April 26, 2000
Contact:
Pete Sanborn
Office of Public Relations
617-627-3824
peter.sanborn@tufts.edu
Susanna Barry
Tufts Eliot Pearson School
617-627-2078
the Culture Gap in School
Tufts University leads unique home
visits in nationally recognized program
The “Windows on Our Lives” exhibition shows the children’s favorite people and things from home and school. These photos are just one tool used by the Somerville Public Schools and Tufts University’s Home-School Connection project as they work to bridge the communication gap between Spanish-speaking parents and teachers who are not always bilingual.
“With these pictures the teachers have a new way to engage the kids and learn what their students value at home, and vice versa with the parents,” said Martha Garcia-Sellers, Tufts professor of child development and project director. “To understand the process of immigrant children adapting to American culture, you have to realize the process is a triangle made up of the child, the teacher and the parent. There has to be harmony and balance among all three.”
With few exceptions, none of the children in the “Windows” project has ever had a camera of his own. Now, these pictures are a tool to open the lines of communication between home and family. One student photographer shared a picture of a classmate because “I always tell my brother that she is a good draw-er and I think my brother would like to see her.” Another child chose a photo of her younger brother to share at school saying “He is my best little brother and my friends would like to see it.”
The academic future for Hispanic youth is gloomy, according to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau which show nearly one in three (30 percent) of Hispanics drop out of school beginning as young as the sixth grade. Garcia-Sellers says these at-risk children need intervention early to help them manage the daily pressures to conform to American culture. She warns such pressure is forcing immigrant children to struggle with their cultural identity, and worse, sometimes prevents them from valuing their family culture.
“Kids are already internalizing other people’s judgments, and it’s difficult for them to maintain pride in their families,” Garcia-Sellers said. “Growing up bicultural should be a wonderful process through which a child can learn to integrate traditions, languages and expectations of different cultures.”
The project started in 1994 with a handful of Somerville first-graders. Now, with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the project reaches 320 families. Between 1980 and 1990 the Spanish-speaking population of Somerville tripled, making it the city’s largest single minority group.