Oppression of Spanish and ASL in Education Part II: Reductionist vs Holistic Paradigms

Below is the English version:

Further Parallels between Bilingual Latino and ASL-English bilingual Deaf Students

I have noticed some parallels between the issues faced by bilingual Latino students, and the ones faced by Deaf ASL/English bilingual students.  In Manuel’s situation, did the teachers who marked his written test check his passage for content—that is, did Manuel answer the question posed to him in the test? Did the teachers analyze the passage in its entirety what Manuel said?

No, the teachers focused on the errors in spelling, capitalization and punctuation, which were parts of the whole passage so that they missed whether Manuel actually answered the question!

Manuel answered both parts of the question!  He wanted to be Juan Carlos because the other student was smarter than Manuel was.  Manuel expressed his opinion and feelings of inadequacy in intellectual ability.  He has explained why he was feeling stupid.  Therefore, he has completed what was required of him. What is more, he gave his own opinion and explained his point of view.  Unfortunately, because of those spelling, punctuation and capitalization errors, the content was lost, and the passage labeled UNREADABLE.

This same type of situation has occurred with many Deaf ASL/English bilingual students. If errors in the form of missing articles or misspellings were found, the students’ answers were automatically wrong, regardless of whether they actually answered questions.  ASL Bilingual students were frequently placed in grade 1 programs even though they were Grade 4 students.

[Clarification is needed here: When I mention Deaf ASL/English bilingual students, I am talking about those who have already acquired all the linguistic features in ASL, from birth (i.e. children from ASL Deaf families).   I am not talking about Deaf students who have not acquired full command of either ASL or English (due to language deprivation).  Please keep this in mind.]

Impact of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Legislation in the USA:

What happens when Latino (and other minority) students fail English written tests (i.e., high stakes state tests)?  Schools are required to provide remedial programs, so these students get limited curriculum and learn only reading and math all day in English.

For example, since NCLB (No Child Left Behind) legislation was passed, according to Dr. Escamilla on p. 8, students like Manuel could get schedules that contain:

• more reading and math
• no recess
• for Bilingual Learners (i.e. Manuel)- More English
• Less gym, art and music
• Bilingualism is ignored (Spanish language is no longer taught as a language or study or instruction, and English becomes the ONLY language taught and studied).

Why won’t students like Manuel be able to continue bilingual education, using both English and Spanish as languages of instruction and study?

There are many  teachers and educational professionals who believe that Spanish is interfering with English language development of Latino students, therefore Spanish should NOT be taught or included in the school system. Once Spanish is removed from the program, it would make it easier for these students to develop English writing/reading skills more quickly. This will solve his English problems. Right?

WRONG!

These beliefs held by the educational professionals who work with Latino students are quite similar to those held by many educational professionals working with Deaf students.

Many Deaf ASL bilingual students have been told:

1. that English is more important than ASL
2. that they cannot improve in English because ASL was interfering with English development
3. ASL should be replaced with flawed communicative methods (i.e. Total Communication, Signed Exact English) to help them develop English skills. (This, proved to be a disastrous mistake that made things worse for the students.)

So far, the parallels between the Latino and ASL/English bilingual students in the educational system have been quite similar.

REDUCTIONIST- An attempt to make the complex simple. (p. 5, Escamilla, 2009)

Why is there pressure to remove the languages of Spanish and ASL from the educational system in order to focus on the English language?

This is because the system is of a monolingual bent.  English rules supreme as the official language in the USA.  This is despite the fact that there are not supposed to be any official languages in the country.  English is the ultimate, and the only, language students are expected to acquire and study.

Bilingualism is out. Teachers have been trained in universities under the monolingual system in the USA.  This means that the teachers have been trained to think in monolingual terms. They have not received training in bilingual language development, and do not understand how to look at things from bilingual lens.  bilingualism.  They have not studied the intricacies inherent in bilingual education to date.

So, what happens is that instead of looking at the whole child, with two languages, they focus on the child’s development of ONE language…English.    Rather, they have learned to seek out errors (deficiencies) in the child’s English writing without taking into account the effects of bilingual development.

For instance, Manuel is bilingual.  He speaks Spanish and English.  Wow!  This fact should have be taken into account in a positive way. What should be examined is how the development of two distinct languages (and Manuel’s background) affect the child’s written work.  This did not happen.

The teachers who marked Manuel’s passage focused on errors in English from a monolingual perspective.  They forgot to take into account the Spanish background that may influence how the passage has been written.   Instead of looking at the passage as a whole, including the content—message—and whether it actually answered the question, they focused on nitpicking on the errors in spelling, punctuation.

That is reductionist.

Think of a large complex picture that is amazing—(like a Rembrandt painting for example).  People are awed by that picture, until they spot a small section of the picture that has errors. They focus on that errors and spend all their energies criticizing those errors. The result is that the whole complex picture has been trashed, and reduced to that ONE section.  The whole picture is judged on the basis of that ONE section.

Complexity has been reduced to simplicity.  That is reductionist.

Reductionist Paradigm Leads To Misunderestimation

The reductionist paradigm caused those teachers to focus on the small, deficient, components of Manuel’s passage that rather than the whole content, which answered the question correctly. Unfortunately, the attention to the deficiencies resulted in a “F”, or unreadable mark.

As mentioned before, this focus on the parts rather than the whole has negatively impacted not only bilingual Latino students, but also Deaf ASL/English bilingual students.

This reductionist paradigm has led to the phenomenon of misunderestimation.

Simply put, misunderestimation is a combination of misunderstanding and underestimation.  In other words, professionals in the educational system does not understand the language development of bilingual students.  As a result of that misunderstanding, these professionals underestimate the skills and abilities of those bilingual students.

This misunderestimation of many bilingual Latino students and Deaf ASL-English bilingual students occur because they do not fit within the system’s reductionist viewpoint of the world.

Reductionist  Monolingualism Paradigm to Holistic Bilingualism Paradigm

Dr. Escamilla recommends a complete overhaul of the educational system.  There needs to be a shift from the reductionist paradigm to the holistic paradigm.  Allow me to explain.

For the sake of  bilingual children of Latino, ASL and other language minority groups, the educational system must be overhauled, and shifted from the current reductionist paradigm to a holistic paradigm, which includes bilingualism.

Shifting from the reductionist paradigm to the holistic paradigm… what does that mean?

Reductionist paradigm is the monolingual one.  This is where the idea is held that having two languages is too complicated and therefore must be reduced to a single language for study in schools.  This entails ignoring any other languages, including the language which a bilingual child has acquired/learned.   This forces the bilingual child to focus only on English at the expense of that child’s native language.

This paradigm does not fit the bilingual child’s learning needs at all.  This is because reductionism focuses on fixing the perceived deficiencies in the child’s development of English (thereby misunderstanding and underestimating that child’s true language ability).  This has proven to be a failure for Spanish-English bilingual children, nor for the ASL-English bilingual children.

Thus, the monolingual reductionist paradigm must be abandoned in order to examine the whole bilingual child’s learning process.  This examination would lead educators to better understand how Latino children’s acquisition of Spanish affects their learning of English, and work with both languages.  Educators would do well to examine how ASL affects the ASL-English bilingual children’s development of English, and work with both languages.  This way, the whole child’s needs would be addressed.  That is what the holistic paradigm is.

There is much research information out there on bilingualism.  For instance, Dr. Escamilla has done much research on this.  So has Dr. Laura Ann Petitto (who specializes on the study of the brain and effects of bilingual learning on the brain.). Research on bilingualism would support the shift from the reductionist paradigm to the holistic one.

It is now time for universities, teacher training programs, and schools to begin shifting from the monolingual reductionist paradigm to the bilingual (multilingual) holistic paradigm. Once educational professionals are trained on bilingual learning processes, they would be able to look at the students’ written test responses from a holistic perspective.  They would be better able to analyze the contents as a whole, with bilingual lens.  Instead of reducing the contents to errors and dismissing the whole written passage without analyzing for bilingual effects, the teachers would then take steps to design a bilingual program to support the students’ bilingual learning process.

It would behoove the educational system to encourage a bilingual education program in which both languages are studied from Kindergarten to Grade 12, rather than drop the minority language during the elementary years.    This would, in the end, benefit ALL bilingual children, regardless of their language backgrounds. This is why the holistic paradigm has to be adopted.

What can be done to ensure that this paradigm shift occurs? People must become advocates and pressure the government and educators to make the necessary reforms to completely overhaul the educational system so that the flawed, reductionist monolingual model is jettisoned in favour of the bilingual holistic model.  That means ensuring that legislations and policies be reformed that will effect paradigm shifts in government, universities, and schools.

We have an enormous job ahead of us, but it MUST be done.  The current status quo in the educational system, and society, is not acceptable.  At present, all bilingual children, including the Latino and ASL children as well as those from other language minority groups are experiencing severe language oppression and marginalization in favour of English only.  This must end now.

Reference:

Escamilla, K. The Misunderestimation of Manuel: Issues in Reductionist Paradigms and Parallel Monolingual Frameworks in the Quest to Improve Policy and Practice for Bilingual Learners. University of Colorado. Boulder, Colorado, 2009

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