JESUS GONZALEZ CASE STUDY
Teaching cases provide teachers an opportunity to discuss solutions for authentic, detailed accounts of events that encourage them to reflect and explore critical issues and then develop meaningful responses. (Taylor, S. & Whittaker, C. 2009) Teachers can learn in a more thoughtful and reflecting manner when given the opportunity to analyze a case and evaluate what actions others have taken when faced with the issues these cases present. (p. 69) It allows teachers to put themselves in the classroom in a virtual sense and look beyond their own preconceptions and face issues that are occurring all over the country.
In the teaching case of Jesus Gonzalez, there are several problems that present themselves between the teacher, student, parents and school. Analyzing this case allows me to grapple with issues that are occurring more and more in our communities of multi-cultural diversity. Jesus is the son of a migrant worker and comes from a proud Mexican family steeped in their culture’s traditions. He attends a predominantly white school that has few resources to help with bi-lingual children. The teacher has no experience in working with bilingual children from different cultures. Jesus’s parents don’t speak English well and only let Jesus socialize with other Mexicans or Jamaicans near where he lives. The town is small and there are few Mexicans in the community. Jesus feels stuck between two worlds, one with his family that only speak Spanish and are isolated, and the world of school surrounded by white classmates with which he has little in common. Jesus’s teacher, Mrs. Kniffen, is faced with a situation where Jesus’s father comes to the class to pick him up and Jesus is obviously uncomfortable when Jesus’s father speaks in Spanish. Jesus responds by screaming out, “Stop talking in Spanish in here!” (p. 83)
Mrs. Kniffen