This week’s reading hit particularly close to home for me as a bilingual student with immigrant parents who have limited English proficiency and educational background. Most of the readings this week mentioned that, due to the normative Western views of parental involvement which stigmatize minority families, many parents feel that they aren’t able to adequately support their children’s education. They often believe that teachers are the expert in supporting the student’s education, thus they support their children in different ways. I’ve had that exact same experience after elementary school where my mother told me that she wouldn’t be able to help me with things like homework because she didn’t get past an elementary school education. Instead she supported me in other ways like making sure that I was clothed and fed as well as signing me up for tutoring when she thought I needed extra support. These are completely valid ways of parental engagement, so I always felt bad when my mother apologized for not being able to help me more.
Another interesting takeaway from this week’s reading is utilizing a student’s politicized funds of knowledge. The topic discussed in the readings, Immigration, is extremely pertinent to our current political climate, so I’m glad that it came up and we are discussing strategies to address the topic. I completely agree with the fact that we shouldn’t shy away from the darker topics like immigration status or deportation when the topics are relevant to the student’s lives. Even if teachers don’t discuss the topic, those things might still be impacting the student’s lives, so educators should create a safe space for students to discuss and learn about these topics instead of ignoring it. We see this in the Gallo & Link reading where Ben doesn’t feel comfortable discussing his father’s deportation with his teachers, but is comfortable broaching the topic with Holly on the playground. Through his talk with Holly, Ben was able to learn a little bit more about his family’s situation. He was also able to educate his peers about immigration using his politicized funds of knowledge when he had group discussions in the library. Although the teachers wanted to be a safe space for students to talk about more personal topics, they can’t just imply it. They have to intentionally create a safe space and build a relationship of trust with the students where they know that educators are there to help them, not judge them. It is helpful that reading had examples of how to broach the topic. For example, not just reading a book about immigration, which may only portray certain types of immigrants, but allow the students to discuss the immigration experiences of people they know, if they want to. Teachers could also share their own personal experiences with the topic. Not only will this make immigrant students more comfortable, but it will also allow nonimmigrant students to learn more about immigration. These strategies could also work with other sensitive topics. However, it is more difficult these days for teachers as they are often restricted to a preset curriculum with not much flexibility especially with the teaching for testing culture after NCLB and ESSA. I’m curious as to how to incorporate these topics and make your classroom a safe space despite the limitations.