in the Chicago elementary school system(27) In schools I have gone to social standing is very important, children of important members of society always had it easier than children who were poor, or whose parents were not in the PTA. In small cities where everybody knows everybody this is a very common occurrence, even though it is very wrong. A third and the most obvious way that educators characterize the needs and abilities of their students is with grades. Whether your in first grade and get U's or S's, or your in highschool and get A's, B's, C's, D's, or F's teachers are always judging students ability levels. Another tool used for this is standardized testing. The two are then combined to decide whether a student is smart, average, or in need of outside help. Grades though they were certainly harsh to Alejandro, are a necessity of teaching. 2. Using deficit-model language, describe Alejandro's situation. What educational implications or actions does your description suggest? Alejandro had several strikes against him when it came to his education, first and foremost was cultural. Alejandro, though he went to kindergarten in Chicago had most of his early schooling in Mexico(1st-3rd grade), then came back to Chicago for fourth thru eighth. "The result of Alejandro's educational journey thus far was total confusion between the phonetic systems of English and Spanish, greatly affecting his ability to read and write"(8) Alejandro was stuck in between two languages, neither of which he knew very well. This put him way behind his fellow classmates, even in an almost all Latino school. Another deficit for him was education or the lack of, for both him and his parents. To me the best example of Alejandro's lack of education was on page 36 when Chris Carger reads The Ugly Duckling with Alejandro. Alejandro reads the book fine, but he doesn't understand it because he had never seen or heard of a swan. A very simple thing like knowing what a swan was diminished Alejandro's comprehension of the book. In first years of school parents are releyed upon very heavily to help their children learn the basics of reading and writing. My Brother Ryne is in 1st grade, and every night he brings home a book that he is tested on the next day. My parents have to read him the book, read the book with him, and then he has to read it alone. It seams simple for two adults to read with their child to help his schooling, but for Alama and Alejandro Sr. they just couldn't do even though they would have loved to. In turn, thislimited Alejandro's chances to catch back up with his class. 3. Describe Alejandro's situation without using deficit language, but instead using the language of "responsive schooling". What strengths does Alejandro bring to his own learning? How can educators use these strengths to teach him more effectively? Alejandro for all his learning faults also had many strengths, one of which was his family, because what they lacked in educational background and guidance, they made up for in love and encouragement, which is very important to anybody in school. I'm on my own and have my own family, but still my parents support is very important to my education. Some of Alejandro's other strengths were perseverance, the fact that he was a very respectful young man, and he always gave his studies a 100% effort, even if his grades didn't reflect it.(class discussion)"I got a C in reading in summer school, and a 2"(21) This is a excerpt of a conversation between Carger, Alma, and Alejandro who had just received a C after getting nothing but F's. He was genuinely excited and proud of himself, something that would be hard for a lot of children struggling the way Alejandro was at school. Educators could take advantage of Alejandro's strengths by giving him some extra assignments that could help his learning. Because Alejandro always tried his best most of his teachers tried their best to give him the extra little bit of help thsy he so desperately needed, the only problem was he needed even more than that, a lot more. I also believe that considering how determined Alejandro was to learn and how supporting his family was Alejandro could have been held back, but not with Mrs. Wright(she wasn't a very good teacher for Alejandro to have). Alejandro was way behind his class and was falling further back every day, possibly holding him back would have benefitted him later on, and could have enabled him to survive at the public highschool. I believe that with his family's support and his little engine that could attitude he could have turned that negative into a positive and became a better student because of it. 4. Critique both of these portraits, identify their advantages and disadvantages for the teacher/school and student. I believe it always better to extenuate the positive rather than the negative whenever possible. But in schooling both the deficits and strengths of students have to be addressed. The deficit- model can be used to show where a student is lacking, then "responsive schooling" has to used to figure out what can be done to correct the deficiencies, if they can be fixed. Once you know the problem you can find out what the child's strengths are, and use those strengths to help correct the deficiency. Hopefully there would be parents to help out and give support. But, even if there wasn't the school could get the student extra help in the subject(s) they are deficient. Of course not all problems are school related, this is where the "responsive schooling" doesn't work because sometimes children have deeper rooted problems than just school(i.e. abusive home), it is in cases like these that deficit-model language, and "responsive schooling" would not do a lot of good. The deficit-model and "responsive schooling" is perfect for the teachers and the school because it gives them a system in which they can label a child and try to get them the one-on-one help they need without hindering the students classmates. On the other hand, "responsive schooling" could be somewhat of a burden, especially for smaller schools without the resources to have extra teachers on staff to help children with minor or major learning deficits. One problem that arises with these two systems is that they require quality teachers to both catch the problems and correct them. As we saw in Carger's case study of Alejandro, some teachers just assume that a student is slacking and doesn't care if he has a problem or not. Mrs. Wright did this to Alejandro and his classmates, she made fun of how they talked, and she made Alejandro repeatedly write the names capitals of forty African and Asian nations ten times each, because he did poorly on a geography quiz. She knew that Alejandro had a deficit when it came to memorization(43), she either didn't believe or care that he had a deficit The one major problem with this system as with many other educational systems, is that it requires good teachers to make it work properly. 5. Drawing from the material we have discussed this semester and your own ideas and experiences, describe how you think schools could best respond to Alejandro's situation? I think schools simply need to become smaller, teachers can not be expected to give ample attention to every student when they have twenty in their class. Alejandro was behind 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. In Conclusion, Alejandro's story, though very sad is a very common one, and until we can have more schools and more teachers to help disadvantaged students like Alejandro will continue to fall through the cracks of our nations educational system. But in all honesty, one of his parents dreams did come true, Alejandro was better off than his parents. He could read enough to do well in everyday life, and would not have to have relatives come with him to the bank to read the statements for him. I think Alejandro attained a lot more than anyone expected with all the limitations he began with. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1876

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