The setting of the dream
I was at some sort of social convention in Vienna (probably because of my friend's reference to Egon Schiele on his Facebook) but not feeling very sociable. I slept my way through the first day and ate my way through the second (yes, lots of Viennese tables, but no sex--it was not that kind of dream). The new teacher's union executive from my school was in charge of activities and I was not in a participatory mood.
Although various people were encouraging me to take a second chance with a guy I knew from sleepaway camp when we were 12, by the time I was feeling friendly enough to enter the dining room, he had left. (By the way, in real life, this guy, who did not seem strike anyone as all that promising at age 12, is now chief of staff to a state governor. When I knew him at camp, he supposedly was considering asking me to the banquet, but I was too shy to acknowledge him so he asked someone else).
Anyway, not wanting to participate in a getting-to-know-you scavenger hunt, I wandered into the hotel office. There, a white woman was working at the fax machine and a Mexican immigrant woman was cleaning. The woman at the fax machine asked me, on behalf of her Mexican colleage, if I could recommend how her children could learn English, since she herself only spoke Spanish. So I launched into a whole explanation of bilingual education--why her kids were studying in Spanish at school. So, for those of you who don't know about the highly politicized issue of bilingual education and Latino immigration in this country, here is a simplified explanation below.
(to be continued later--must get ready for school)
Continued: My take on bilingual education (as explained to a Mexican hotel housekeeper in a dream):
The reason why so many Latino kids in the United States are being taught in Spanish at least half the day is, according to supporters of bilingual education, to help them catch up with conceptual vocabulary. For instance, the 5-year-old child of an Argentinian doctor and accountant enters kindergarten in the U.S. with the same level of vocabulary, albeit in Spanish, as an Anglo child, because his or her parents' education is reflected in conversation/literacy at home with the child.
However, many of the Mexican- and Dominican-American children in the U.S. suppposedly have families with low levels of education and literacy, and therefore, even their Spanish conceptual vocabulary is low when they enter school--the children know "house Spanish." They enter school with far fewer vocabulary words in any language, and if intervention doesn't take place, they never catch up.
The research says that children learn concepts--such as what is hurricane, or why do people need shelter, or why does the sky look blue, or how can one take care of oneself--best in their native language. Then, with a strong foundation in their native language, they "transfer" the concept easily into a second language. So, this is the justification for having bilingual classes in early childhood and lower elementary education.
All of the above is the reason why so many states and districts support bilingual education. Most research make this claim.
Although the research appears sound, and makes a lot of sense, there is a problem. A big problem. And the schools tend to ignore it.
The same research that supports bilingual education also notes, often, that for it to be successful it must take place under very specific conditions. And 99 percent of the time, these conditions don't exist in our schools.
So what are the conditions, and which ones are missing most of the time? (to be continued)
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