Former Migrants Teach Students Valuable Lessons

The parents followed the harvest in California, and every morning, when they dropped their young daughter off at a migrant camp preschool, she threw a tantrum and misbehaved until they returned at the end of the day.

However, when the parents arrived at a labor camp near Stockton recently, preschool teacher Irene Maldonado did not simply assume the girl had a behavior problem and segregate her from the other children.

She discovered that the parents had left the girl’s brother with relatives in Mexico before heading north for the harvest. The girl was afraid that every time her parents dropped her off at school, she, too, would be left behind.

“I knew what that little girl was going through, because the same thing happened to me when my family left Mexico to pick vegetables in California,” Maldonado said. “When they left my older brother behind, I felt the same way.”

Maldonado teaches in an experimental program based on the premise that former migrant workers make the best teachers for migrant children. Maldonado said there are many occasions in which she can draw upon her experiences to help teach the children of other migrants.

Five years ago, Maldonado, 28, was hoeing weeds and picking tomatoes, cucumbers and cherries in the San Joaquin Valley. She always dreamed of becoming a teacher, but had to drop out of school in the sixth grade to work.

“I’m not embarrassed that I picked tomatoes. . . . I had to help my family,” she said. “But I think my work in the fields makes me a better teacher. I understand the children.”

The program, funded by the state Department of Education, has been so successful that there are now 10 preschools throughout the state staffed entirely by former migrant workers. About 75 teachers, most of whom were recruited directly from the fields, have been accredited since 1985.

A new, innovative approach to educating migrant children was needed because the old programs had failed, said Antonia Lopez, director of education for the Foundation Center, a Sacramento-based nonprofit organization that founded the preschools. Nine out of 10 migrant children in California do not graduate from high school, she said.

Some migrant children are doomed from the start, Lopez said. They fall behind, are classified as “slow learners,” and never catch up.

A migrant child may arrive at school unbathed, with stained clothes and dirty fingernails. Some public school teachers, Lopez said, treat the children with contempt and criticize the parents. Teachers at the migrant preschools realize that many farm workers do not have running water, and may live in a tent by an orchard or in a shed with an earthen floor.

These teachers realize migrant children who are disorderly in class may simply need extra attention. Oftentimes, both parents work from 4:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at backbreaking labor and return home so exhausted that they are unable to pay enough attention to their children.

“Kids are much more comfortable and learn better in an environment where they’re understood,” said Lopez, who grew up in a migrant family. “We provide that environment.”

Like most preschool students, the migrant children learn how to read and write and study math, science and other subjects. They need additional preparation to succeed in elementary school, Lopez said.

On a recent afternoon, at a preschool next to the Artesi Migrant Camp in French Camp near Stockton, the students were sitting at small tables with freshly cut flowers in vases and eating roast turkey with knives and forks on porcelain plates. At the migrant preschools, teaching etiquette and table manners are an integral part of the curriculum.

The reason is that several years ago, when Lopez heard a white preschool teacher telling another teacher that migrant children “ate like little pigs,” she vowed that her students would never have to endure that kind of criticism.

“At a middle-class preschool, you don’t have to teach a lot of these things,” she said. “But our kids don’t learn all the niceties at home . . . then they’re criticized by teachers and other students and feel very alienated. But the children who finish our program are ready for the larger world. They’re more comfortable in school and do better in the classroom.”

Although no follow-up studies have been completed, “anecdotal evidence indicates that these kids do extremely well in elementary school,” said Lily Wong-Fillmore, a professor at UC Berkeley’s school of education and an expert on migrant education. In a recent state Department of Education evaluation, a migrant preschool near Lodi became one of the first in the California to earn a perfect rating.

“Having former migrants teach these kids was a stroke of genius,” Wong-Fillmore said. “They understand the kids and they really believe in them, so there’s a great environment for learning. . . . And even though the teachers don’t have a strong academic background, by the time they’re done with the training program, they are very well prepared to teach.”

Most of the teachers went straight from the fields to a 9-week, 8-hours-a-day, training session with several hours of homework at night. Their instructors use the Montessori method--a type of education often available only to students from affluent families. Each spring, they have another nine-week session, and at the end of four years, after hundreds of hours of student-teaching, they are accredited as Montessori preschool teachers.

The preschools are open during the harvest season--from early May to the end of October.

On a recent afternoon, at the Artesi Infant and Child Development Center, about 50 students between the ages of 2 and 6--wearing matching shorts and T-shirts--worked quietly in small groups with their teachers. The air-conditioned classroom was immaculate and filled with an aviary, aquarium, hanging plants, world globes and a variety of teaching aids. One side of the classroom was devoted to Mexican culture and shelves were lined with pottery, blankets, drawings and other handicrafts.

Outside, a few students were in the garden tending the tomatoes, bell peppers, squash and cilantro--all plants that the parents brought from the fields. Next door, about 30 infants were sleeping in the center’s nursery.

At the preschools, all instruction is in Spanish--a controversial element of the program. Because the families follow the crops and some students are at school for only a month or two, it would be impossible to accomplish anything, teachers say, if they attempted to teach the children English first. It is more efficient to teach them a number of subjects in their native language and “give the children confidence and not confuse them,” Wong-Fillmore said. Then, when they are taught English in elementary schools, “they are better prepared to learn.”

The program was designed to benefit migrant children, but an “unexpected reward” has been the development of the teachers, Lopez said. All had very little education when they began training, but now they have the accreditation to work in any preschool in the state.

“All we were counting on was having good teachers, but what happened was we ended up changing these communities,” Lopez said. “These women have really blossomed and became leaders and role models.”

The parents, too, have benefited from the program. Jose Pimental rarely visits the schools where his older children are enrolled. His English is limited and he feels intimidated by the teachers. However, at the preschool near the labor camp where he lives, Pimental frequently stops by to discuss his younger childrens’ progress with their teacher, Maldonado.

“I feel very comfortable talking with Irene about how my children are doing in the classroom. You see,” he said smiling, “four years ago she was picking tomatoes right beside me.”