Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainVia The Education Wonks we find this Washington Post story about Kansas teenager Zach Rubio who was suspended from school for speaking Spanish -- not in class, but in the school hallway.
Zach is bilingual. He speaks English without an accent, but also is fluent in his father's native language.
"It was, like, totally not in the classroom," the high school junior said, recalling the infraction. "We were in the, like, hall or whatever, on restroom break. This kid I know, he's like, 'Me prestas un dolar?' ['Will you lend me a dollar?'] Well, he asked in Spanish; it just seemed natural to answer that way. So I'm like, 'No problema.'"
In a written "discipline referral", Endeavor Alternative School Principal Jennifer Watts stated that "This is not the first time we have [asked] Zach and others to not speak Spanish at school."
The school rescinded Zach's suspension after his father, Lorenzo Rubio, protested the decision. The school (which does not have a written policy concerning the use of Spanish) has violated Zach's civil rights contends Mr. Rubio who has retained a lawyer to explore their legal options in regard to the matter.
"I'm mainly doing this for other Mexican families, where the legal status is kind of shaky and they are afraid to speak up. Punished for speaking Spanish? Somebody has to stand up and say: This is wrong."
The Washington Post article doesn't report why Endeavor Alternative School required their students to speak English outside of class. While I don't normally encourage jumping to conclusions, but I think I'm fairly safe when I wonder if there isn't a racial element at play here.
Fortunately, Mr. Rubio did stand up for Zach's rights and the school has not pursued students speaking in Spanish since. According to Zach, "I know it would be, like, disruptive if I answered in Spanish in the classroom. I totally don't do that. But outside of class now, the teachers are like, 'Whatever.'"
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that a school in Kansas should be encouraging the use of second languages. You know, because students who aren't studying the language might pick up a little of it and the ones who are studying the language might be more fluent?
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A couple of comments.
1. Why do we take people's claims of being bilingual at face value? My guess is that Zach can speak a version of Spanglish and probably cannot read or write anymore than any Anglo kid who is not taking Spanish.
2. Would your opinion change if a Spanish speaking teacher had caught young Zach making profane, sexist, and racist statements in Spanglish believe that the "gringo" teachers would not understand?
3. Does anyone wonder why the media is making out a kid who is in an "alternative school" out to be an angel?
1) Baseless speculation on your part.
2) No. It would make no difference. If the kid is behaving inappropriately (in any language) then they should be reprimanded. That does not appear to be the case here.
3) Who's doing that? Zach's behavior is irrelevant to this specific issue.
I added a link up top to an article about this in the Kansas City Kansan that gives more detail about this incident.
1. Suggesting that a native born american does not speak proper Spanish is not baseless. It is an established that most "bilingual" speakers have never formally studied Spanish. Even the Rubio family is not claiming that the young Zach can read or write Spanish. Most Spanish speakres in the us word borrow from English into Spanish, using false cognates with their English sense, or calquing idiomatic English expressions See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanglish.
2. Second, since the young Zach is already attending an alternative high school, he obviously has had behavior problems in the past. But since his school records are, rightly, confidential, the Rubio family gets to act the part of the victim without the rest of us knowing who the young Zach has victimized in the past.
It's quite late and a little foggy here, but it seems to me that your whole point is that since Zach doesn't speak "Proper Spanish", and he's a troublemaker, neither he nor his family have any room to object to his punishment at school?
I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box sometimes, but that seems to be the thrust of it.
Round and Round it Goes...
