Community Experience

For my community experience, I attended a court session.  My father is an attorney and so I am no stranger to the inside of a courtroom (research purposes only, I've never been summoned to court for any reason other than my father asking me to come).  However, this time was different because, instead of looking at the case, I was studying what this case could teach me about teaching students from different cultures.  The case helped me see several different things.  First, the defendent couldn't speak English-- or at least he wasn't confident enough in his English to attend his hearing without an interpreter.  Both his lawyer and his interpreter spoke to him in Spanish.  Legal jargon is hard enough to understand when you speak Spanish and there was some point in which it seemed like the man was a little lost.  How hard must it be for students who don't speak English in a classroom?  It would be hard for them to learn, let alone enjoy my class and feel comfortable there.  Additional stressors from events outside of the classroom-- like this man's experience in the courtroom-- might make it harder for them to feel like they fit in and might make them feel like school is one more thing they don't understand.  It would lessen their motivation to work hard in the classroom.  Even if they speak English, if their parents do not, they may have to translate for their parents.  This could be stressful because they might be translating for really important things and they might not know how to best translate ideas. That's a lot of pressure for a teenager to live with.  It would make sense that that student would be a bit distracted.
This man also was of a lower socioeconomic class and so was unable to pay his dues right up front.  A great number of my students will be from that class and will have to deal with these problems.  Some of them might even end up in the justice system because they feel like they have no choice or because they were raised in a neighborhood in which that was common.  Once a teenager gets in the system, it can greatly hinder them in their quest to reach their dreams.
In short, this experience helped me see an example of what experiences my students might have to deal with in their daily life that can interfere in their ability to learn in the classroom.  I hope that I can help my students who have these problems find a place of security in my classroom.