In these challenging times, the RELATIONSHIPS you have with your immigrant students and those with immigrant families will be the most important link to learning. If relationships were warm, empathetic, and connected before the covid crisis, the opportunity to provide comfort, communication and connection during this crisis is already there.
But, what should you do if that warm and trusting relationship was not exactly where you wished it was? Recommendations are to follow.
I wish a list of strategies were going to radically change the depth of trust in our relationships with immigrant students and their families. If the relationships in the classroom were not there the way you would have hoped, they need to be built more than ever now that students are away from the classroom and the daily structures of school.
As we know, Immigrant students are likely to experience several issues during covid that deeper than just being able to access online learning in English. Many students are living in a lot of trauma based "fear" today. Parents and caregivers have potentially lost their employment, the ability to pay rent and bills, and families are struggling to provide food and transportation. Families often do not qualify for any type of support, stimulus or community funding to offset the impact of covid. This means children, especial young teens and teens, are taking on adult responsibilities like full time work, full time childcare, becoming their siblings "home school teacher," and cooking/acquiring food. Younger children may not have the resources to support the volume, timeline or academic content that they are asked to complete while away from school. Meeting basic needs have moved to top priority for some of our students.
We can do simple things for immigrant students that can make a big difference in meeting some of the basic social needs they have during this time.
Daily meaningful,voice to voice communication is one the best ways to do this: calls, but then texts and emails can proactively build or build upon relationships. While many student's roles in families have shifted, immigrant students more than ever require even deeper relationships with us if they are to stay engaged with "schooling". To follow are some guiding reflection questions to help you consider the space many immigrant students might need us to be in.
1. How personal is your daily contact with immigrant students voice to voice? Are you having daily voice to voice contact with your students? If you aren't, why not? who is? Are there barriers that you are able to problem solve with your administrator or peer?
2. Are you sending personal emails and chats to these students? are they engaged back with you?
3. Have you prioritized asking students how they are, what is going well and what is challenging?
4. Have you asked whether a students is "going through" anything that you could help them to understand?
Please know that everyone is here to support this unexpected opportunity to learn how to teach and engage all students virtually. Please reach out in any way that the Department of Multilingual Education can support you or your team. dmgarcia@waukesha.k12.wi.us.
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