Immigrants have very different educational experiences than us. I grew up in America, and my parents did too. I did not experience many cultural practices distinctive to my ethnicity. I went to a predominately white school and had the typical life of a suburban American. Therefore I never had a chance to know anything remotely like an immigrant's childhood. But my mentees continue to tell me about their life and experiences thus far I will continue to learn about other countries and ethnicities. Jose1 has told me a fair amount about himself and his native country. But Jose2 has remained pretty quiet. In an effort to entice him into opening up Alex and myself used google translator on my iPod to converse in Spanish with him, and we also drew pictures of each other.
This is my mentee's picture of me
This leads me to believe that if conversation and fun activities such as drawing or doing crafts were used in schools with a student base with a limited knowledge of English then they would be more successful and possibley learn English better and be more involved in school work. I will continue trying to integrate fun activities and bilingual studies into our times together.
One cultural holiday my family celebrates is easter. On Easter we all have fun dying eggs and performing an egg hunt. My family has a huge egg hunt, we invite over 200 people and hide almost a thousand eggs in my backyard. It's a blast, and quite entertaining for all involved. But my favorite part of the day is the Easter egg dying. Me and my sisters each dye 5-6 hard boiled eggs in various colors and designs. This is part of our Catholic culture, and part of my families traditions. Because my grandfather is a pastor religion has always been a big part of my family, and no doubt will always be.
These are my eggs. Yeah that's right, be jealous.
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