Worlds better
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"These are both the best and the worst of times for immigrant children in this country," says Professor Suarez-Orozco. "For some immigrant children, the passage through US schools is an overwhelmingly positive experience. But for many it is not."
Many school districts, he says, have learned to work effectively with highly motivated immigrant children, but most still struggle to help those who have greater needs or come from extremely poor backgrounds.
At PS 62, third-grade teacher Susan Hoffman says she is learning to adapt to the perspective of students who may never have lived in a house with doors and windows before they came to the US. Most learn English quickly, she says, glancing around her cheerful but crowded classroom, but many continue to lack background knowledge that their peers naturally acquire. "They didn't go to preschool, they don't have play dates, they've never seen snow or had a Thanksgiving dinner," she says, and thus references in texts and classroom lessons may pass them by.
In addition, their parents need extra attention. Ms. Rudolph once held a math workshop for parents, because many longed to help with homework.
But when properly dealt with, insist some teachers and administrators, these students are an asset rather than a burden to a school.
At Pacific Middle School - where 40 nations' flags now fly in the cafeteria - those with wanderlust have no need to travel, jokes Mr. McLeod. "You can see the world right here."
Learning to accommodate the new population was a struggle, but now, he says, discussions of world events have a new depth. "For our kids, when things happen in Somalia, that's not just some place on the globe," he says.
Mrs. Hoffman agrees. In her third-grade classroom, where two boys wear turbans and only 1 in 30 children is not from an immigrant family, she finds the pluses often outweigh the minuses.
When she discussed Thanksgiving, she found that most didn't know what the holiday meal traditionally consisted of, but when it came to discussing the Pilgrims, her students were able to understand first-hand why so many foreigners arrive on US shores, and they told moving tales of the freedoms their parents sought in choosing to live here.
Her classroom is also enriched when parents visit to explain holidays like Diwali, a Hindu festival of lights.
There is an even deeper gift that immigrant children can offer schools. Research suggests that they have an energy and optimism sometimes lacking in their US counterparts. "Ask immigrant children about school and they are likely to tell you, 'School is great, school is my future, school is my life,' " Suarez-Orozco says. "Nonimmigrant children are more apt to say, 'School is boring.' "
After nine years of working in classrooms almost entirely filled with immigrant children, Hoffman says she simply sees them as individuals. But the one difference she can never overlook is the fact that to succeed in school they must try harder than children brought up in mainstream US culture. "And because they have to work harder," she says, "it means we are all working harder, too."
E-mail marjorie@csmonitor.com.
