CI & Social Justice

This is a topic that has been on my mind a lot lately. Let me tell you a story and hopefully my point will emerge.

Half-way through the school year, a new student - let’s call him Alberto - joined my class. His mother had brought him to the United States from the Dominican Republic ‘for a better life’. His grades had been so bad at his first American school that his mom pulled him and placed him in my school. Alberto struggled in most of his classes. His English wasn’t great and his grades were suffering. And yet in my class he was flourishing.

He was flourishing not because I’m amazing, but because of my belief that if we’ve all acquired one language, then we are all capable of acquiring a second (or, in Alberto’s case) a third language. And if my students don’t understand me, then that is not on them; that is on me.

A few months later, Alberto came to me to tell me that his mom was pulling him from my school to place him in another school where she hoped he would be more successful. I was heartbroken. Here was a kid who, within a year of being in the United States, had twice been labelled a failure, and was now about to attend his third school. On his last day, he came to say goodbye. I sat with him, looked him in the eyes and told him:

“You have not failed; the system has failed you.”

This is an absolute disgrace. That a capable student is made to feel incapable by a system that cares little for difference. That a student at a disadvantage is not given the tools required for success. That a student with the desire to succeed is told that he will never achieve his dreams.

There is something deeply flawed in our education system. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s designed to keep the Albertos of this world on the bottom rung of the ladder.