The Power of the Ubuntu Academy Teachers! Literacy Instruction at its Best! Lucky Kids. Lucky Me.

For the 2nd year in a row, I've secured funding from a variety of sources to invest in English language learners in southern Connecticut who have recently arrived and who may or may not have immigrated from refugee camps. This year, the kids are reading Warren St. John's Outcasts United and asking themselves what does community mean to their achievement as new Americans.

Again this year, I've hired graduate students who are completing their TESOL certification and who also teach in Bridgeport. These are teachers who lament the fact that the demands of state curriculum does not allow them to reach the kids in meaningful, purposeful ways. When I offer them a gig of designing their own instruction, they jump at it and report phenomenal gains in a very short time.

These are young people who are unlikely to reach proficiency on state or national examinations for another four or five years, but who are required by law to sit through state testing again and again, even though they gain nothing but frustration from the experience. Testing offers them nothing and the teachers, if you simply asked them for a report, would name the same skills lacking in beginners of the language. What is sad, however, is they can't teach the kids because of testing demands.

Ah, but we've covered this territory before. What I am witnessing on a daily basis is reading, writing, playfulness, laughter, athleticism, life skills, community, and a sense of purpose. The smiles and focus speak for success of the academy.

In addition, the presence of these young people with teachers and in collaboration with other labs is completely phenomenal. It is so wonderful to have the opportunity to paint the students for the assets they bring rather than the deficits placed on them in our assessment culture. For this I am proud.
This is what I believe in.