I attended the Postville Panel on Spetember 9, 2008. On the panel there were two women from Postville, one Luther student, one Luther graduate, and three Luther faculty that had been helping and volunteering in Postville.
The information I found most interesting was the stories that the women who live in Postville told. Through an interpreter, they told about their lives since the raid in May. It was difficult to listen to them talk about the struggles the family has been through, especially the fact that one of the women's husband had been sent back to Gautamala.
Although many lessons and topics from the panel could be applied to teaching and schools, one that stuck out in my mind, is the fact that teachers still need to teach kids that are living through difficult times at home. Some of the students literally had a parent stolen away from them, and these students are still required and expected to learn with the other students in their class.
It seems as though one of the significant struggles of teaching would be coming up with new and inspiring ways to teach kids that are distracted, scared, and angery, much like the Postville children were, and probably still are.
The method in which the kids were notified of the raid was also mentioned during the panel. Students were taken out of class during the school day, some according to to the fact that they had a hispanic last name, and as I understood, lead to a large room in which all the kids were told together of the raid and that some of their parents had been arrested. This seem like ridiculous and inappropriate way to notify a child that their parent is in trouble. I can only imagine that this way of telling the students caused panic and anger that otherwise may have been avoidable. If trouble strikes family while the child is at school, the teacher should be able to think of resonable ways to inform the child, while trying to keep them calm. One example, if the tragedy is on a large scale, would be to tell students in groups of three or four instead of a large group.
Philosophy of Education
14 years ago
1 comment:
I think the way that the school informed the students was a little bit inappropriate but if they did it in small groups the word could travel fast around the school to the hispanic kids causing them to wonder if it is really true. I don't think it was fair for the students to find out during school. What are they going to think about for the rest of the day...if their parents were taken away or not. That is a traumatic thing to put a child through. I didn't attend the lecture so I don't know what they did with the students after they told them but I would hope that they would allow them to go home after they found out about it. They also should not have told every hispanic student in the school because it could be possible that some of the students' parents were not taken away. This is unnecessary worrying and stress for the student. I'm sure they handeled the situation was handled as best as they thought at the time but hindsight is always 20/20.
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