Question about School Systems???

I have always wondered this and continue to.....I understand why school systems fingerprint employees before beginning employment, but why don't they do a checkup on the employees after a couple of years?  This makes no sense to me? Its like a free card to those that break the law. Once they are in the school system, they are never fingerprinted again? I do hope there is another method that alerts the school system of teachers that have broken the law....If not this does worry me as a future parent.  My children will be starting school soon and I do not want to think their teacher is some type of criminal (and no one will even know due to lack of taking to test our employees)

Blog # 5

I chose to review the site Hidden Problems of Child Farm workers.  The issue within this site has a great impact with education. Children of migrant workers are feeling the need to “work” for their family;therefore, they are dropping out of school at very young ages.  There is another downside to these children dropping out of school as well.  Since they are performing agriculture work, the current United States Child Labor Law does not apply to them.  So children can actually work as young as 10 years old with parental consent.  

I read a letter of a young boy that dropped out of school to work for his family.  This was heart wrenching.  He explained that his dad had diabetes and could work no longer.  To continue living, he and his siblings had to drop out of school to work on a farm to support their family.  This young boy felt that it was his duty to take care of his family rather than spend his days at school.  Now after the death of his father, this young man is craving an education to break the migrant cycle.  I applaud him for his goals!

My school system has several Hispanic families.  I distinctly remember having a conversation with a young girl one time about this same topic.  She was 12 years old and actually paid to come help our teachers as a translator.  She was a very intelligent young girl.  I could see her succeeding and going so far with her future.  One day when she was with me in my classroom, she confided in me and said she was going to drop out of school.  I asked her why?  She said her parents needed her more at home.  She felt that she needed to assist them.  Of course, I tried to change her mind and tried to show her how many opportunities her future would hold.  These opportunities in turn could help her family.  To this day, I do not know what she did.  I do hope she made the right choice.

Blog #4---Culture Diversity

Culture Diversity is always going to be a part of our world.  Therefore, it will be a part of our education and our schools as well.  Currently, there have debates with multiculturalism as part of the education curriculum.  I agree with the article written by Adam Waxler. He exemplified the significace of keeping the current curriculum along with incorporating various cultures into the lesson.  Instead of having teachers, break a part each culture into single lessons such as Women History Month. He shows how teachers can incorporated many cultures into one lesson.  His example is: World War II Unit and split students into various culture groups.  I loved this author’s idea!  I believe this way of teaching shows students how to form their own point of view.

In the article written by E.D Hirch, he exemplifies the unfairness the curriculum has on student’s in the United States.  Since our country can not agree on the issue of multiculturalism, every school is teaching something different.  Therefore, when a child moves districts or even schools, they may fall behind or miss information due to a lack in each teacher’s curriculum.  

I personally, I  have had a wonderfully experience with diversity in the classroom.  The previous school system that I taught kindergarten in, I usually had half a classroom of non-English speaking children.  Many of my families were Hispanic families.  The children as well as their parent did not speak English. Since I taught kindergarten, this made it a little difficult, but extremely fun! I loved the challenge and absolutely loved my sweet children.  Every year I always made sure I knew certain phrases for my Hispanic students.  By the end of the year, it was amazing to see the turn around my students made.  They would be translating for their parents.  It was so amazing!

My School System was also prepared for this culture diversity.  Every year parent notes, policy procedures, report cards, and etc went home translated in Spanish.  When we had open house, parent/teacher conferences, or any school activities, the school always provided translators.  I believe this was a wonderful resource for the Hispanic families.

In my opinion, people judge too much. After working with Hispanic families, I have found that they care so much for their children and their education.  Sometimes, I had more Hispanic families show up for events or conferences to support their children than did any other type of family.  I wish people would stop judging “books” by their cover...and remember this song

“Red, or green, black,or white, they are precious in his sight....”