After spending an evening with a friend, I learned a lot more about what her late husband did for his career. He passed away unexpectedly this past January, yet had a lasting and profound impact on the Burlington Public School system. Dan Balon was a highly educated Filipino-American who made it his mission to improve cultural awareness and racial sensitivity amongst students, teachers, and parents.
There are many ways teachers open students minds up to different cultures, but we don't always help parents learn about new cultures. One thing Dan did during his tenure as the Director of Diversity was invite parents to the schools to learn what a hot meal is really all about. We take for granted that immigrants to the United States might already know what this is. Dan recognized the importance of this and made it his mission to help parents feel more included in the school system.
With the number of English Language Learners growing at a quick rate, we must ensure that our students are aware and accepting of everyone. One way we could do this is to offer students a choice class that will take them around the world. Teachers need to ask parents to come in and bring items that can help students understand more about lots of different cultures. We must continue to show our students the world in every way possible to lessen the insensitivity to other cultures.
I know speaking with Dan's wife was my eye opening experience to recognizing the impact he had on his community will travel with me back to my school. I will offer my students a choice class that focuses on different cultures to broaden their knowledge of the world. What can you do? Let's make sure our future generation will be accepting of everyone around them. I know that is what Dan would want.
Dan sounds like a fantastic educator. Sorry for his family and the Burlington Schools.
ReplyDeleteELL is growing a really rapid rate. My wife is an ELL consultant and in the 4 to 5 years I have known her work, the ELL population has tripled and almost quadrupled. It is alarming the number of ELL students that are around that do not get the additional support they need to be successful in our schools. Just the other week I heard 2 educators discussing some ELL students only to learn that they did not think it was all that important because the students would be moving on soon as their parents were just in the US for a few months to years to work on something or attend school. What a terrible concept for our teachers to consider and it makes me wonder sometimes why it is so hard for other students to engage with ELL students. It would help if our teachers were supportive first. It sounds like this was Dan's mission. We need someone like Dan around for all of us to reference.
Thanks for sharing this. I think educators who attempt to immerse their students in different cultures are amazing for their development. We need more people like Dan.
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