High School Project: Students struggle as immigrants do

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

The students had a role-play project: assume a Latino identity, build an imaginary life in your home country and develop a workable plan to immigrate to the United States.

Try it legally, Erica Vieyra told her 40 senior Spanish students at Olentangy Liberty High School. Fill out the correct documents, follow the proper steps. And then, after they spent days completing the actual paperwork from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, she took out her red ink pad and stamped a big, fat DENIED across every request.

Now, she told the students, come illegally. Forge your documents, find a way across the border. Then, research real ads and find a place to live in Columbus. Figure out what it would cost, how to get food. Plan how to survive.

The students had to go to real businesses and ask for Spanish-language job applications. They had to visit a bank and ask for new-account documents written in Spanish.

Vieyra promised them that the process -- even in make-believe -- would frustrate them. But they would gain, she hoped, an understanding of what is one of the most important political and humanitarian issues facing the U.S. government today.

After three weeks of work, the students presented their projects yesterday and discussed their conclusions. Most said it was a grueling experience to even pretend to walk in an immigrant's shoes.

"I can't begin to fathom how they can survive here," said Yana Lyon, 17. "Everywhere you turn if you try to become legal or help yourself, there's a roadblock."

...

This is the fifth year that Vieyra has assigned this project to students in her Spanish V class. Each year someone, a teacher perhaps, maybe just a friend, cringes: "They say, 'That's such a hot topic. Are you sure you want to go there?' "

She always answers yes. But she cautions that the point isn't to sway the students, only to teach them a little empathy.

"These kids will become our leaders, maybe even the people who make the laws," she said. "At the very least, they'll certainly be the people who vote on them. Shouldn't they learn something about it all now?"

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/conte...5M.html?sid=101

[Ban Hammer 13,395]

so what are we teaching here - break the law as the ends justifies the means?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

so what are we teaching here - break the law as the ends justifies the means?

Empathy.

[Fandango 1,439]

wow, that teacher pushed an obvious personal agenda. She should be fired!

Edited December 19, 2007 by LisaD

[Ban Hammer 13,395]

so what are we teaching here - break the law as the ends justifies the means?

Empathy.

uh huh.........

For her project, Yana assumed the identity of 28-year-old single mother Margarita Sola, a barmaid in Tijuana, Mexico. Yana had Margarita stay at a Columbus Knights Inn until she found a $7.50-an-hour job at Chipotle. Eventually, she rented a Town Street apartment for $320 a month because it was close to a bus stop. She quickly found a man to marry to gain legal residency.

wow, that teacher pushed an obvious personal agenda. She should be fired!

i fully agree.

Edited December 19, 2007 by charlesandnessa

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

wow, that teacher pushed an obvious personal agenda. She should be fired!

So much hate!

[JODO 2]

wow, that teacher pushed an obvious personal agenda. She should be fired!

I won't go as far as fired, but she should definitely be reprimanded. I wonder if she allowed students to opt out of the assignment?

[Fandango 1,439]

wow, that teacher pushed an obvious personal agenda. She should be fired!

So much hate!

No, it's not hate at all.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

so what are we teaching here - break the law as the ends justifies the means?

Empathy.

uh huh.........

For her project, Yana assumed the identity of 28-year-old single mother Margarita Sola, a barmaid in Tijuana, Mexico. Yana had Margarita stay at a Columbus Knights Inn until she found a $7.50-an-hour job at Chipotle. Eventually, she rented a Town Street apartment for $320 a month because it was close to a bus stop. She quickly found a man to marry to gain legal residency.

Empathy doesn't mean you approve of the behavior. I can have empathy for my cousin who lost his limbs in a freak accident without actually losing my own.

wow, that teacher pushed an obvious personal agenda. She should be fired!

I won't go as far as fired, but she should definitely be reprimanded. I wonder if she allowed students to opt out of the assignment?

From the article:

This is the fifth year that Vieyra has assigned this project to students in her Spanish V class.

I doubt she will be reprimanded for a project she's assigned 5 years in a row. What we have here, people, is an enlightened school administration

[Fandango 1,439]

The thing I have the problem with is that cause and effect that the teacher is implying....USCIS denied everyone even though they 'worked for days' on apps....THEN it's like 'ok, you tried it the legal way, now there's no other choice but to do it the illegal way'

it's bullsh!t

Hey, I heard a finance teacher is starting a project on how to get a big loan...and if that doesn't work and gets denied, then plan a bank heist!

[Alex+R 0]

I think it's an excellent assignment. Empathy is extremely important and (obviously) many adults haven't learned what it means. If you think teaching kids to understand what another human being goes through would weaken the deport-everyone-now viewpoint, then maybe that viewpoint needs a second look. It's a complicated issue and pretending there are two sides is naive and silly.

I wonder what she does, though, if a child of illegal immigrants is in the class. It must be a pretty white area?

[Caladan 19]

She's showing them that both legal and illegal immigration are hard (since most people here think it's a cakewalk, that's probably a good deterrent lesson), and they're actually seeing a USCIS form. That alone makes them more educated than 99% of the people who write in comments to NYT articles 'why don't you just get married and then your spouse is automatically a citizen?'

I'd rather have those kids voting on immigration legislation than someone who says 'so like the fiancee visa is for mail order brides so we should make it impossible for fiancees to drive because like they're all Russian?'

[Fandango 1,439]

I think it's an excellent assignment. Empathy is extremely important and (obviously) many adults haven't learned what it means. If you think teaching kids to understand what another human being goes through would weaken the deport-everyone-now viewpoint, then maybe that viewpoint needs a second look. It's a complicated issue and pretending there are two sides is naive and silly.

I wonder what she does, though, if a child of illegal immigrants is in the class. It must be a pretty white area?

It's not that I personally feel this teacher would 'weaken a viewpoint'...but she's not an ethics teacher, she's not a politics teacher...she's a language teacher.

I didn't learn calculus from my PE teacher!

[Ban Hammer 13,395]

so what are we teaching here - break the law as the ends justifies the means?

Empathy.

uh huh.........

For her project, Yana assumed the identity of 28-year-old single mother Margarita Sola, a barmaid in Tijuana, Mexico. Yana had Margarita stay at a Columbus Knights Inn until she found a $7.50-an-hour job at Chipotle. Eventually, she rented a Town Street apartment for $320 a month because it was close to a bus stop. She quickly found a man to marry to gain legal residency.

Empathy doesn't mean you approve of the behavior. I can have empathy for my cousin who lost his limbs in a freak accident without actually losing my own.

just more bs from the pro illegal crowd. want to change from illegal to legal - marry a usc! right.........

so where is the class teaching empathy for the us taxpayer who funds the illegals?

[jundp 191]

She's showing them that both legal and illegal immigration are hard (since most people here think it's a cakewalk, that's probably a good deterrent lesson), and they're actually seeing a USCIS form. That alone makes them more educated than 99% of the people who write in comments to NYT articles 'why don't you just get married and then your spouse is automatically a citizen?'

I'd rather have those kids voting on immigration legislation than someone who says 'so like the fiancee visa is for mail order brides so we should make it impossible for fiancees to drive because like they're all Russian?'

I think it's an interesting assignment. I'm not sure I agree fully with the assignment, but I think it's good that she's showing both legal and illegal immigration. It does exist in our country, it's not right, but in order to correct the problem first we (as a country) have to admit that there are many problems with immigration. Personally, if I was teaching this assignment, I would choose some people to accept and some to deny to make it more realistic, rather than just a flat-out denial for everyone. Then show how difficult the process is either way. Maybe make the legal immigrants have to prove English proficiency etc in order to land jobs. I imagine there are plenty of businesses in the area who'd be willing to work with the teacher on this.

I think it's an excellent assignment. Empathy is extremely important and (obviously) many adults haven't learned what it means. If you think teaching kids to understand what another human being goes through would weaken the deport-everyone-now viewpoint, then maybe that viewpoint needs a second look. It's a complicated issue and pretending there are two sides is naive and silly.

I wonder what she does, though, if a child of illegal immigrants is in the class. It must be a pretty white area?

It's not that I personally feel this teacher would 'weaken a viewpoint'...but she's not an ethics teacher, she's not a politics teacher...she's a language teacher.

I didn't learn calculus from my PE teacher!

She's a Spanish V teacher and her students are high school seniors. I don't know about everywhere, but at my school world language classes from level III and up are honors, often for college credit, and include culture as a very strong component. Usually the level V languages are a mix of language, culture and real-life application. I only teach level I world language, but I am a member of that department, so I am familiar with much of what is taught. It is not out of line to teach this sort of thing in a world language class, especially a Spanish class in which these kids (who have made it to an honor's level) will likely be using this language in real life. It's in fact impossible and doing a disservice to our students to teach a language (or math, or literature, or history) in a self-contained vacuum. I know that any time I teach something that could be controversial or touchy in my Mass Media class, I go first to the Advisory Board and then to the Parent's Advisory. I have never been denied because before we just throw a lesson plan out there we have to show how it follows state and national standards and what the real-life application may be. Also, there are many teachers who can teach a controversial subject without showing a bias or a personal agenda. I do it every single year when I teach media.