My last week at Exodus. My, how time flies...
This summer we started out with twenty interns, and then there were none :(
Just kidding, there's still around four of us, I think. But it seems as though every day there are less and less people in the conference room during lunchtime. Sometimes I feel like the staff secretly whisper to each other: "Why is that one still here?..." I even got asked today when I was leaving, even though it was a friendly conversation starter. The office sure is lonely without all my intern friends!
This has been a really good summer for me. I have learned and grown and taken chances and met some incredible people, some of whom are my students who I will never forget.
This weekend I left Indiana to go to New York City to see my friends from study abroad in the Dominican Republic. When I first met my roommate and friend who I had lived with for four months, we hugged and cried and hugged and cried. I had really missed her, but hadn't had so much time this summer to think about it. And when we saw our other friends when we arrived at Washington Heights, it was such a beautiful moment, as though we had never left the DR. And the Heights is a great neighborhood, reminded me so much of Santiago that I felt like I was back there again, and with my same gals. We had been through so much together, so many tender moments, hard life obstacles, sketchy situations, you name it. We have a friendship and bond that only living in a new place that none of you are familiar with can create. And going to see them and be in New York was one of the best weekends of my life. I had been feeling pretty burned out, and every once in a while I need a pick-me-up (usually involving either travel or seeing long-lost friends). And now I feel ready and rejuvenated to start the school year again!
This summer has made me realize a lot of things about myself and about my life goals. Working at Exodus has been wonderful in so many ways, and has especially given me a new appreciation for social workers. They are always going places, always taking care of problems, interpreting for different languages, making appointments, and getting paid not a whole lot! To those of you out there who do social work, hats off to you. You're making the world a better place, helping those who need it, and working hard for the well-being of others and getting not a lot in return. As many of my students would say, "God bless you."
And this summer has made me realize what I really want to pursue in my Fulbright scholarship. I have decided to make it my goal to try to go to Colombia. I have a newfound passion for the situation of misplaced people, and with all that is going on in Colombia right now, there are many people who have had to leave their homes and either go to the city or to other countries to seek refuge. I feel a strong need to find this story, to express it somehow. Although I don't have a strong background in research, I would like to write some sort of compilation of stories from people in the community who have had to go through similar situations as those who I've worked with at Exodus. And I feel strongly that Colombia is the place to do it. So when I go back to school, I'm going to work hard, get that application in the best that I can, and hope that this scholarship works to the best of my abilities.
Sometimes people ask me why I don't want to go to a place that I would never go to in a million years, like southern Africa or Eastern Europe. And the truth is that communication through language is the key to understanding a community, and my best shot at understanding a community is speaking the native tongue. Since my strongest language is Spanish, I know that I can make more of a difference in Latin America than I can anywhere else in the world. And making a difference can come in many shapes and forms. I know tons of people who make a difference every day and aren't recognized for it. One doesn't have to travel halfway across the world to feed hungry children in order to make a difference. Sometimes the answer is right at our doorstep, and someone not too far from you is waiting for your help. It's all about making the right effort to take the opportunity to do something about it :)
Sometimes it is very hard to feel like I can't communicate with my students. Although I am teaching English to them and we are communicating, I feel as though I would have a more meaningful relationship with them if I spoke their language. But they make a great effort to learn English and to come to class every day to better their lives. And I have to say, I am a firm believer in ESL around the world. After having seen the struggles that some of the clients go through here because of language barriers, and how much easier it is for those who have an English background, I feel that denying people around the world the right to learn English doesn't have an overall positive outcome. I understand the argument of cultural and lingual preservation. I love different languages as much as the next person! But I also understand a bit of how the world works on a global level, and the truth is that the world is changing, and English is the new trend. These days, people need to speak English to be able to have access to so many opportunities and resources. It's a shame, I admit, that English is the most important language. I don't think it's fair that some people like me get to go through life without really having to learn another language while others who are trying to make it in the world must learn two or three.
But I believe that because this is the way society works, we have to adapt to give everyone equal opportunity. Equal opportunity of education means equal opportunity of language acquisition. I think that everyone should be given that right.
But alas, my days teaching English to these students are numbered, and soon I will be off to school and the students will have a new teacher and the cycle will begin again. Let's hope it gets better and better each time around. :)
Thanks for reading and my final post of A Summer of Refuge will be up next week!
Anna
Monday, August 12, 2013
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Scores and Inequalities
Hey there and welcome back to A Summer of Refuge! After this I will only be posting 2 more times, as I only have 2 more weeks left at Exodus.
This week, my new students took their first unit test to assess how much they have learned so far in the course. And I was surprised at how well they did! I think they have learned a lot and have improved their English, even after only 2 weeks. I have to say, as a teacher I feel responsible for their test scores. When I was in the Dominican Republic taking an ESL certification course, we had to read a very interesting article about teachers feeling a sense of too much responsibility. And it's absolutely true. How happy would a teacher be if all of his or her students scored 100% on their exams? I would be thrilled! But this is an unrealistic expectations, because our students are humans, not robots. Everyone learns differently and everyone takes tests differently, some better than others.
Often I think that we base too much of what we think is intelligence on test scores. Now, I know that this is an argument that we get into a lot, and I'm aware that in the United States our system is a whole lot less test-based than in other parts of the world. But often I wonder how many students fall behind, are seen as dumb, are not respected or given opportunities just because they test badly? Unfortunately, this is a lot of people. I have always been an advocate of equal opportunity in every sense of the word, especially when it comes to education, because I am one of those people who believes that a good education is a key to security, success, and the improvement of a person's quality of life. This is my sociology side coming out, and now I've come across a new idea: that the importance of test scores in the education system is a form of inequality.
Of course I agree that standardized test scores do not promote an equal playing field whatsoever. If you don't go to a good school, you aren't going to learn as much. If you don't have the resources to seek extra help, how can you expect to study correctly? A score on the ACT or SAT does not represent how intelligent you are. To me, it represents two things: your accessibility to certain information and your willingness to study for the test. When I first came to DePauw, I specifically remember how exciting it was to talk to my new classmates in my first year mentor group. The first night, a few of us were hanging out in one of the dorm lounges, getting to know each other and getting past the preliminaries (where are you from, what do you want to be your major, etc) before really becoming friends. Well, we started to get on the subject of AP courses.
I went to a small public high school in rural Iowa, which is not necessarily what colleges like DePauw are looking for. However, I considered my high school to be one of the better ones in the area, and I appreciated all that was offered to me. In my eyes, I had just as good a chance as any to get into the school I wanted. And when I went to DePauw, I felt even more confident about this. But when I started talking to other first year students, I realized that I might not have been as high on the spectrum as I thought. I was asked, "What AP courses did you take?" "How many AP credits do you have?" "My score on the ACT was 32...how about yours?" At first, I felt very out of place. I had never taken AP courses because my school didn't have them. I got a 27 on the ACT, which wasn't the score that I wanted, but eventually it worked out. Many of my fellow classmates went in to college already having college credits because of their AP scores, and could less classes in one semester. This was something I couldn't relate to, an opportunity that I couldn't take advantage of. And I slowly came to realize that not having taken AP courses put me at a major disadvantage when applying to college.
But I have no room to complain because I definitely consider myself on the middle to high rung of the social spectrum. I never had to deal with major financial difficulties growing up, my parents were able to help put me through college, and now I have an internship and plan to go to grad school. This is as far in life as I ever hoped to get, and I am so grateful.
But what about everyone else? Not everyone else has been so fortunate as I have. I consider myself a pretty good test-taker if I know the information at hand. But what about everyone else?
Now I find myself on the other side, expecting my students to get As on the tests I give them, becoming frustrated when they don't. But then I come to realize that not only am I raising the bar too high for them, but also for myself as a teacher. Every point that is wrong, I wonder if I just didn't do a good job teaching the material. Once again, students are human beings, not robots. No one is perfect, and for me to expect perfect scores across the board is unrealistic and doesn't necessarily represent my skills as a teacher. So now I am working on not worrying so much about the scores, but about the individual in class, and whether I am contributing to their active learning. Being a teacher sure makes me miss being a student sometimes :)
Just some food for thought! I'll be back next week with more to report!
Anna
This week, my new students took their first unit test to assess how much they have learned so far in the course. And I was surprised at how well they did! I think they have learned a lot and have improved their English, even after only 2 weeks. I have to say, as a teacher I feel responsible for their test scores. When I was in the Dominican Republic taking an ESL certification course, we had to read a very interesting article about teachers feeling a sense of too much responsibility. And it's absolutely true. How happy would a teacher be if all of his or her students scored 100% on their exams? I would be thrilled! But this is an unrealistic expectations, because our students are humans, not robots. Everyone learns differently and everyone takes tests differently, some better than others.
Often I think that we base too much of what we think is intelligence on test scores. Now, I know that this is an argument that we get into a lot, and I'm aware that in the United States our system is a whole lot less test-based than in other parts of the world. But often I wonder how many students fall behind, are seen as dumb, are not respected or given opportunities just because they test badly? Unfortunately, this is a lot of people. I have always been an advocate of equal opportunity in every sense of the word, especially when it comes to education, because I am one of those people who believes that a good education is a key to security, success, and the improvement of a person's quality of life. This is my sociology side coming out, and now I've come across a new idea: that the importance of test scores in the education system is a form of inequality.
Of course I agree that standardized test scores do not promote an equal playing field whatsoever. If you don't go to a good school, you aren't going to learn as much. If you don't have the resources to seek extra help, how can you expect to study correctly? A score on the ACT or SAT does not represent how intelligent you are. To me, it represents two things: your accessibility to certain information and your willingness to study for the test. When I first came to DePauw, I specifically remember how exciting it was to talk to my new classmates in my first year mentor group. The first night, a few of us were hanging out in one of the dorm lounges, getting to know each other and getting past the preliminaries (where are you from, what do you want to be your major, etc) before really becoming friends. Well, we started to get on the subject of AP courses.
I went to a small public high school in rural Iowa, which is not necessarily what colleges like DePauw are looking for. However, I considered my high school to be one of the better ones in the area, and I appreciated all that was offered to me. In my eyes, I had just as good a chance as any to get into the school I wanted. And when I went to DePauw, I felt even more confident about this. But when I started talking to other first year students, I realized that I might not have been as high on the spectrum as I thought. I was asked, "What AP courses did you take?" "How many AP credits do you have?" "My score on the ACT was 32...how about yours?" At first, I felt very out of place. I had never taken AP courses because my school didn't have them. I got a 27 on the ACT, which wasn't the score that I wanted, but eventually it worked out. Many of my fellow classmates went in to college already having college credits because of their AP scores, and could less classes in one semester. This was something I couldn't relate to, an opportunity that I couldn't take advantage of. And I slowly came to realize that not having taken AP courses put me at a major disadvantage when applying to college.
But I have no room to complain because I definitely consider myself on the middle to high rung of the social spectrum. I never had to deal with major financial difficulties growing up, my parents were able to help put me through college, and now I have an internship and plan to go to grad school. This is as far in life as I ever hoped to get, and I am so grateful.
But what about everyone else? Not everyone else has been so fortunate as I have. I consider myself a pretty good test-taker if I know the information at hand. But what about everyone else?
Now I find myself on the other side, expecting my students to get As on the tests I give them, becoming frustrated when they don't. But then I come to realize that not only am I raising the bar too high for them, but also for myself as a teacher. Every point that is wrong, I wonder if I just didn't do a good job teaching the material. Once again, students are human beings, not robots. No one is perfect, and for me to expect perfect scores across the board is unrealistic and doesn't necessarily represent my skills as a teacher. So now I am working on not worrying so much about the scores, but about the individual in class, and whether I am contributing to their active learning. Being a teacher sure makes me miss being a student sometimes :)
Just some food for thought! I'll be back next week with more to report!
Anna
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