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Principle: The school is an organism composed of the administrators, teachers, students, and parents.
Principle: The school is an organism composed of the administrators, teachers, students, and parents.
As I stated in the introduction of the school, Shuang Wen School is a K-8 Chinese and English dual language school that adopts a 50-50 model. To better facilitate students in learning, the half day rollercoaster model, side-by-side alternate day model, and the Gomez and Gomez model are implemented at different grade levels. The choice of the models directly decides how teachers of each grade level are trained. In general, the teacher recruitment process at Shuang Wen School is the same as other schools in New York City. Prospective teachers send their resumes directly to the school administrators. If there happens to be a vacancy, the school will send interview invitations and hire the person based on his or her educational background and teaching ability. While grade K-3 teachers need to possess a certificate in Chinese-English dual language education, grade 4-8 teachers are not necessarily bilingual. Even if a teacher is certified as bilingual, he or she may be only teaching in one language unless he or she feels the need to use two languages in class. This can cause trouble when grade 4-8 students have the need to communicate with English monolingual teachers, and can be a potential problem of parent-teacher communication, too.
At the parent-teacher conference (one on one via Zoom), I listened to how Mr. Lennington explained the performance of each student to their parents and suggested the parents pushing their child to read more at home. The reaction of the parents really surprised me because it echoed what Gándara and Rumberger (2009) wrote, that immigrant parents were not used to being partners of the teacher in educating their children and inserting their opinions into school decisions (p. 759). The first parent who came to the conference was Chinese, and she just listened to Mr. Lennington talk. When asked about her thoughts, she just nodded and replied "okay," or "thanks." When it came to White and African American parents, the conversation became dynamic with the teacher and the parent going back and forth with questions, answers, and small talk. It was quite obvious that Chinese parents tend to refrain from talking much. There are some possible reasons. First, the parents have limited ability to communicate in English. Second, the parents do not feel comfortable talking to someone that is White and well-educated. Third, the parents received traditional Chinese education, which did not encourage self-expression in public. Although the reasons can be complex, the way parents interact with the teacher can reflect how they interact with the school, and thus influence their sense of belonging to the school community. I am not saying that Chinese parents do not care about how their children behave at school. In fact, they usually care a lot about it. However, the way they show their care may be different from what Westerners would do, and the fact that the teacher is a monolingual White man can also be a crucial factor.
Clothes donated by the community.
The activity we did for "Nice White Parents"
Another part of teachers' professionalism is how they are trained before and after they start teaching. While preservice teacher education decides what certificate teachers can obtain as the ticket to teaching in public schools, in-service training programs have more flexibility in the theme and the form. Shuang Wen provides professional development events for its teachers, but the events are normally held field by field. For example, ELA teachers like Mr. Lennington only attend ELA conferences and workshops. They meet once a week and do peer observation once or twice per semester. Thus, they hardly have a chance to know what teachers of other subjects are doing, let alone learning how to teach in Chinese. Nevertheless, it is understandable because the workload of a public school teacher is usually high. Teachers can barely have spare time to attend training programs that are not directly related to their field.
Sixth grade math teacher, Mei-Yu Tan, is from China. She earned her certificate in math education from college, but she also obtained a certificate in bilingual education through a training program offered by the DOE. She said even though the school did not require it, she would still like to have it. In fact, compared to Mr. Lennington, it is easier for Ms. Tan to get a bilingual certificate because she speaks two languages. She puts Chinese and English terms in her materials and code-switches a lot in her class. Moreover, when her students have good answers in English, she would ask someone to repeat the answer in Chinese, and vice versa. This way, students can have both Chinese and English input and output in class.
A workshop held by the associate principal. But I was not allowed to attend because of COVID.
There is no right or wrong whether teachers at a bilingual school must speak two languages as long as they can follow the model of the school. However, when students see that most Chinese-American teachers speak two languages in class, but not many American teachers speak their language, it might seem to them that English hegemony is there. Consequently, it is important for teachers to learn how to include students' language and culture in the curriculum, so that the diversity at the school can be regarded as an asset rather than a deficit.
Observation Prompts
Observation Prompts
Notes
Notes
How parent-teacher conference works:
Each teacher hosts a Zoom conference. The parents sign up for a 10-min slot and enter the conference room. After 10 minutes, the parents move on to another Zoom chat, and the teacher talks to the next parent on the list.
References
References
Gándara, P., & Rumberger, R. W. (2009). Immigration, language, and education: How does language policy structure opportunity? Teachers College Record, 111(3), 750-782.
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