This morning I tested one of our newcomers who recently moved from Guatemala.
She is in first grade.
As I pointed to images of animals and body parts, she quietly thought, clearly reaching into the depths of her brain to come up with the word, then shook her head each time I asked "what is this?" because she didn't know the English words.
As we began the section where she needs to repeat what I say, she started off okay, repeating "good morning" and trying to repeat "I'm hungry." Then, when I got to some phrases with 4-6 words, she hesitated and tears began to form in her eyes.
She felt like a failure.
I could have just continued on with the test given that I had a lot of other things to do and it was pretty clear that she was struggling. Sometimes we feel like these tests are just something we have to to get through. But, I saw this little human, feeling badly and I had to stop.
I looked at her and in my best Spanish, I told her that I know this is hard, but that it's okay because she is just starting to learn English. I acknowledged what she was feeling and then...
She blew me away.
She told me she actually speaks two languages in Guatemala...Spanish and K'iche'. So, English is actually her THIRD language and she is just six years old. She shared that she still has family living in Guatemala and has two cousins locally, one that attends our school. We talked about which family members speak which languages and I told her that when I moved to Germany I didn't understand anybody and I also felt bad about it, but little by little I learned.
When we resumed the test, she read several words in English! At that point I told her very enthusiastically that I think she is the smartest girl in the world because she can speak two languages already AND she can read words in English.
And she smiled.
Really big.
When we got to the section where I read a story accompanied by 4 images and then asked her to retell what happened, she retold the story in entirely in Spanish. I wrote down "response in Spanish" on the answer sheet because an answer with no English words gets a 0. Then, I reconsidered.
She is not a 0.
I told her I wanted to write down all of the words she said, but since I would be writing in my second language I needed her to speak slowly. She ever so slowly enunciated each word, stretching them out into syllables so I could write it all down.
ma-ri-po-sa
za-pa-to
We came to a word that I didn't know so I asked her what it meant and she explained it so that I understood it meant barefoot. I took off my ballet flat and pointed to my bare foot and she nodded. I asked her if she might want to be a teacher when she grows up because she's was very patient with me and she said yes, she might like that.
This entire interaction made me think about the purpose of assessment.
I could have told you prior to administering this test that she would be a beginner, but giving this test was an opportunity.
An opportunity to build a relationship.
An opportunity to make a worried child understand she is not alone.
An opportunity to make a sweet student smile.
An opportunity to learn a new word in Spanish.
An opportunity to learn more about a student new to our school.
An opportunity to inspire a future teacher.
After this interaction, I excitedly shared with several colleagues about how special this girl is. I thought a lot about Emily Francis and her story. I thought about so many other stories I've read or heard from students who felt so alone and felt badly about themselves when they first came to the U.S. and didn't know English yet.
I really hope that today becomes part of this girl's story. I hope that when she thinks about her first week at school she remembers me and what I said. I hope she realizes how much power there is in being multilingual and how SMART she is.
I hope she knows.
