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Learning to Teach in Diverse Classrooms

Voyage to Adams-Morgan Helps Instructors Understand Their Students' Cultures

Judy Coyle went off to an exotic land this week. She left her home in Prince William County and arrived in a place where she marveled at colorful paintings, heard foreign languages spoken and snapped pictures of wood carvings she'd never seen before.

It was her first visit to Adams-Morgan.

She wasn't alone. Two hundred Prince William schoolteachers, armed with fanny packs, maps, cameras and camcorders, flooded into the polyglot Northwest Washington neighborhood Thursday as part of a program to expose them to the cultures of the minority students who are arriving in increasing numbers in their classrooms.

In all, about 300 Northern Virginia teachers, most of them from Prince William, attended parts of the school system's week-long course, "The Latino/Hispanic American Experience." They learned Latin American history and heard about such topics as how to add Hispanic culture to the curriculum and how to get Hispanic parents more involved in schools.

The county school system sponsored a similar program on African American culture last summer and will focus on Asian Americans and American Indians in future years.

"We need this, because for so long this material about all Americans has been left out of the curriculum," said Larry Bell, head of multicultural education for Prince William schools. "The teachers here run the spectrum from those who are informed to those who had no idea what they didn't know."

The program comes at a time when Prince William's minority population is increasing steadily. Last year, 31 percent of the students in county schools were racial minorities, compared with 20 percent six years earlier. The percentage of Hispanic students has doubled to 6 percent during that period.

Several teachers said the course already has changed the way they view Hispanic students. Susanne Schmidt, a first-grade teacher at Sinclair Elementary, said she learned that Hispanic students come from diverse educational and cultural backgrounds. Coyle, who teaches at Fred Lynn Middle School, said she now realizes that a Hispanic student who didn't look her in the eye was showing respect rather than rudeness.

"This brings out the differences and makes it interesting," said Patricia Shumaker, who teaches at George Washington Middle School in Alexandria. She said she plans to have her Hispanic students talk more about their native countries in class. "It has given me a much greater respect for the cultures," she said.

At 9 a.m. Thursday, the teachers gathered at Woodbridge High School to board six school buses that would take them to Adams-Morgan. Bell gave them a map of the neighborhood, highlighting nine Hispanic restaurants where they could eat lunch. He told them not to wander onto side streets. "Adams-Morgan is a friendly place," he said. "But it's still the city."

Coyle visited the Mexican Cultural Institute [in Columbia Heights - D. McIntire], stopped in craft, clothing and jewelry stores and wandered past sidewalk vendors selling luggage and music tapes.

"This has opened my eyes to a lot of things," she said. "Now I'm amazed to see how different the countries are. . . . This gives teachers the tools to get over the cultural barrier. Once we overcome that, we can get to the business of teaching."