BILINGUAL MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

Bilingual Multicultural Education

Bilingual Multicultural Education

Introduction

Bilingual school counselors, like teachers and administrators, are expected to play an important role in the school reform movement. (Purkey & Schmidt, 1996) One prominent role that counselors fill in many school districts is testing coordinator. Paradoxically, the amount of time required to coordinate the increased amount of testing resulting from school reform has decreased the amount of time that bilingual school counselors can spend in their traditional roles. (Brown, 1999) Although coordinating the testing programme is labor intensive, bilingual school counselors are under pressure to make other types of contributions to the efforts to improve student achievement. Recently the Wake County, North Carolina Schools adopted a policy that requires each school counselor to identify 30 at-risk students and develop programmes that will increase their academic achievement. Other school districts have not been as direct as the Wake County Schools in challenging counselors, but the message is the same: help promote student achievement. This digest is designed to outline a number of strategies and techniques that bilingual school counselors can use to meet this challenge.

Improving School Climate

High profile school violence incidents in Colorado, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Mississippi have focused the nation's attention on the importance of bilingual school counsellors. However, alienated students rarely go on violent shooting sprees. More often students who feel they have no place in schools disengage psychologically, and often physically, from those schools. The result is lowered achievement levels (Gladding, 1984) and higher dropout rates. Schools with positive school climates have teachers and others who are seen as warm and caring, have educational policies that foster educational and personal development, and recognise students' efforts and accomplishments (Purkey & Schmidt, 1996). In-school suspension programmes are policies that promote educational development. Out-of-school suspension programmes provide no benefits to students and discourage their achievement. Educators who know students names, recognize their efforts, and provide academic support encourage educational and student development. Those who do not care, fail to listen, and refuse to recognize individual differences in achievement potential contribute to the alienation of students. Bilingual school counselors can improve the climate of their schools by advocating for policies that promote rather than detract from the personal and educational development of bilingual students. They can do this by conducting in-service training of teachers and administrators to teach them basic communication skills, and methods of affirming students' importance and providing encouragement to them.

One of the interesting bits of rhetoric that has emerged from the school reform movement is the need for smaller schools because large schools are viewed as too impersonal. It is argued that in small schools, teachers, administrators, and counselors will know every student personally and students will have increased opportunities to participate in school activities. Arguments for smaller schools are at least partially responsible for the development of charter schools, but these schools serve only a very small percentage of students. However, school counselors need not wait until schools become smaller to personalize the educational ...