Becoming something diferent: Learning from Esme, By Colleen M. Fairbanks, Penny Mason Crooks, and Mary Arial

I think that this case study of Esme Martinez, a Spanish-speaking Latina, being studied from the sixth grade to the eleventh grade, is a good opportunity to see the unequal system of evaluations that exist in the same school system, and the unequal way in which Esme is classified within this same system.

Let us start with how in the sixth grade, Esme had academic difficulties in her studies as a result of inadequate academic help. She further talks about social and academic changes in which she starts to develop a new set of friends in a new environment, having lost most of her support system who had helped both socially and in her school work. By her own words, she felt like she was more American and less Mexican, which was her parents cultural identity. What is key in her learning is the not so much consistent level of practices that varied from one grade / school to another. I think this is a Key Area of the problem, the apparent inconsistency in dealing with students from one grade to the next higher grade in a different school but in the same system, and it seemed to be a systemic problem with latina students in the district according to the three authors of the article.

Truthfully, much of this article is written in Educationese, and not easily digestible. It reads like a typical case study and then evolves into a Scientific Jargonese. I graduated Cum Laude and Honors Program from BCC and still had trouble understanding parts of this article. One issue was clearly written that English Learning Students and bilingual students, were pushed away from mainstream of learning based on the misconceptions of these students real needs. It further stated that at the intersection of language, literacy, and school practices is especially salient for ELLS. This, to me is deeply troubling and definitely shows a systemic failure of a school system to properly adapt to the specific needs of a large part of our school students needs. This reminds me of the movie that we viewed in class, called Freedom Writers, in that the school system was guilty of writing off an entire segment of the working-poor part of the Latino, Asian, African-American population saying that most of them will not even make it to graduation. These kids have no chance of being successful adults if we "write them off" as students when we do not even try to help them with their problems.