SPECIAL PROGRAMMES FOR MINORITY STUDENTSDo they help students identify accept and resolve the value conflict in
It should be no longer surprising for teachers in American to find themselves in classrooms with newly arrived immigrant students. There are a great many teachers whom I am sure have learned a great deal about the language and the cultures of immigrant children from all over the world yet may find themselves suddenly facing students of whom they know very little about. ... I identified my problem and research questions in a Special ESL (English as second language) classroom. It is a very small class of ten (10) students who are all immigrants (One Ukrainian, One Saudi Arabian, One Pakistani, One West African, One East African and Five West Indians) and are between the ages 14-17 years old. Before admittance and placement, these students were all assessed and found to be reading at a grade three level. ... All the students in the special class are children who had recently migrated to the United States. ... Some of these students could not go to school in their native countries because of political unrest, and others because they were too poor. I worked with this class every Thursday for six months investigating an effective model to teach reading to migrant students. In January of 2000, I really began to consciously search for variables which may affect the socialisation and moral development of students placed in such special programmes. I have since realised that the students of this class have got to have very positive attitudes of self and very strong moral foundations at home and at church to be able to leave high school conquering such a programme and growing into confident goal oriented youths. ... She hardly knows the language and the cultures of the students placed in her care and as such many conflicts arise. In addition the programme is so geared that the students spent ninety-five percent of their time in this special classroom with Ms. ... These children never get the opportunity to work with students in mainstream classes. ... The New York high school I worked with obviously did not think these students important enough that special attention be given into the conceptualisation and the execution of a programme like the one the students were involved in. ... Cannella alludes to the notion that a right to choose is denied to those who for individual, cultural or other reasons does not accept or fit the dominant construction. ... After a few months of working with the students I began to identify subtle changes in two of the students behaviours. One of these students is a black Jamaican boy who we will call Clive and the other is an East Indian Trinidadian boy whom we will call Suresh. ... None of these students kept friends with students from the other classes. They would often be seen hanging out with other students from their special class. I had noticed though, that Clive was beginning to get visits from students from the mainstream classrooms and during breaks he no longer hung out with peers from his class but with his new friends.