Hi Daisy!
It's truly disheartening that emergent bilinguals are being excluded from science and social studies courses. I agree that due to assessment pressures, some schools focus their curricula on math and English to improve test scores. However, I think this exclusion also stems from educator's and policy maker's deficit thinking. Some educators may correlate a student's lack of English comprehension to intelligence. I think including EB's in such classes can expand their vocabulary and potentially expose them to subjects they may want to pursue a career in. It's clear that students learn best when they are taught using culturally relevant curricula and with subjects that intrigue them. I wonder how emergent bilinguals' test scores would change if there was a strict arts, social studies, and science requirement?
I was also shocked to hear about the resource inequities in school with high proportions of EBs. I have read a few articles about funding disparities in education. Specifically about how dual language schools that are in mostly white monolingual areas were able to open more schools than those that serve primarily immigrant communities. Here's the link to that article if you would like to check it out! https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10993-017-9433-7
Watching the videos felt almost like a relief for me. It's nice to see classrooms where EBs are supported and are shown empathy to develop bi/multilingualism.
It's truly disheartening that emergent bilinguals are being excluded from science and social studies courses. I agree that due to assessment pressures, some schools focus their curricula on math and English to improve test scores. However, I think this exclusion also stems from educator's and policy maker's deficit thinking. Some educators may correlate a student's lack of English comprehension to intelligence. I think including EB's in such classes can expand their vocabulary and potentially expose them to subjects they may want to pursue a career in. It's clear that students learn best when they are taught using culturally relevant curricula and with subjects that intrigue them. I wonder how emergent bilinguals' test scores would change if there was a strict arts, social studies, and science requirement?
I was also shocked to hear about the resource inequities in school with high proportions of EBs. I have read a few articles about funding disparities in education. Specifically about how dual language schools that are in mostly white monolingual areas were able to open more schools than those that serve primarily immigrant communities. Here's the link to that article if you would like to check it out! https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10993-017-9433-7
Watching the videos felt almost like a relief for me. It's nice to see classrooms where EBs are supported and are shown empathy to develop bi/multilingualism.