January 24, 2008: What to do with an immigrant student

All children deserve the right to the best education possible. This includes immigrant students. When a child is forced by extenuating circumstance to move to the United States, the child needs help in order to adequately adjust into his/her new environment. Breaking the language barrier must be completed prior to demanding that children are at the same level at the other students. These children need help from tutors, paras, parents, teachers, and upperclassman. Students need to feel safe and welcomed in order to fully grasp and comprehend subject matter. Immigrant students 100% have special needs that need to be meet. However, non-immigrant students have every right to have special needs be met as well. While I completely understand that immigrant children have special needs that need to be met, a teacher can not ONLY focus on this, only focus on one child. When so much attention goes to one child, the other 25 are left to fend for themselves. I completely agree that immigrant students need understanding and compassion from their teachers. All I am saying is that the other students within the classroom should not be forgotten. The goal with this preparation in having immigrant students is to not allow them to be left in the background, but to me....this applies to ALL students. The first sentence to this blog is "All children deserve the right to the best education possible." All students includes the immigrant students, the English speakers, those who go to special education, non-English speakers, those who go to speech, "gifted and talented," remedial readers, bi-lingual....ALL CHILDREN.