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More adults
filter in, bringing their children in tow. The adults squeeze
into chairs
designed for much smaller bodies, and the
kids disperse through the computer stations,
toy boxes and bookshelves. Soon the
kids are rounded up and marched into an adjoining room to
work on their homework while the parents receive ESL instruction.
They are all about to participate
in a program run through FIU’s College of Education called
FLASH, which stands for “ Families Learning at School
and Home.”
The goal of FLASH, which FIU has
helped implement all over the country, is to help
culturally and linguistically diverse parents
and caregivers, many of them recent
immigrants, learn about the workings of
their children’s schools, and as a result,
how to better help their children learn.
In
the process, they adjust to life in a new
home with a different language.
But that’s only the first half of the
FLASH sessions, which are held twice a
week at Finlay from 6:00-9:00 p.m. Then
something happens that sets FLASH
apart: Parents and children come together
to share what they’re learning in what is
known as “intergenerational” instruction.
“The
program serves as a vehicle to empower families
and have them assume
greater roles of involvement,” says
FLASH founder and Director Dr. Delia
Garcia, an Assistant Professor in FIU’s
College of Education. “We see parents in
activities from reading a story for their
child to attending a PTA meeting.” Research
has shown, she adds, that children who received
support from their parents
tend to improve their grades, attendance
and social behavior.
Started 20
years ago through a grant from the U.S.
Dept. of Education, FLASH has helped
1,600 families in South Florida achieve
results like these. The program currently
operates at Finlay through the Governor’s
Family Literacy Initiative, a state grant.
Tonight, Rosa listens intently as
her teacher Margarita Castro helps the class
understand a passage from a newspaper
article, effortlessly switching languages
Class is about to begin in the library at
Carlos J. Finlay Elementary School, which sits
on the edge of FIU’s University Park Campus – but
the students are not whom you
might expect.
It’s 6 p.m., and Rosa Perez,
a thirty-something woman with a baby
face, is one of the first to arrive. She is erasing
a blackboard, explaining that she
always comes a few minutes early to do her part
by cleaning up a little. “The first
friends I ever had in this country were my classmates,” says
Rosa in Spanish, giggling
at the thought. She overhears two other women
as they come in. “La Argentina
isn’t coming tonight?” Rosa gasps. “She
got a virus? Oh no, that’s a shame!” Rosa’s
daughter Lesly sits on the carpet playing a board
game with some of her friends;
they all have a look of quiet concentration.
“When I
started
here,” says Rosa, who has been attending
for a few months, “I couldn’t even say ‘yes’
or ‘no,’ but now I’m getting much better.”
About 25 other adults, mostly Hispanic
women in their 20’s and 30’s, follow along
in their newspapers, happily hunched over
the low-to-the-ground kiddy tables in this
elementary school library. It is a brightly
painted wonderland inhabited by a large
population of stuffed animals. On the wall
above the shelves, an exhibition of student
work circles almost all the way around: a
space shuttle science project, a display of
Columbus’ voyage, Impressionistic paintings
of dark-skinned women wearing colorful
dresses.
After Ms. Castro reads out the passage
about Senator Bob Graham several times,
the students recite it together and then try
writing it down. Ms. Castro, who has
worked as a teacher and administrator for
three decades, is pleased by the performance. “
We’re all training to be reporters for
channel 9,” she quips. “Not Telemundo, not
a novela, but in English. Ok, one more time.
Who wants to volunteer?”
Rosa raises her hand with a big smile,
but she’s stuck on a previous instruction
and starts writing down the passage
again instead of reciting it. Her cheeks go
flush when she catches herself and starts
laughing, with the whole class soon joining
in. “I understand more, teacher, but I
still have to learn!”
Meanwhile, in a classroom across the
hall, the children are busily spelling,
counting, reading and writing. Lesly,
Rosa’s daughter, comes over to say hello
and starts talking about her science project
—
apparently about apples—and then
launches into an impressively technical, unthird-
grade-like definition of scientific “procedure.” “
It was all very easy,” she assures.
“ The only difficult part was putting the pictures
in the right place.”
There are children’s books everywhere:
laid out on tables, stacked on desks. They’re
even pinned to the walls, with multicolored
letters hanging next to them that proudly
announce the theme around here: READING
IS HAVING A BLAST. Over by the
entrance, there’s a piñata resting on
a cabinet, but it’s not necessarily out of
place. The only things that do seem out of
place are the sober expressions of two parents,
Daniel and Sandra Cuadrado, who
come in to speak with FLASH administrators.
The news is good. Their son Gonzalo
is getting a long-awaited hearing aid with
the help of the program. Paying for the
device would have been impossible for the
Cuadrados, who moved from Uruguay
two months ago because of the country’s
severe economic problems.
“They help you
here in so many different ways,” Mr.
Cuadrado says. “They’re like a family,
and they make you feel great.”
Like the Cuadrados, many of the Finlay
families struggle to make ends meet.
Some live at a trailer park complex about
a mile from FIU, and one dedicated mother
even makes the trek to Finlay on foot.
They come because FLASH offers them
not only English skills and human warmth,
but also basic services. Representatives
from immigration and welfare agencies
come in to speak. Assistance is available for
filling out all kinds of applications and
forms. And always at the end of the session,
after all the hard work, there’s dinner
for everyone.
After teacher Mari Del Castillo rewards
each of her students for their good work
with a book, they return to the library to
sit with their parents.
Tonight’s intergenerational
activity is based on the group’s
recent field trip to Metro Zoo – one
of many regular excursions FLASH sponsors.
Pictures of the animals are passed
out, and the parent-child teams work on
writing descriptions and coloring in.
Once that’s finished, photos will be
added, and the whole thing assembled
into a laminated album.
“Remember what color the tiger was,
baby?” Rosa asks Lesly. “It was white, not
orange. Do you remember what kind of animal
it was?”
Lesly explains that it’s a mammal,
which has to do with feeding babies and
mammary glands and not being born in
an egg, and she writes it all down under
her mother’s watchful eye. Then they
start working on describing the elephant.
All around, children sit on parents’ laps
and parents lean over children’s shoulders
as they work on the albums. One
mother stops for a moment to volunteer
an observation.
“You know, there are
lot of schools where you have to a pay
lot to study, but I bet they don’t treat you
like they do here.”
For more information about FLASH,
call 305.348.2647 or email flash@fiu.edu
success with a big dose of friendship.
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