Thread: AZ:2 Kyrene teachers honored for immigration lessons

2 Kyrene teachers honored for immigration lessons

by Georgann Yara - Dec. 12, 2008 08:00 AM
Special for The Republic

All Mariah Pina, 12, could do was sit in the deportation cell while her peers debated and pleaded to avoid joining her.

After several minutes, the bell rang and Mariah picked up her backpack and joined her Chandler Kyrene Pueblo Middle School classmates in heading to her next class.

Mariah was a recent participant in seventh-grade social studies teacher Diane Hyllested's yearly lesson on immigration. The unit includes an interactive simulation of the Ellis Island experience where students take on rolls of physicians, immigration officials and weary immigrants.

Hyllested and colleague Jane Anderson, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Kyrene Akimel A-al Middle School in Ahwatukee, were recently honored by the Arizona Council for Social Studies for their immigration simulations. The fact that both teachers have similar lesson plans for the subject was coincidental, as was the council's awarding them both with the Great Moments in Social Studies Teaching Award.

Their Ellis Island simulations run students through the physical exams and questioning that actual immigrants endured after stepping off the ship and before taking the ferries to New York and New Jersey. There is a hospital area for the sick and a deportation cell for those, like Mariah, who could not answer basic questions correctly, provided false information or demonstrated mental illness.

"It was so lonely sitting there, watching everyone else go by," she said. "I felt very sad that I wasn't going."

Hyllested said that putting students in immigrants' shoes gives the history lesson a real and immediate impact. Students also go through a simulation that shows them what the long sea ride from Europe was like.

"They say it's scary. They talk about how they'd feel if they had to be deported knowing what they went though," she said. "A lot of them say, 'I'm glad I didn't have to go through that.'"

Although she knew the process was just an exercise, student Megan Arnold, 12, said she got nervous standing in line waiting to get questioned by immigration officials.

"I was thinking what if I got sent back. I felt terrified," she said. "Going through it was a lot worse than I thought or read about. I didn't know it would be that terrible."

Joey Piccirilli, 12, said his grandparents came through Ellis Island and that getting a taste of what immigrants went through is more interesting than reading about it. Although the simulation focuses on legal immigration and not illegal immigration along the Arizona-Mexico border, Joey said it made him feel sad for anyone who struggles to enter this country but must be sent back.

"In a textbook, you get from it only what you read, but not what you think," he said. "It makes you really think about the whole issue."

Anderson said the lesson will hit her students closer to home when they examine parallels between the Ellis Island immigrants and current immigrants, legal or illegal. The topics touch on discrimination, obstacles to assimilation, reasons the immigrant work force was needed and the jobs immigrants, especially non-English speakers, tend to get.

"This age group is a lot more tolerant. They look at it as, 'How can we send 12 million people back?' and 'How are we going to make this better?'" Anderson said. "It makes them more aware of the worlds outside them and they realize they're the ones who can change it."
http://tinyurl.com/5v9kgu

How can we send 12 million back? Looking for solutions or excuses? Come on, how many years are they gonna keep saying 12 million? Until it's 120 million? I call their little social study escapade indoctrination. I wonder if those teachers could show the students what it's like to have some patriotism for the USA?

"I was thinking what if I got sent back. I felt terrified," she said. "Going through it was a lot worse than I thought or read about. I didn't know it would be that terrible."

They are doing everything in their power to indoctrinate these kids into believing enforcing our immigration laws is inhumane and thus, we should just a open the flood gates via amnesty, because it's cruel to make these people come in the legal route!

Disgraceful!

Originally Posted by cvangel

'How can we send 12 million people back?'

We can send them back the same way Mexico and other countries sent them here.