Bridging the Gap: Re-framing Cultural Differences

Here is a copy of my presentation at the Literacy Across the Curriculum conference that was put on by the English as a Second Language Council of the Alberta Teachers Association.  You can also access it by clicking the link below:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQL_3bFFq079AzwJC9Zji9WWNtYhjmYnqk36jcsDl2lotJ4vN2ghWqA-J-Vd_ZEgooxnP0aJzzlg6Em/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=10000

Who Are "Struggling ELs"?

In a recent article by Andrea DeCapua, "Building Bridges to Academic Success Through Culturally Responsive Teaching," I have yet again found new vocabulary and categories to help me to think and speak more clearly about about the challenges my students face and about my own challenges in teaching them.  I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by this; a few years ago my understanding of my students and of my teaching practice was transformed by the themes of SLIFE and MALP which I discovered in the work of DeCapua and her colleagues.  More recently, I have found her focus on using a Culturally Responsive Approach, and on Reframing the Conversation About Students With Limited or Interrupted Formal Education From Achievement Gap to Cultural Dissonance to be exceptionally helpful.

This recent article revisits those themes, but DeCapua's wording and emphasis have shifted in significant ways.  The primary difference is that the targeted population are described here as "Struggling Els" rather than as SLIFE.  Those familiar with DeCapua's work know that the two categories overlap substantially, but they may be surprised by the absence of the term SLIFE in this article, given how central it has been in her previous writing.  I don't know why she chose this approach, but I can definitely relate to it.  When I was preparing my presentation for the 2016 South Western Alberta Teachers' Convention, I found it very difficult to come up with wording for a title and summary that accurately communicated my topic while allowing teachers to connect it to their own perceived needs.  In the end, I chose "More Than ELL," because I knew that many teachers have English Language Learners who are having difficulties that go beyond language acquisition.  I also know from experience that many of those difficulties stem from limited or interrupted formal education but that teachers rarely recognize this factor and would not be drawn to a session addressing it.

Another concern for me is that the label "Students With Limited or Interrupted Formal Education" puts the emphasis on what students lack.  It is a deficit-based term, rather that difference-based one.  DeCapua seems to be very concerned about this as well.  She writes:

But I now ask, how appropriate is such a deficit view?  If we measure struggling learners through the lens of formal education, then yes, they are lacking.  But what if we recognize that their “reality” is distinct, that their ways of thinking and perspectives on learning, derived from their prior culturally based learning experiences, are different rather than deficient? Doing so invites a very different conversation.

Under a deficit-based model, the problem is seen as residing within the student, and the emphasis is on "fixing" the student or making up for what they lack. In a difference-based model, the problem is seen as resulting from a mismatch between the student's current skills, abilities and/or attitudes and those demanded by the learning tasks. The emphasis is on helping the student to use their strengths and to connect their prior learning to the learning outcomes. The two approaches tend to feel very different to both student and teacher, and the prior approach can be very alienating to students who are already having difficulty relating to their teachers and fellow students.  This is a lesson I learned clearly as a learning support teacher grappling with the language of "disability", but I believe that it applies equally well to understanding the experiences of students with cultural differences.

After reading this article, it seems to me that this lesson is particularly important in understanding the needs of struggling ELs.  According to DeCapua,

Struggling ELs (1) have not had access to commensurate formal education relative to their age; 2) have low or no literacy skills; 3) are missing grade-level content knowledge; and 4), do not see themselves as learners within a formal educational paradigm.

This list closely resembles the qualities she has previously used in defining SLIFE, but in those descriptions, the last point was more often described in terms of a need to develop academic ways of thinking, or to adapt to cultural differences in learning and teaching.  

I was particularly struck by the way that this article uses the phrase "incomplete identity as learner," instead.  This description is broader and is much more immediately applicable to the students I currently teach.  My school is an outreach school where almost all of the students are ELs who already have more education than their parents.  The students who struggle most tend to be those who have difficulty seeing the relevance of academic education and engaging with the school system.  For many, their identity as a learner (at least within the formal schooling system) is significantly weaker than their identity as a contributor to their family or peer group, or as a member of their cultural and/or religious community, or even as an employee.  When these other aspects of their identity come so much easier and seem so much more meaningful, it is not difficult to understand why a student would focus on them instead.  If we do not successfully bridge this difference, they will not sufficiently engage with the school system to develop their literacy or content knowledge.  Treating their differences as deficits merely weakens the student's identity as a learner and increases the risk of accelerating their disengagement.

It is true that the terms on DeCapua's list above can be interpreted in terms of what students "lack", but as the article progresses, she helps to re-frame these qualities in terms of difference.  I find this to be especially true with respect to the identity issue.  She explains that we must 

"draw on and honor the prior experiences and current knowledge of struggling ELs, experiences and knowledge that may not be (and in most cases are not) school-based ways of thinking and school knowledge."  

Doing so could provide them with the success needed to build their confidence and strengthen their identity as a learner within the formal education system.  

In the second half of the article she goes into greater detail about how exactly to create a bridge to success for struggling ELs.  This is where she ties things back to her previous work with Culturally Responsive Teaching and with MALP.  This ground has been well covered by DeCapua in other places and I will admit to skimming through it.  At the time, I was still reflecting on the importance of the role of "identity as learner" in the education of struggling ELs and relating it to individual students of mine. It fits so well with what I have been observing and provides a much clearer lens with which to focus on the challenges we face.  I know that I will eventually shift back to focusing on the principles of Culturally Responsive Teaching and of MALP to try to incorporate them more fully into my practice, particularly now that their relevance has been reaffirmed.  But for now I am still pondering the implications of this shift in language and approach and considering the possibilities that it offers.

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.

Jane Govoni Discusses SLIFE with Andrea DeCapua

I found an interesting set of videos about Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education over at the ESOL website.  In these four videos, Jane Govoni, Ph.D. puts a series of questions about SLIFE to Andrea DeCapua, Ed.D. They compare Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE) to English Learners (ELs) and discuss how teachers’ strategies may differ for each.  The videos are short (under 5 minutes each), but they provide a good introduction to the background and needs of SLIFE.

ESOL Tip #1 Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education Compared to English Learners

ESOL Tip #2 "SLIFE in the Classroom"

ESOL Tip #3 "Underlying Cultural Differences in SLIFE"

ESOL Tip #4 "Serving All Students"

Reframing the Conversation

Obviously I haven't had a lot of time to blog lately, but sometimes I find an article that is too important not to share.  This is one of those times.

I just finished going through Reframing the Conversation About Students With Limited or Interrupted Formal Education: From Achievement Gap to Cultural Dissonance by Andrea DeCapua and Helaine Marshall.  It is not a long article, but it neatly ties together many of they most important themes in the SLIFE literature.  First off, they describe they key characteristics of SLIFE and the challenges they face.  They emphasize the importance of understanding the learning paradigm of SLIFE and how it may differ from our own.  Next, they summarized the main components of Culturally Responsive Teaching and showed how the Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm, which they have promoted, connects with these components.

I was particularly taken by the section of this article where the authors identify three major instructional barriers to learning experienced by SLIFE: (1) the credibility of future reward, (2) classroom discourse routines that emphasize individual participation, and (3) the focus on standardized testing.  In that section, I found a number of passages that accurately describe many of the students at my school.  One particularly relevant section for me was the following:

"the U.S. educational system posits the promise of future reward from education, reflected in the significantly better earning potential of high school and college graduates (National Center for Educational Statistics, n.d.). Members of largely marginalized groups find this promise less than credible given racial, ethnic, and income inequalities, and a lack of strong role models (Altshuler & Schmautz, 2001; Nieto, 2009; Noguera, 2003). Moreover, when SLIFE have long-term future goals, such as wanting to become a doctor or journalist, they are frequently unaware of what they need to do specifically to reach these goals, and whether or not these goals are realistic given their previous educational experience relative to their age. Many SLIFE also become discouraged quickly and give up their goals and efforts to achieve them as they encounter failure and disappointments in school (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2010; Suárez-Orozco, Suárez-Orozco, & Todorova, 2008)."

This quote succinctly captures one of the biggest challenges faced by my students.  It is, however, the challenge that I feel is least understood in my community, even among educators.  I know that I will find myself paraphrasing this description in future conversations with colleagues and other community members.

DeCapua and Marshall conclude by arguing that we must re-frame the conversation from deficit talk to focusing on cultural dissonance.  This is necessary, they explain, for us move ahead with a culturally responsive approach so that we can lessen, if not remove, the barriers to school success for SLIFE.  I have tried, on this blog, to share stories and articles which have helped me to re-frame my thinking.  Not surprisingly, I have often referenced the work of DeCapua and Marshall in these prior posts.  I think that in this article, however, they move the topic significantly forward by deepening our understanding of the challenges faced by SLIFE and by making explicit connections to Culturally Responsive Teaching.  I hope that it will be widely read and discussed among educators of SLIFE.


DeCapua, A. & Marshall, H.W., NASSP Bulletin 0192636515620662, first published on December 4, 2015 doi:10.1177/0192636515620662
http://bul.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/12/02/0192636515620662.abstract

New WIDA Bulletin: Focus on Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education

The WIDA Consortium released a new Bulletin in May 2015 titled: Focus on Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education.  It is a 14 page document with a lot of practical advice for educators of SLIFE.  The content in the bulletin contains many of the key ideas from the academic literature but  presents them in a very clear and readable format.

A highlight for me in this document was the interview with  Dr. Deborah Short, co-developer of the SIOP Model and director of research on English language learners and newcomer programs for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education.  Some of her main recommendations for SLIFE are to:

1. Use specially designed curriculum to help fill in gaps in knowledge, particularly at the secondary level. Curriculum should integrate content and language instruction from the start, and also integrate academic and social language.
2. Ensure that students’ literacy development is appropriate to their age, not necessarily to their academic levels.
3. Train teachers to make use of the student’s home language by doing simple things like having students annotate the word vocabulary notebooks in the native language.
4. Make a separate class or two available in their first year to provide targeted interventions to help fill in the gaps in content areas and developing English skills.
5. Allow students the time to catch up, by providing programs during summer vacation or holiday vacations, after-school programs and Saturday programs during the school year.

The interview contains a number of other good suggestions and the rest of the bulletin is useful as well.  This document, combined with the most recent DeCapua and Marshall article, would provide an excellent introduction to the main ideas and strategies involved in the education of SLIFE.