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How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

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  While reading the excerpt from How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent , by Julia Alvarez, it made me realize the importance of valuing and maintaining my students first language and culture. I mean this is a part of their identity isn´t it? In this story, e ach family member seemed to view American life from a different perspective.  The dad wanted to maintain his culture by keeping up with Dominican news and speaking Spanish, while the mom did not act this way.  She seemed to embrace and adapt to the American way of life. The girls on the other hand seemed to struggle with their identity. It appeared that a divide was created between the girls and their parents. The Garcia girls found it harder and harder to relate to their parents and the family began to drift apart. Something that resonated with me is as the girls learned more English and lost some of their Spanish, it became more difficult to understand their father. This breaks my heart as I have a student who fac...
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Lau vs Nichols

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Lau vs Nichols 1974   Lau v. Nichols was a Supreme Court case that examined whether federally funded schools must offer supplementary English language courses to non-English-speaking students. In 1971, a federal decree integrated the San Francisco Unified School District. As a result, the district became responsible for the education of nearly 3,000 non-English-speaking students of Chinese ancestry.  All classes were taught in English in accordance with the district handbook. Supplemental materials were provided to improve English language proficiency to approximately only 1,000 of the non-English-speaking students. However, it failed to provide any additional instruction or materials to the remaining 1,800 students. Lau versus Nichols  determined that providing CDL students with the same textbooks, teachers, and curriculum as English speaking students is not equitable. The Supreme Court ruled that refusing to provide non-English speaking students with supplemental langua...
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Home Culture to School Culture Equity in Education "Equality is giving everyone the same pair of shoes. Equity is giving everyone a pair of shoes that fits." — Author unknown Being an urban educator for the past 21 years in Providence, I have worn many differerent hats. I began my career as a 6th grade math teacher at Gilbert Stuart Middle School. I was then moved to ASF@Broad St. elementary school, where I have remained for the last 18 years. While at my school I have taught 2nd and 5th grade. My most recent role has been a math coach. These past 8 years as a math coach, I have had the opportunity to work directly with teachers and administrators. My role has been to support teachers with best practices that align with school and district goals. I would model, co-teach and meet with teachers to reflect on the lesson and identify what worked well and what could be tweaked to make the lesson more successful. One thing that was discussed often was equity in the classroom. How c...
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