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"Schools are like airport hubs; student passengers arrive from many different backgrounds and take off for widely divergent destinations." Borrowed from learning expert, Dr. Mel Levine, (A Mind at a Time), this analogy seems particularly apt for the GCS Newcomers School, which serves as an "international hub," the first of its kind in North Carolina.
The students who come to Guilford County Schools from around the world are all affected to a greater or lesser degree by change and loss--leaving behind country and culture, language, home, sometimes family--(and, because they are children, they leave rarely by their own choice). Our Newcomers students, those with little or no English language proficiency, also face the greatest challenges in school; they must acquire the academic content and learn it in a new language, in an atmosphere pressured by testing requirements and graduation timelines.
The positive aspect of the Newcomers School is that it offers students and their families a place to get grounded in the community and to develop not only their languages, but also their voices. In the supportive environment of the Newcomers School, expert (and enthusiastic :-) ) language teachers help the students learn English and understand academic and cultural expectations. (It's great fun to be there the first time it's "raining cats and dogs," or to explain that if someone's "pulling your leg," it won't really hurt!) Compared with beginners in regular schools, we believe our students have more opportunity and encouragement to express themselves, to be active and vocal. We seek to instill confidence and the students respond by a willingness to take risks and grow in language and social interaction. In an environment of tolerance and respect, our students quickly come to understand that we believe they have something of value to contribute. We have been amazed by the leadership, artistic talent, and other star qualities that have emerged.
At our "international hub" of a school, we also provide our students with "flight plans" in a more literal sense, by drawing on our team, guidance counselor, and translator resources to help students develop their goals and transition plans for their next schools and further education. The Newcomers School is strengthening community ties. We've served our families in a variety of ways this year, including Saturday classes in English, a community services informational fair, a multicultural celebration, and many forms of assistance through the efforts of our full-time social worker. Our students have taken field trips and participated, for example, in the interfaith Thanksgiving celebration and visits to the elderly. In this, our first year, another positive aspect of the Newcomers School that deserves mention is the wonderful community input that has occurred. Our school has been supported by generous contributions of books, materials, tutoring time, effort, and money from individuals, organizations, and faith groups.
In conclusion, the short time spent by students at the Newcomers School provides a first impression of the United States with lasting value. We're confident that a warm welcome and dedicated effort to provide knowledge that allows newcomers more quickly and easily to become a part of our schools and the larger community will have the greatest positive outcomes in the long term.
It's no secret that teachers can spend $700 or more each year on school supplies for students who can't afford their own or for those "extra" items that make a classroom special. Since the opening of the Teacher Supply Warehouse in November 2007, Guilford County businesses have put more than $250,000 in supplies into our classroom. These are surplus items, things that would have been warehoused for who knows how long or things that would have been thrown away.
Teachers are creative and industrious people who see teaching tools in items that to the rest of us, look useless. A good example of this is a donation of Styrofoam blocks we received from a video rental company. The blocks are about the size of a VHS tape, but to teachers, they become a counting game or building blocks for art projects.
I'm amazed at the stories I've heard from teachers on how they put the donations to use in the classroom. We had a donation of out-dated pocket calendar/address book combos. One teacher saw the alphabetized address pages as a great tool for students to record their weekly vocabulary words.
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