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Native students need schools that acknowledge culture

COMPASS: Other points of view

By SHIRLEY TUZROYLUKE

Published: November 16th, 2008 09:39 PM
Last Modified: November 16th, 2008 10:15 PM

If you look back through the history of Alaska Natives in the state's education system, you will find that culture and language were systematically removed from children in the classrooms, in well-intentioned attempts to prepare them for life in Western society.

Today, Alaska Native student performance clearly reflects the cumulative effects of those cultural disconnects. What is missing in the classroom is the wealth of knowledge embedded in the history, languages and cultures of Alaska Native students. What is missing has the power to make education relevant and promote better achievement.

Look at the American Indian and Alaska Native students we're pushing out of our schools, and the truth is alarming. Our students are leaving because they cannot relate to the classroom content. Their classroom instruction isn't relevant to their day-to-day lives. It's clear that this educational system still has not learned the teaching strategies that work best with Alaska Native students.

But other options exist. In Juneau, we have an example of success. At the Yakoosgé Daakahídi Alternative High School, the small student body receives individualized support from staff and has a role model in their Alaska Native principal, Ronalda Cadiente. Students are organized into small communities, and instruction is based in culture. Students benefit from flexible school schedules that accommodate work and family commitments. The school environment fosters success by working within the family and community constraints that too often hinder progress. More than a third of the school's largely Alaska Native student body receive a diploma each year.

That record is important, because a closer look at Alaska's dropout rates reveals frightening facts.

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Alaska Native students account for only a quarter of the total enrollment in the state's public schools, grades 7 to 12, and yet they make up nearly 40 percent of all Alaska dropouts. Twelve percent of Native Alaskans are unemployed compared with only 4 percent of their white counterparts. Students who failed to graduate with their peers in 2007, many of whom are Alaska Native students, will cost the state more than $1.1 billion in lost wages over their lifetime. By and large our neighborhood schools are not serving American Indian and Alaska Native students academically or culturally. We must demand policy changes that prepare schools to support and nurture tomorrow's leaders.

In Anchorage, the confusing data categories for Alaska Native students cloud the stark reality of the dismal graduation rates that afflict our students. Accurate and dependable information is particularly essential to close the achievement gaps in Native student performance.

The good news is that we have opportunities on the state and the federal level to address these challenges and provide every student with a high quality education. Successful models can be found in our own backyard and in other states.

An example is in Montana, where a new law requires that Native culture be incorporated into all curricula. Imagine the possibilities in Alaska, which is exactly what I hope my colleagues will do when we draft a statewide education plan this month.

And when the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee returns to Washington, D.C., after its field hearing in Anchorage, I hope that they leave with a clear understanding of ways the federal government can help our young people succeed. I hope they understand that a stronger No Child Left Behind Act is the only vehicle for change. I hope that everyone remembers that for Alaska Native students to succeed in college and in the modern work force, our languages and culture must be woven into the fabric of our educational system.

Shirley Tuzroyluke is president of the Alaska Native Education Association and currently serves on the board of the National Indian Education Association.

Butler, F., & Stevens, R., and O’Malley & Valdez Pierce’s Content Assessments.

These readings had similar ideas what is the meaning of content assessments for English Language Learners (ELL). Through content assessments teachers can monitor student progress, determine if they are ready to move on, and if the school had met the expectation for student accountability.

Something that stuck out from O’Malley’s and Valdez Pierce reading was that academic language can take five to seven years, or more for students to master. So this means that student’s who are not taught the content language of assessment will not fare well in the language their taking the assessment. Butler and Steven’s article, on page 410 stated, “different states curriculum do not always align with the curriculum students have been taught”. This is something that needs to be considered when giving content standardized tests. It is not fair that ELL student have to take the test, when it has been taught differently.

Another subject that both articles mentioned was to give some adaptations, or a form of accommodation. Valdez Pierce and O’Malley gave ideas of scaffolding for ELL or English Second Language (ESL) learners. These are done through graphic organizers or semantic maps as listed in figure 7.4 on page 178. Butler and Stevens (B and S) main point of accommodations was that they are not always consistent, especially since each state have different definitions, and that each has different assessments they use to determine the proficiency of the students. Something that each state ignores from B and S’s is counting the scores of ELL students. If states would account these scores, there might be a better picture of weaknesses for all ELL students, and there would be data to compare the scores of ELL’s through out the states.

Our school district has adopted a social studies curriculum called the Social Studies Alive! When I first saw the ideas in this curriculum it reminded me of the SIOP method of teaching. What is lacking for me is the translating it. Our district has a lot of work to do for the Yugtun side of teaching. What they need to meet on before translating this is to come up with a common idea for each translation, and I don’t’ think they have the funding to accomplish this.

Through out the years I’ve taught in the school district is to teach the language in content. As I remember, I’ve attended in services where it was stressed that we need to teach the content language to our students, especially in math. One of the assessments my students had to do was to write up a story problem to go along with a number sentence. They struggled with this, and I was happy when the school district took this assessment out. It was complicated for my students, but I continue to teach them to use the academic language that they see daily with their lessons. What I need to do is to group them into cooperative learning groups so they’d become more familiar to the academic language, instead of me giving them ideas. I need more practice implementing academic language to their daily writing of the contents.

Ch 6 Writing Assessments: O'Malley & Valdez Pierce

This chapter gives an overview of the writing process, where it includes the role of the writer, and considerations that are needed to teach English Language Learners using the four processes of language across the curriculum. These are ideas that all language teachers need to consider when teaching language.

After reading this chapter it made me realize how unfamiliar I am with writing assessments. Currently I use the holistic approach to rate my students using the LKSD Yugtun scoring guide. I have not scored my students writing analytically, and it is something I should begin doing, so my students and their parents can understand their strengths and weaknesses.

My weakness in assessments is writing, and I only follow the district prompts when I assess my students. Something that I need to do is to do a survey of their interests, and substitute the prompts used for the assessments. Another thing that I don’t do is implementing writing to other contents. I do this on and off for our Upingaurluta units, where I have my students write about what was taught, as well as their production in art.

I like figure 6.1 in page 143. Our LKSD Yugtun scoring guide doesn’t have the precise definition for each term. Most of my students fall on level 2 where they use the same vocabulary day after day. This lets me know that I need to teach them other vocabulary words, and post them on the wall. If I were to use this rubric, I would modify it to how my students write. Each year, in writing instruction, I share a writing sample to my students where I would like to see them in the end of the year. What I’ve learned from reading this chapter, I need to have a rubric of my expectations, instead of having my students guess where I want them to be.

I also rarely have the students share their writings with their peers. The only thing I do is to have an emergent writer help a struggling writer when they’ve completed their work. Sometime, I would like to teach my students to begin doing is to review their work with each other, instead of my instruction to be teacher-centered.

Perogoy & Boyle’s Reading Assessment and Instruction, Chap 10

This chapter focuses on informal reading assessments, as well as the forms of communication (oral language, reading, and writing) to show the strengths and weaknesses of the students.

As teachers, we must determine the language proficiency of our students in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. We can capture this through different forms of reading assessments and instructions. As found in the article they included the informal reading inventory where we can capture the students reading proficiency, comprehension, decoding skills for a reading level (independent, instructional or frustration), and retelling skills. From the information that was gathered through running records, miscue analysis, observations during guided reading (a way of linking assessment to instruction), as well as different forms of reading mentioned in the article, teachers can decide what to concentrate for their instruction. Similar to Valdez/O’Malley’s article, this article also mentioned the importance of student background/language knowledge, and literacy experiences for information for reading experiences.

The part I liked from reading this article was the ReQuest procedure. My students do not ask questions after and during reading, even though I encourage them to ask questions. I am planning to begin teaching my students to ask questions similar to the game found in page 407 by a primary teacher. I’m hoping in doing this, my students will begin asking questions.

Something that I learned is: “barking a print”, a term used for reading word to word found in page 379. In Yugtun reading, this would be syllable-by-syllable reading in our polysynthetic language. Most of the Yugtun immersion first graders are in this stage. I often have to consider the length of the word when they read for reading proficiency, especially when they answered the comprehension questions correctly.

Other off subject note: My sons are participating in the Bethel Regional wrestling tournament this weekend, and I hope they do well!

O'Malley's/Valdez Reading Assess Ch 5

This chapter has ideas that I implement in the Reading Assessments. One of them involve the running record where I open the student’s prior knowledge to what their about to read. Before they read, I tell them the main idea of the story, inform them that I’ll be asking them questions when their done reading pertaining to what they’ve just read, and to be prepared to retell the story in their own words. Something that I’ve learned from reading this chapter is to note hesitations. I do not mark that in their running records, and I will begin doing that, but I do write in the word substitutions and self-corrections. The chapter stated that running records benefit with training, something that I haven’t received. I learned by practicing testing my own students.

Often, my students have trouble reading with expression. During reading instruction, I highlight the punctuation marks and allow the students to practice. I’ve observed that students who are struggling to read are finding it more difficult to read with impression. I also practice asking the students what they think the story will be about when I show the cover of the story. When there is no answer, which is most of the time, I do a model think-aloud of what I think the book will be about. According to the readings on page 120, the students will be ready to do a think aloud in groups or individuals after practicing for a number of times.

I know that good readers became good readers by reading every day. In class, right after the students are done with their spelling words, I tell them to read until its time for math. Each day, I roam around the classroom and listen to the students read, but I mostly spend listening and working with struggling readers. I allow the students to choose the book they want to read, but when I notice a student trying to read above their frustration level, I tell them to choose another book. Something that I would like to begin doing is to give time for the students to talk to each other about what they’ve just read. My students often have trouble retelling the story in their own words. This would give them a chance to practice retelling with each other.

Assessing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. Rhodes, Ochoa, Oritz

Minority students have been labeled to be mentally retarded, learning disabled, seriously emotional disturbed, emotionally disturbed, and many other labels for special education compared to Caucasians. In 1997, the reauthorization of IDEA was written to change the difference, but minority students continue to be defined in those categories more than the Caucasians. It has been found that the higher the population, the greater percent of labeling, including students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP). It is unfortunate that is usually the case for LEP students in the schools, and the way each state implement assessments are different. I was surprised to read that school psychologists are not well trained in testing the LEP students for special education, especially when there are cultural differences. In LKSD the school psychologist is often the one who tests students, and it makes me question how well trained they are about student’s culture although they live in Bethel where it’s a multicultural.

In LKSD we started doing interventions about a year ago, which we call the Child Intervention Study (CSI). This is done to work closely with students we believe that are at risk in academics or social development. It is hard to refer a student into Special Education in our school, although we keep track of the CSI records. Our district office believes that referrals should not occur until they are taught in English. This sounds reasonable, but they are not taught in English until they reach third grade. This is unfair for the student, especially since it delays the services they should receive. Most of these students are limited in both languages.

Poehner & Lantolf’s Dynamic Assessment in the Language Classroom

After reading this article, my understanding of Dynamic Assessment (DA) is that it’s a form of intervention between the student and the teacher. In this form, the child’s response to learning is taken into account in the testing situation, which is the whole picture of how the child came into the conclusion. Dynamic Assessment is not a traditional form of assessment; it considers Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), and the mediation given during the assessment. Vygotsky’s ZPD brings the student to a learning zone where the child learns to take the assessment with some form of mediation. ZPD’s goal is to allow the child to learn by taking into consideration their current performance, and performance with help of the teacher. Mediation is almost like scaffolding, but the examiner is looking to induce change where it is believed that the student will apply what was learned to another situation. Dynamic Assessments brings out what is beginning to mature, and it keeps the learning and testing situations together. In DA, the questions that are asked are to allow the child to notice what has been difficult to learn, and that is to bring them to their ZPD. What seemed to be impossible can be possible with Dynamic Assessment, especially since you raise the student’s learning through mediation.

I’d be interested to view a video on how Dynamic Assessment is done in a primary immersion setting. Like I said many times before, the assessments that my students take, the language is too complicated from them. If I tested the students through this approach, since most of my students are not language delayed in their first language, according to DA, they’d do well on their assessment through my mediation.