excerpted from "Everyday I Awaken" by Besy Barona

I teach English as a Second Language (ESL) 2 to 9th and 10th graders at Locke High School, located in South Central Los Angeles; a class designed for second year English learners. Among the challenges of creating a social justice curriculum is the struggle of helping English learners to articulate their critical thinking skills using the rules of a new language; this may be one of the most central tenets in creating a democratic schooling environment. Sadly, in many schools, as students develop new language skills, they are often encouraged to do so at the expense of their critical thinking. However, a democratic schooling environment encourages students to fully participate in analysis and critiques of their schooling conditions, and to do so in their native language as well as in the dominant language of the school.

I sought to achieve this more democratic way of working with my students by encouraging them to think, write, and act critically about their schooling experiences. By selecting a topic that affects all of my students—the high school exit exam—I set out to design a unit that was both engaging and empowering for students.

The following were the central objectives of the unit:

• to inspire a sense of empowerment among historically disenfranchised students;
• to deviate from the monotony of dealing with direct textbook instruction;
• to expand literature to various sources, including newspapers, dictionaries, and Internet;
• to think independently by evaluating both sides of an issue; independent from persuasion from the teacher or any other literary source that may be biased and;
• to connect learning to issues they currently encounter in their lives.

A major difficulty in conceptualizing such a task is the limitation imposed by the scripted curriculum imposed by the district-adopted textbook, High Point,—this is not say that there are not some effective elements embedded in its core curriculum. However, a major drawback of this program is its excessively repetitive nature, which often leads to student boredom. Students experience the redundancy to the point where learning becomes dry and tedious, to say the least. Among its other problems is the program’s mechanical methodology that hinders creativity and imagination. I do not intend to advocate the removal of High Point from the curriculum. Instead, I advocate for a meaningful set of culminating projects that are aligned with the standards taught in the text, but that also allow for freedom of individual thought and the expression of developing impressions and convictions.

The culminating project our class embarked on was a critical examination of the California High School Exit Exam. Students each designed a three-page pamphlet advocating or opposing the suitability of such an exam to determine graduation, exploring and documenting the virtues and deficiencies of the exam. The first page consisted of a poem where they described previous domestic and academic settings existing in their country of origin; in my class this tends to be either Mexico or El Salvador. The poem served to shed light on school systems that substantially diverge from American urban educational institutions. Students felt that our school system is significantly less personal than schools in their native countries. The poetry written by the students was in accordance with matters taught in the High Point text, with an emphasis on the use of a central theme that uses highly vivid descriptions. In the box to the right is an example:

“Everyday when I Awaken”

by Besy Barona from Honduras, 10th grade

When I used to live in my country,
Reluctant days with peace fragrance,
I like that a lot.
Working with my partners, we
Used to look like hard-working ants.
I love you land of mine:
You are beautiful like a diamond,
Resplendent like a bright star.

Before leaving you behind
Every awakening day I used to wake up
With the singing of the colorful birds.
Every morning I observed
My parents working together
Like the butterflies that gather pollen from the flowers.

But now everything took a radical change.
There are mirrors in the way
That are obstacles on the path
I wander to achieve my goals.

The major obstacle that I encounter
And the one that I fear is a test
Called High School Exit Exam.

What to take?
I’ve been informed that
I have seven opportunities
But in my case there are only three
Opportunities.

That’s why I think
That the exam
Should only be taken by students
Who write and speak English fluently.

The second page required students to develop an argument graph that scrutinized diverging views regarding the exit exam. The underlying concept is to stray students away from the routine and mechanized way of rationalizing. Too many times students are taught in a fashion that gives the teacher and literature authoritative positions that are incontrovertible. As Patrick Finn points out in “Literacy with an Attitude,” working class schools do not teach students to think as individuals. Rather, the concept of right or wrong is embedded in the instructions of the teacher. On the other hand, in affluent schools, controversial civic issues are examined by contrasting viewpoints from various sources, and students are empowered to draw their own conclusions. This unit sought to create the learning conditions of the affluent schools.

As the unit progressed, I began to comprehend the limitations of our school environment and how it directly influenced a student’s inclinations, motivation, self-confidence, intimidation, participation, silence, and just about any other facet relating to students.

Reason 1: "One of the advantages of the California exit exam is that it could help us, as students, be prepared for college. We could get a first hand look of what is waiting for us after high school."

Reason 2: "In a way, the exit exam is good because we can take challenges as they come."

Reason 3: "Also, this test can give a first hand look at the people who are testing us on how well we are being taught in school. It shows them if we are being taugt well or not. By noting our scores on the test they will see how well we know."

Conclusion: "The outcome of this situation is that all students taking this test can find out about unexpected test questions and challenge themselves to do better and be at their best in trying to finish."

Reason 1: "It's not fair for California to give us the California exit exam to determine whether we are capable of passing the exam to show them that we are smart. Many of us are not prepared for this kind of testing. We have insufficient training and most of the things we don’t know."

Reason 2: "Students should not be judged by the way they pass or fail a test. We should have the opportunity to demonstrate our capability of wanting to succeed in life but not by those who pass the exam and those who don’t."

Reason 3: "Some teachers are not prepared enough to teach students what we need to know. They only go by what the teachers guide says and don’t even understand the subject or material. There are times in which a student knows more than a teacher and then tells and shows the teacher what to do."

Conclusion: "In conclusion, if California wants to gives us the Exit Exam, it’s fine, but the exam should not be accounted for graduation purposes."

^tcla

Letter from Mayra Najera

9th grade student from Honduras

Dear Superintendent Romer,

Thank you for not saying anything against the Exit Exam at the board meeting on April 22, 2003. I think that I now have more time to prepare for the CAHSEE. Thank you for not opposing the test because the board knows we don’t understand how to do the CAHSEE. But we know too that we have many opportunities and we have to demonstrate and try to pass the test though we don’t understand or don’t know how to read or how to pronunciate the letters yet. We must not give up. If we don’t understand, we must try to pass. I think this is an opportunity to demonstrate to the board and to ourselves that we can pass the test though we don’t speak English.

Sincerely,

Mayra Najera

Eddie P. Reyes is an ESL teacher at Locke High School in Los Angeles.

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