Teaching in Fantasyland

I have been voluntold to give Professional Development for this coming Election Day.   The teaching staff at my 6-12 school in Bronx, NY are struggling to differentiate learning for our Newcomer and Beginner Level English Language Learners. Thus, my moral dilemma.

In my state, Newcomer/Very beginner level Ells (defined as entering level) are only entitled to 180 minutes of English Language Instruction per week.  What this means in my school is that adolescent Ells with zero English are only entitled to one period per day of direct English language instruction.  For the remainder of the day, students are sitting in grade level content classes.  This boils down to a student with no English reading Fahrenheit 451 in ninth grade or The Lightening Thief in sixth grade.  Naturally, the teacher is tasked with teaching the same content to everyone. 

Meanwhile, the politicians, administrators, and those in Ivory Towers are busy pointing their craven claws at data points and screeching something about achievement gaps.  They are confused as to why state scores of entering level English Language Learners are lower than those who have been speaking and learning English since babyhood.  Go figure? 

The angel in me wants to believe that some of these people are coming from a good place and are clueless.  If this description fits you, please either stop espousing your uninformed beliefs or join me in the trenches.  You are more than welcome to enter the front lines with me anytime.

This leaves the cynic in me who believes that those implementing these failed policies are either power and money hungry, or are in the destroy public education camp.  Either way, they are morally corrupt. 

So, I’m left with a decision.  Either I refuse to give this PD or I try my best to offer some pointers, no matter how limited, to my already over-worked and unsupported colleagues.   I know I can just regurgitate the offerings of the Kate Kinsella’s and Nonie Lesaux’s of the world.  But that is not helpful for entering level English Language Learners.  In fact, I researched scaffolds in the content area for adolescent Newcomer Ells and there is nothing. Nada. Zero.  You know why?  Because this is a crappy model!  Try reading a Greek translation of Fahrenheit 451.  Then try filling in some vocabulary sentence frames.  Let me know how that works for you.

Entering and emerging level adolescent Ells need explicit English language instruction.  They are not going to learn my osmosis.  But here we are - in Pretend Mode.  Everyone is pretending.  We are all living in Fantasyland.  However, the ones who are suffering are students with hopes and dreams.  Unlike Disney World, our Pretend World is harming real people.

I have decided to give the PD.  I will try to offer my colleagues some scaffolds which some may find useful.  This is all I can do.  From my perspective, Unicorns don’t exist and kids don’t learn by the sheer will of some administrator or Harvard researcher.  All I can do is try to help in any miniscule way I can.