Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) Meetings And Mexican American Parents

“Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) Meetings and Mexican American Parents: Let 's Talk About It” written by Loretta Salas, highlights some keys disadvantages that Mexican American parents face. In retrospect, I feel that these same dilemmas can be extended to several different foreign-speaking parents. The article highlights several major issues having to do with the American education system. Not only those it focuses on the issued of under-representation of Mexican Americans, but the under-appreciation of foreign language individuals as a whole. Parents with children in the education system who were not familiar with the English language were used as examples to show how these people were poorly treated. Furthermore, the outright disrespect …show more content…
The issues of misrepresentation and lack of communication seems to be a reoccurring problem. Additionally, the lack of professionalism that some of these educators in the school showed was very astonishing. As mentioned earlier these parents knowledge of English or the American school system was highly limited. Rather than feeling appreciated and drawn into American schooling the parents felt, “left out and embarrassed for not speaking good English”(Salas 188). After reading the testaments of the mothers, I completely understand where these sentiments are coming from. It was as if the school was simply having these meeting because they were mandated by IDEA, not because they genuinely cared about what they were telling the parents. In reality, these meeting were completely unnecessary. Under the language alienation subheading, the article states how parents felt the information was basically being dictated at them. In most cases parents really had little to no opportunity to give much feedback or even communicate back with the teacher, in some cases this was contributed to their lack of understanding the English language. This is why the purpose of having a bilingual special-education teacher is to be able to communicate to parents in the language they are most comfortable in. The mothers were put in …show more content…
It begins by stating, “Ignorance about culturally linguistically diverse issues often leads to assumptions on behalf of educators who, although well-intentioned, may or may not realize the impression that they make on parents”. I do believe that these educators have the best intentions for every family however; their lack of exposure limits them on how they can affect different families. Had these educators been able to see life from these mothers perspectives they would have probably been able to show more compassion and understanding for their cultures. Different cultures have different ways of communicating and some things while may be in good intention may come out disrespectful based on how it is said or translates. Simply taking the time, making a small gesture that shows that you or even a cultural reference will show that you care about them as individuals. Unfortunately, the mothers in this section were not given the respect they deserve. They all work extremely hard to make sure that their children are in the best shape possible to succeed. Even if this means spending most of their time working they’ll do it. I’ve watched my mother work as hard as these mothers however; the school I went to was very understanding and culturally informed. Simply taking the time to understand that parents work a lot have to take time out of their schedule to show up to the