Cultural Lessons: Educators in Santa Clara County Adopt More Inclusive Techniques to Better Understand and Serve Increasingly Diverse Group of Students.

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

DATE: Saturday, April 17, 1999

BY EDWIN GARCIA,Mercury News Staff Writer

The growing number of children from diverse ethnic backgrounds in Santa Clara County's classrooms is pushing teachers to adopt more culturally based approaches, and in the process shaping a new direction for local schools.

Teachers are using role playing to enhance their chalkboard lectures for students who speak little or no English. Lessons are being expanded to paint more ethnically inclusive pictures of the past, present and future. And educators are finding new ways to involve immigrant parents who might not be comfortable at PTA meetings or other school functions.

''Diversity of our students is going to demand diversity in our instructional strategies and that's absolutely a given,'' said Colleen B. Wilcox, Santa Clara County schools superintendent.

From Gilroy to Palo Alto, the student population is changing at a remarkable pace. Hispanics, Asians, blacks and American Indians now account for nearly 65 percent of students enrolled in the county's public schools -- up from about 35 percent in 1979.

''It's not just a handful of kids, but lots and lots of kids -- the new majority -- and they're coming to schools with learning needs that go beyond the traditional ones,'' said Amado Padilla, a Stanford University education professor.

And while schools continue to wrestle with either ending bilingual education or getting waivers to continue, teachers around the county are being asked to adopt a new view on multiculturalism. For many, it means taking courses that instill cultural sensitivity.

New teachers and veterans alike are strongly encouraged by school districts to obtain a Cross-cultural Language Academic Development certificate from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. To earn the certificate, teachers must take a yearlong course that tests their knowledge of the histories, languages, religions, traditions and customs of various ethnic groups.

'BETTER INSTRUCTION'

Principals endorse cultural certification Principals said teachers with cross-cultural certification are making a difference in the classroom. ''The kids are getting better instruction, they're less confused, and it speeds up the process in which they gain mastery of the English language,'' said Wilson Nacario, principal of Rancho Milpitas Middle School. The cultural training has been eye-opening for some. Christi Bradford, a teacher at Laneview Elementary School in northeast San Jose, has learned that some cultures discourage children from having eye contact with adults, while in others, patting a child on the head is considered an insult. ''It's difficult because you don't want to offend anyone,'' Bradford said.

And as diversity increases, more teachers are departing from lecture-based lessons and turning to ''collaborative learning,'' which divides students into work groups in which they solve problems together, said Roland Tharp, who heads the Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Collaborative learning techniques are used in classrooms nationwide as a way to bring lessons alive and improve education for all children. Those techniques have been enthusiastically embraced by many educators who work with minority students. ''We're very confident that if schools are going to reform, this is what they're going to turn into,'' said Tharp.

Teachers such as Samita Sen said collaborative learning helps students remember details about their assignments because they discuss the topics with one another. The work groups also help students develop social skills, she said. ''They're becoming better citizens, better people, just having to work in teams,'' said Sen, a third-grade teacher at Laneview School who combines collaborative learning with traditional techniques. ''I'm preparing them for real life, for their future.''

While many people agree that teams or work groups help students to get along better, a chorus of parents and education experts question the value of collaborative learning because the teacher takes a lesser role. ''It's another trendy type of teaching technique,'' said Lance Izumi, a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, a conservative think tank. ''Teachers are responsible for a lot of information to convey,'' he said. ''Unless they're making the best use of their time in the classroom to convey that information, I'm a little hesitant to fully endorse something like group learning where the kids are basically trying to teach themselves.''

CHANGE IN CURRICULA

Attempt to reflectdiversity of students Teachers are also revamping their curricula to more accurately reflect Santa Clara County's cultural and ethnic diversity. In the Cupertino Union Elementary School District, where Asian-American students are 45 percent of the population, fourth-graders learn not only about California missions and the historical role of Spaniards and American Indians but also about the contributions of Asians who immigrated to the West Coast.

At Saratoga's Prospect High School, history teacher Paul Petrianos supplements the standard 11th grade history books with photocopies from a paperback, ''Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong,'' by James W. Loewen. The paperback features famous people and events, including a chapter on Christopher Columbus, in a less Euro-centric manner. In the Santa Clara Unified School District, library shelves now hold volumes in several languages, including Punjabi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Spanish.

While diversity isn't new for county schools, it has become far more complex. For decades, most of Silicon Valley's minority students were Spanish-speaking Latinos. Today, they also come from throughout Asia and speak dozens of languages. Fifty-five languages are spoken in the Sunnyvale Elementary School District, which encourages teachers to use ''total physical response'' -- lots of pointing and gesturing, said Bob Lowry, assistant superintendent for educational services. His district hires only teachers with the cross-cultural certificate. Santa Clara County has California's fourth largest population of students with limited English-speaking skills.

Almost 25 percent of the county's 250,000 public school students are not proficient in English. Language has also been one of the most explosive issues in education, as shown by Proposition 227, which sought to eliminate bilingual education in state public schools. Although the measure passed in June, thousands of students in some school districts continue to be taught in Spanish because their parents have requested and received waivers.

To help address the language issue and bridge multicultural gaps, districts also are trying to recruit minority teachers. The results have been dismal. Some schools with the largest Asian-American populations have few Asian-American teachers.

LOW AVAILABILITY

Experts: not enough minority teachers ''I would like to interview and hire more Vietnamese teaching candidates, if only they were available,'' said John Shaw, principal of Evergreen Elementary School in southeast San Jose, where Asian-Americans make up 63 percent of the students, but only 5 percent of the teaching staff.

Members of minority groups make up 63 percent of the county's students but only 22 percent of the county's teachers. That equation, experts said, needs to improve. ''Kids need to see themselves and people like them in positions of authority,'' said Laurie Olsen of California Tomorrow, an Oakland-based organization that promotes multiculturalism.

''They look around them and see a reflection of the world and when they see who has power and who doesn't; they internalize about themselves, about what that means about them.'' The public doesn't seem to agree. According to a Mercury News poll, 75 percent of county residents believe a teacher's racial and ethnic background doesn't matter. Only 21 percent say students would benefit from having teachers of their own racial or ethnic backgrounds. The county's diversity also has prompted school officials to offer special programs hoping that they would lead to more parent involvement. Some districts teach after-hours English classes, and others teach computer skills.

In the Alum Rock Union Elementary School District, ''parent institutes'' show new immigrants how to find health-care providers, said Judith Knutson, the district's director of student services. Sometimes it's the school administrators, and not the parents, who are learning about a new culture.

When the Asian-American population began to increase at Saratoga High School, Principal Kevin Skelly was puzzled by the lack of parental involvement. He spoke to a few parents and learned that in certain Asian cultures, some parents respect a teacher's authority to the point where communication occurs only when the child is performing poorly. Skelly came up with a plan: ''We started having events in people's houses, like an Asian tea, or we'd meet off campus because that's where they wouldfeel more comfortable.'' The teas, he said, ''were enormously successful'' at increasing parental involvement.

And the experience helped him better prepare for a future that is going to become even more diverse -- something students are learning everyday. ''Schools have struggled with multiculturalism, and the product of that struggle is going to be a better society,'' Skelly said. ''Our kids will be tremendous ambassadors in that world.''

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