Cultural Practices

The education system in the United States can often be a scary experience for immigrant children. Few schools have the resources to meet the needs of students who don't speak English as their first language. AMIS is a very unique school in the fact that it caters to immigrant children and the children of immigrants. Because of their situation, there is often a lot of distrust and shyness with immigrant children. They are sometimes ashamed of the fact they can't communicate and therefore just don't talk. This can in turn be interpreted or misdiagnosed as a learning disability making the educational experience even worse for immigrant students. Because of the lack of verbal communication, interpreting body language is the best way to get to know these students. By observing how they act around their peers, around other teachers and when they are by themselves, you can learn a lot about the child. In working with Mouhamahou, I have seen many examples of this. He is fairly quiet when we are together but whenever school work is involved he basically shuts down. He speaks English really well but can't put on paper what he is thinking. He can't read English very well either. We had always just drawn and hungout but one week he had homework. I could tell he really didn't want to work on it and it was really hard to motivate him and get through the assignment.

The children I worked with while in Haiti would have a very difficult time transitioning to the American school system. The days are longer and have a lot more structure to them. Unfortunately this is the case with a  lot of immigrant children.