More Than ELL: My SWATCA 2016 Presentation

 Or use the following link to allow you to view my presentation in Google slides:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19Zf3RCT1rLB3ddrP3wkVNRZNhGW5w_sO5SnjTeDwdQQ/edit?usp=sharing

How Education Changes Lives - And Cultures

"No one had told us that education could change the way we felt about the world and the people in our lives...

- Kao Kalia Yang

Education changes lives.

Perhaps we take this truth too lightly.  We make assumptions that these changes are exclusively positive, or that the positives are obvious.  These are dangerous assumptions.  Our students, and particularly those students whose families have limited connections to formal education, may not share those assumptions.  Their experiences may differ significantly from our assumptions.  Take, for example, this anecdote from the life of Hmong American author Kao Kalia Yang:

The problem of education had entered our lives.  No one had told us

...that it could give a person words to use and actions to take, not in support of the people who love us, but as a response to them

...that education in America would make our father and our mother less educated in our eyes."

How many parents today experience some form of this; that their children come to see them as "ignorant, uneducated, and wrong."  It is not unusual for adolescents to develop views distinct from or even critical of those of their parents.  As a parent of teenagers myself, I know how frustrating and worrisome that can be.

But I have come to understand that when there is a great disparity between the education level of the parents and those of their children, the potential for conflict is even higher. It is natural for parents to worry that this difference will undercut the respect that their children have for them and for their authority.  Given that these parents have limited personal experience with formal education, it would also be natural for them to experience a fear of the unknown.  This fear may not be wholly unfounded.  Anyone who has set foot in a junior high or middle school in North America for more than 10 minutes can see what tremendous influence the peer group can have on the attitudes and actions of adolescents.  It is not unreasonable to worry that this influence would result in attitudes and actions that are misaligned with the values and beliefs of the child's family and culture.

I try to keep all of this in mind when I encounter families who do not value the public education system the same way I do.  As the principal of a Mennonite Outreach School, this happens often.  I know many teens who have left school to go to work full-time or who attend irregularly because of commitments to family or employment.  I know many others who have stopped attending because they find it difficult to fit in or because they find it hard to be successful.  And there are many, many others in my area who do not attend school at all or attend congregated home-school facilities that do not follow standard provincial curriculum and are not directed towards obtaining a high school diploma.  "But why would their parents allow this?" I am sometimes asked.  "Can't they see what they are doing to their children?"

"Maybe they can and maybe they can't," I answer.  "But I am certain that what they know best is what they themselves have experienced.  Can you blame them for wanting to choose the same thing for their own children?"  You may or may not agree with the wisdom of this strategy - but it should not be hard to understand.

Some have told me that they believe that it is only a matter of time before our Mennonite students become absorbed into the dominant culture.  In fact, some would argue that this is one of the main purposes of our public education system, including an alternative program outreach school like mine.  Now, if that is truly the case, we are not being very honest with our Mennonite families.  If this was our goal and if we were indeed honest enough to inform families about that goal, I would surely lose all of my students before the year was out.  Fortunately, I need not be dishonest because this is not the goal of my school.  In any case, I believe that the premise behind it is ultimately mistaken.

As I've explained before, cultural heritage is a key form of inheritance for persons in traditional cultures.  For Low-German Mennonites, the cost of maintaining this heritage has been persecution and migration; it is not cast aside lightly.  Conflict with the Canadian government over the right to educate their children was the central issue that drove Old Colony and Sommerfelder Mennonites to migrate to Latin America in the early 20th century.  In these Mennonite settlements in Latin America, the colony schools play a key role in passing on this cultural heritage and especially in preserving their separateness.  Allowing their children to be educated in public schools in Canada today is a major concession.  Education changes lives.  But education does more than that - It changes families and relationships.  It changes cultures.  Mennonites know this deeply, and they are not wrong.  They know that they do not want their own children to come home thinking and acting like all the other children.  They do not want their children coming to view their parents and grandparents as "ignorant, uneducated, and wrong."

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"But education changes lives for the better!" you may argue.  Of course I passionately agree with this belief, or I would not have become a teacher.  But we must also admit that our history is mixed on this issue.  Here in Canada we live with the legacy of the First Nations residential school system which devastated the lives and cultures of so many.  Our track record is not so spotless.  Even in our public schools, many children feel persecuted, misunderstood, or ignored because of their cultural differences.

Kao Kalia Yang and sister experienced this as well.  In Kao's case, the cultural challenges had such an impact that she experienced Selective Mutism for many years.  It is worth listening to her describe this experience in her own words:

It is also worth noting that despite many challenges, the impact of education on Kao Kalia and her sister was ultimately positive and transformative. Today she is a writer and a teacher and a sympathetic and compelling voice for the Hmong people.  Ultimately, it was education that gave her back that voice.

And this is ultimately what I wish for my students: that education would empower them and give them a voice.

I know that my work as an educator will change my students and will impact their families and their culture.  I must be aware of this fact and acknowledge it upfront.  I may be humbled by this responsibility, but I will not be silenced by fear.  The key distinction, I believe, is that I am clear about my goal of empowering students to face their own futures and shape their own cultures.  This requires that I spend time listening to them and their families and extending them trust and respect, even when I do not always understand or agree with them.

For Kao Kalia, the key moment was when she understood that it would be selfish for her to simply be a consumer of education; she must also become a producer of knowledge.  She became a writer, and ultimately a teacher, and the world is richer because of it.

My students, too, must not just be passive recipients of knowledge.  They must be active participants in shaping their own education.  I want them to know that they too have something valuable to share with the world.  As descendants of a people whose experience of public education was of something done to them to change them, it is perhaps all the more important that they come to understand this deeper purpose of education.  I do not know exactly how or to what extent they will harmonize this purpose with their cultural value of separateness.  Mennonites over the centuries have struggled with how best to live out this value in the various eras and locations that they have found themselves.  At times they have argued with each other and divided from each other.  The question of how to do this in this place and at this time is theirs to answer, not mine.  But I can ensure that they have the skills and knowledge that they need to do it well.  I can help them to find their voice and to find the confidence to know that it is worth sharing.