Although the image of Latin@s most often portrayed in U.S. media is of working adults, demographic data point to a population that is much younger. Consider the facts: For non-Hispanic Whites, the largest age group is 45-49; in sharp contrast, the largest age group for native-born Latin@s in the United States is 0-4 years old. In the United States, one in every six babies is born to a Latina mother. Without a doubt, the future of this country can be found sitting in their parents’ laps, watching television, running around playgrounds, and squirming in church pews.
These young children are learning to think, feel, and relate to others at a pace that is faster than they will ever experience at any other point in their lives. When we talk about the future of Latin@ youth in education, then, we have to consider the urgency of our decisions and actions. What we do now—as mentors, educators, citizens, or policymakers—will make an enormous difference in the lives of children who need to be prepared to participate in U.S. society and the world’s communication systems, with flexibility, creativity, insight, humanity and confidence.
How will children be prepared? Some would argue that the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) Act of 2001 is the key to educational equality for Latin@ youth. But many of us working in education know that the law’s vision and resources are severely limited. Today’s educational emphasis is on the results of individualized test scores and ‘standardized’ curricula that are seriously biased toward a middle class, individualistic perspective. For children, both the tests and the curriculum feel dull and lifeless. And indeed they are: teaching that focuses exclusively on isolated pieces of information and skills cannot account for the dynamic movement of questions and experiences children have and the ways their curiosity might lead to learning that would far surpass the expectations of a pre-programmed test or state department benchmark. Further, the very strengths that Latin@ children are most likely to possess—bilingual expertise and a sense of belonging to a diverse, transnational community—have been historically denied and continue, today, to be the focus of an ongoing struggle for language rights, dignity, and equitable learning conditions.
As an educator and parent, I know that when children are treated as valued members of their families and communities, they are offered continual opportunities to learn in all aspects of their home and neighborhood ‘economies’ (from learning to kick a ball or fix a car to translating a phone message or writing a letter). They see the adults and other children around them solving problems with a sense of shared interest and mutual support. Educational researchers, Professors Norma González and Luis Moll (University of Arizona), have described this important network of relations and expertise within Latin@ communities as a structure of ‘funds of knowledge’ (Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing practices in households; 2005). Similarly, in a longitudinal study of immigrant youth, Professors Carola and Marcelo Suarez-Orozco (Children of Immigration; 2001) concluded that in the face of all the changes and difficult adjustments Latin@ children face as they enter U.S. schools (especially children nine-years of age and older), a central factor in their future opportunities lies in the presence of a well-functioning social support network and the capacity to access that network. Rather than viewing education as a matter of individual effort and performance that only a few children might achieve, these researchers have helped educators understand that the responsibility for success in a 21th century education must be developed within the structures of schools and distributed across a community.
This is where social action and mentoring within and beyond the school day become critical. As a mentor in the Big Brother/Big Sister program, or as a tutor who commits to working with a child every week, you have the opportunity to help children see themselves as members of a community, with shared interests and knowledge. You can become the person who addresses a child’s everyday questions (always surprising!) with genuine interest and joy. You can find out what children and their families know and figure out how to build on that experience. As a leader of an ongoing afterschool project such as creating a community newspaper, you can show children how to be proactive and creative problem-solvers in ways that develop their bi-literacy and a vision for their lives.
If schools could be more open to the knowledge within the communities and families they serve, a great deal more learning would be moving into and through children’s lives. We need to work toward creating conditions for learning that function to inspire children’s energy and potential wisdom. We are the hope that children have to see themselves as competent, humane contributors within their communities and, one day soon, in their world.
