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Crying us a river: the New York Times’ lament of the poor education of detained migrant children

6 years ago

950 words

The expression “cry someone a river” according to Wiktionary has two definitions:

  1. (idiomatic, often sarcastic) To weep profusely or excessively in the presence of another person.
  2. (idiomatic, usually sarcastic, by extension) To try to obtain the sympathy of another person by complaining or sniveling.

I’ll focus on the first definition. The New York Times published an article on July 6th entitled “In a Migrant Shelter Classroom, ‘It’s Always Like the First Day of School.'” The article discusses the ongoing challenges in the education of migrant youth being held in detention centers for days and weeks at a time, mostly from the perspective of their teachers and those who visit to monitor for human rights compliance and violations. According to the article, the teachers who attend to the education of these children are working with limited curriculum (educational programming), resources, and training (some are not certified to teach), and they lament this. The author of the article likewise laments this state of affairs, citing a troubling example of a human rights worker who visited one of these detention facilities:

At Berks County Residential Center, an ICE facility in Pennsylvania, there are two classrooms, one for children aged 2 to 11 and another for children 12 to 18, according to Eleanor Acer, of the nonprofit Human Rights First. Ms. Acer, who has visited the center several times, said that the wide age span left the older children in each group bored, and that much of the instruction was done through computers and worksheets.

She added that some teachers were unable to communicate effectively in Spanish, and that classes cycle through the curriculum every two weeks, meaning students who stay longer repeat the same material.

“The impression is that they are not really taught much of anything,” Ms. Acer said.

This of course is a terrible situation. The odds are stacked against the teachers and, much more importantly, the students in these classrooms, who have been struggling with trauma, abuse, stress, inappropriate medication with psychiatric drugs, and, of course, a senseless and inhuman incarceration experience that does not see any immediate resolution, in spite of a federal judge’s order that children be reunited with their parents (which apparently isn’t even possible for some children, whom the Trump administration has lost track of). All of us in education shake our heads at such insurmountable odds, at the injustice, at the loss of opportunity to learn and grow of these children, of the potential damage this may cause them in future educational contexts and, by implication, in future opportunities after school.


Source: https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/We-Protect-ICE-Trump-Tells-Rallying-Crowd-as-Thousands-of-Migrant-Children-Await-Reunification-20180708-0007.html

But here’s the thing: Those of us who work with immigrant youth in public schools, particularly in large urban centers like New York City, see a version of this same story in our public school system every damn day. It is an ongoing injustice that we do not have the resources (including classroom space, materials, support staff, etc.), the sort of dynamic, flexible curriculum that can support and include all of our diverse learners, including newcomers (recently arrived immigrant students) and students who are categorized as SLIFE (students with limited or interrupted formal education), or the consistent training and support that teachers working in our cities’ public schools require to educate fairly, justly, and appropriately.

The Times mentions that HHS requires that the schooling provided for detained migrant children “[take] into account their ‘linguistic ability’ as well as ‘cultural diversity and sensitivity.'” For god’s sake: Our education system doesn’t do this now. We do not support our Brown or Black or immigrant students in public schools now, preferring to focus on individualizing, psychology-based strategies like mindfulness and resilience/grit which make children responsible for “resolving” their challenges while ignoring the structural issues that non-White, lower-income children experience like poverty, unstable housing, disproportionate policing and punishments in and out of schools, and other issues derived from systemic racism, xenophobia, and marginalization. We do not recognize that the slashes our country’s leaders have made to the education budget at the federal level and policy mandates that maintain our myopic, maniacal focus on testing punish our public schools, their teachers, and our students, all the while justifying moves to privatize and militarize. The following quote rings so hollow when we consider the state of affairs most children of color, immigrant children, and poor children experience in the day-to-day now in our public schools:

“You can only imagine the children surrounding them, how that impacts their education.”

Cry me a river. Yes, these migrant children are facing bald myriad injustices, but the reality is that their situation, lamentable though it absolutely is, is an extreme version of the same story of heartlessness, blindness, exclusion, and marginalization that millions of children in U.S. public schools face right now. We who are U.S.-born, and especially those of us who are White, should recognize that while these are not crocodile tears per se, the professing of ignorance will not do.

I’ve made my point, but I have to mention the last kick in the pants that shows up in the paternalistic final quote included in the article, taken from Ms. Baez, one of the teachers who work with the young people:

“The kids are very responsive, very glad to be in school learning and very eager to learn English.”

Well, what the hell else would they do? These children are prisoners. They are desperate for stability, for human contact, for stimulation, for any hope that correct and obedient behavior will get them out. And we can’t forget that our public outcries for this to stop, forceful and beautiful though they are, have many more lives awaiting their calls for justice.

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