…I was a little girl in elementary school. I didn’t understand much about race, nor politics, nor the ways of the world. I was in first grade.
Our class was overcrowded. Our teacher was awesome though; very animated when going through our class reader. She made it fun to learn.
Because I had a stay-at-home mom who spent a lot of time reading to/with me, I was ahead of the learning curve, burning through the Dick & Jane books at a rapid clip and eventually being given third grade books just to shut me up.
One day after school I came home frustrated and threw my Mickey Mouse briefcase onto the couch. Dad asked me what was wrong.
“None of the kids can read in my class!”
He pointed out that we were 6 years old – it was going to take time.
“No, I mean, they don’t speak english, so they can’t read! It takes for-ev-er for them to read one line!”
Much of what I was saying was punctuated with a great deal of eye-rolling.
I knew, at the tender age of six, that some of us were being held back from our potential while the ESL-ers struggled to come to grips with the language. Ok, I was doing fine on my own, but there were kids in my class – english-speaking kids – who struggled with dyslexia, dysgraphia, shyness, etc, and the fact that Mrs C had to slow us all down and spend precious time on the ESL-ers meant that those other kids got shortchanged.
And it meant that the advanced kids got completely screwed. Eventually three of us were moved out of reading hour entirely and sent to Mrs B’s art class to while the time away, lest we become disruptive.
The point I’m trying to make, from the perspective of my six year old self, is that stories like this aren’t a surprise. Endless streams of immigrant kids come to the West and don’t learn even the basics of the language before they start school. Their parents can’t be arsed to speak english at home, leaving the kids at a huge disadvantage, and leading to the developmental delay of countless other children they come into contact with.
It’s easy to get all warm and squishy about multiculturalism – for which mine was the first generation immersed in it in Canada – but be selfish for a second and think of your own kid. Do you want him/her to learn to read and write? Do you want him/her to have a chance to succeed? Do you want them to have the opportunity to excel and learn to play to their strengths?
You are NOT a bad person for wanting these things! The truly bad people want everyone to stew in mediocrity.
Multiculti isn’t going to go away any time soon. No western government is suddenly going to make it mandatory for kids to learn English before they start primary school – so much simpler to leave that burden on the Kindergarten/first grade teacher. So I plead with parents to come home from work early (or better yet, have one of you stay home with the kids), turn off the TV, put down your iPhone, and teach your kids to read! Because sadly, they won’t learn in school.
Even a clever six year old knows that.
I burst into tears reading this.
What can I say, what can I add that will take away the hurt and make you leftist lollipop ready, ready to care and pay taxes and step over steaming piss on public transit?
I will sip my morning scotch and cry at the keyboard.
Being considerably older than you, I started school before multiculturalism was so entrenched (also it was a small rural school), but I remember my 5/6-year-old self (I was 5 when I started Grade 1) being annoyed by the learning disabled kids who struggled to read and tortured every sentence. I had zero patience at that age (go figure). Luckily those kids could get the extra help because the teacher’s time wasn’t taken away for ESL kids.
Good points for parents. And I might add, if it’s at all possible, I recommend a stay-at-home parent should consider home schooling, at least in the elementary school grades. The kids would be so much better off.
Even older here Natasha. Whether it was the case before the fifties I don’t know and was changed to your way shortly after I went through. They took the to 10% or so who were ahead of themselves and “accelerated” them. They also took the bottom 10% and gave them “opportunities” to advance themselves at a different pace or direction.
If you’ve ever set the timing on a car, you either advance or retard it. The system should be set to give the majority the best while allowing the advanced and retarded chances for themselves as well.
There were two groups in the “opportunity class”. The truely disabled and those stubbornly not wanting to learn, passed on from ignorant parents, who would be the disruptors and time wasters for both teacher and the majority of students in a regular class. i.e The Bullies.
The left wants everything “integrated”, no discrimination unless you rise to the level of the rich left, then you can be discriminating in your purchases of luxury items. We need a grassroots right wing municipal political party and school trustees.
nobody wants to mention class size? or maybe advanced classes for advanced students? just the bad and/or immigrant kids?
Excellent point. Our school was lucky that we had both advanced and remedial classes for kids – but not till 4th grade. Before that, we were all “equal,” as it takes time for a kid’s dis/abilities to be known.
However, I see no reason why a child should come from another country and be plunked down in the middle of a school without ANY prior grasp of the basics, which only slows down the teachers when it comes to recognizing the aforementioned dis/abilities.
RG