Metro to help foreign-born students adapt
Academy will ease cultural transition

By NATALIA MIELCZAREK
Staff Writer


Months ago, a boy elbowed his peers out of a cafeteria line at a Metro school to receive lunch. He told his teachers that it was the only way he'd ever gotten food in a refugee camp.

Another student with a similar background went to the bathroom in a hallway of his Metro school. Until coming here, he told his teachers, he had never seen a bathroom before.


Still another cried and hid his hands under a desk when he saw a picture of an ax. His sister explained that the boy witnessed someone getting his hands chopped off in his native country.

More than 150 kids like these — who grew up in extreme conditions, with no formal schooling and no grasp of American culture — come to Metro schools every year. That's why Metro is launching an International Newcomer Academy and at least one other Midstate district is considering one.

There, some school-age immigrants will study social skills and computers along with the typical math and English before making the transition into English-language instruction programs at their schools. Classes begin Nov. 1.

"If they need those basic skills like learning how to wash their hands or use the restroom, then we'll do it," said Judy Edwards, one of two teachers in the new program.

"When you take a child who has no idea about anything, almost like an infant, and you see his eyes light up when he understands, that's the joy. It's teaching at its truest form," she said.

The academy is in a newly renovated building — a former cabinetry shop — next door to the district central office on Bransford Avenue in Berry Hill.

Refugee sees value

The building also houses Metro's English-language instruction department, which registers foreign-born students, trains translators and tests incoming kids for English proficiency. So far, no specific children have been identified to participate in the academy, officials said.

Kasar Abdulla, a refugee from Kurdistan, said she knows firsthand about the hardship of the newcomers. Abdulla, 25, spent four years in a makeshift refugee camp in Turkey before coming to Fargo, N.D., in 1992 as a 9-year-old. She and her family moved to Nashville in 1996.

The only English words she knew upon arrival were: "Hi. How are you?" Abdulla recalled getting in trouble at school for leaving a classroom to use a restroom without a teacher's permission, a custom perfectly acceptable in Kurdistan.

"I see great value in this program because you can't expect that everybody lives the way Americans do," Abdulla said. "But the teacher also needs to be aware of the students' culture. You have to slowly and gradually take students into this culture."

Rutherford considers one

Rutherford County school officials said they're considering a similar program in the future for their foreign-born middle and high school students. Sumner and Williamson districts have no immediate plans to follow suit because of small non-English speaking student populations, officials said.

Rutherford had 1,283 non-English-speaking students last school year, and the plans for a newcomer academy are still in the brainstorming phase.

"The main obstacle is the expense of busing students to this center and finding a place to house it," said James Evans, spokesman for the 36,000-student school district.

Metro students who attend the academy will receive transportation through the district. Of the school system's 75,000 students, 6,000 are not proficient in English and qualify for English-language instruction. Those who need the most help are refugees and children of migrant workers.

"They're not anywhere where most beginners are," said LaWanna Shelton, coordinator of the English-language instruction office. "They don't come to us with the social and academic skills, but they have their own set of skills; that's cultural capital. But we can help them transition better."

That's what Sandy Dauby counts on. She teaches English-language learners at Metro's Haywood Elementary, one of the more diverse schools in the district.

"It's an amazing idea, seeing as how I've had children from other cultures that are not nearly (similar) to what we do," she said. "It's going to be good for students but also for teachers. Part of our goal in educating children is making them well rounded. This will help them in their transition."

http://www.fairviewobserver.com/apps/pb ... 321/MTCN06