CLIMBS. Module 3. Assessment. The elephant in the room.

I deliver/facilitate the CLIMBS workshop for our school district. I have 37 teachers and administrators sitting in a room at Central Office for five days, and I get to use those five days to try to help them to help their ELL students. Today was day 3. And I was dreading it.

I spent hours and hours and hours revising and supplementing the materials, and I think I delivered something today that was useful and useable. And the point I kept stressing to the people in the workshop today was that the things that they are doing with their ESL students are the things that will also help their non-ESL students. That's the thing that I don't think I've gotten them to buy. We got many great comments at the end of the day, but the one that stuck with me was a teacher writing that s/he felt sorry for the native speakers in his/her room.

I have no idea how to feel about that. There's some honesty there. It's easier to teach a class when everyone knows the language. What the impact is on the students is when there isn't linguistic diversity in their classes, I don't know. But I do believe that ALL students will benefit from a teacher who can teach both language and content. And I do believe that ALL students can benefit from working with diverse learners. So I don't know how to feel about the honesty of a teacher who says that s/he feels sorry for the native speakers in his/her room.