Utah educators get reminder on the importance of diversity

Salt Lake Tribune ^ | 4/17/2005 | Arrin Newton Brunson

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

LOGAN - As with any professional seminar, Utah NAME's fifth annual Educators for Diversity Conference had plenty of experts on its panel of guest presenters this weekend in Logan.

While those experts eloquently delivered well-prepared lectures about their areas of specialty - on everything from advocating for Latino youth to spiritual diversity in children's literature - no one spoke more effectively on the conference theme, "Multiple Cultures/Common Ground," than Ilse Villalobos.

A Mountain Crest High School student in Hyrum, Villalobos came alone to the United States from Mexico when she was 14 years old, "seeking a better future." In a power point presentation at Mount Logan Middle School on Friday afternoon, Villalobos introduced hundreds of Utah educators to some of her classmates and the rich cultures of their native homes in Iran, Korea, Peru, El Salvador and Japan.

"This country is like a second home for cultures all around the world," said Villalobos, who didn't shy away from her ethnicity. "My hair and the color of my face are a symbol of who I am."

Villalobos vowed to find a way to "get a higher education" to help her mother out of poverty. Although she is not a citizen of the United States and has no means of funding her education, Villalobos said, "I will never give up."

Statistics show that there is much work to be done to provide equitable educational opportunities for students such as Villalobos in Utah, where a sizable achievement gap factors out by race.

For example in Utah in 2002, 64.8 percent of blacks, 64.7 percent of Latinos, 67 percent of American Indians, 76.1 percent of Pacific Islanders, and 84.4 percent of Asians graduated from high school, compared to an 88.4 percent graduation rate for whites, according to the state Office of Education.

The Educators for Diversity Conference, which began with a small group of students and community members in Cache Valley five years ago, has a goal of improving these statistics. This is the first year the conference was sponsored by the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME), a group with the mission to highlight the need for recognizing differences as assets, according to conference planner Joan Mahoney.

"Typical responses to diversity in our schools either tend to assimilate children and make them all strive for what they have in common or emphasize differences so much that students who are considered to be different from the norm are ostracized and do not receive the respect and services they need," Mahoney said.

Keynote speaker Lily Eskelsen, secretary of the National Education Association, told the educators that the decision to become public school teachers requires them to help all children, even those with different ideologies regarding sexual orientation, religion and politics.

"If we choose to teach in public schools, then we choose to protect all of our students, whether we agree with them or not," Eskelsen said. "I am not agreeing only to teach those who look and think like me."

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Utah educators get reminder on the importance of diversity state-sponsored racism

[Bahbah]

"Typical responses to diversity in our schools either tend to assimilate children and make them all strive for what they have in common....

What, pray tell, is the problem with this?

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I find that statement interesting. If you treat the kids consistently, you're not respecting their cultural diversity. If you treat them differently based on race, you're being racist. There's no way to make the diversity zealots happy and it illustrates their advanced victimhood mentality.

In the case of people like Ilse Villalobos, I really wonder about people who leave their countries in the middle of the night, sneak across the U.S. border "for a better future", then bitch and moan about how they're getting a bum rap once they get here.

[StonyBurk]

She is not a US citizen--then WHY is she adding to the problems in our Education system? I don't agree with this
destructive Cultural Diversity Crap. Once we were a nation
defined by Borders(now our mere politicians are as terrible as that old Fox and the illegals pushed North -at the
recognition of our borders) Language - Once our language was English and any who came to America for a better life
learned our language. And Culture- there was an American
culture. Those who came here for a better life set aside the culture and politics and flag to be something better--
to be Americans. Those days are gone -bu tI will never
surrender to the enemy that seeks Mexico Del Norte.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

That makes me think of the Cuban Americans. During the Elian Gonzalez debacle, these Americans who had assimilated and demanded protection under the constitution understood how very important it was for this little boy to remain in America. They took the best of America and embraced it, made it their own.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I've got Japanese neighbors like that. They're making a good deal better instead of always moaning that they don't get the same breaks as the natives. The opportunities are there, people just have to go out and get them. I'm glad not all immigrants think like the diversity forums that you see on school campuses.

[Mark was here]

Keynote speaker Lily Eskelsen, secretary of the National Education Association, told the educators that the decision to become public school teachers requires them to help all children, even those with different ideologies regarding sexual orientation, religion and politics.

This explains why they go out of their way to attack Christian values, what a bunch of loonies.

[hershey]

It must be difficult for illegals to leave home and hearth and come here for a better future. Why not simply hand over the keys to the US treasury to Mexico and points south? That would improve their economic condition (as long as corrupt pols didn't steal every dollar), and they'd have nothing to complain about. We're already doing this on a small scale, what with international aid, etc., but Jimmy Carter has just said we don't do enough. He's right. We're evil and cruel and don't care.

[sgtbono2002]

This girl must be brilliant. She snuck across the border at 14, left family and kin back home.Vowing to get a higher education to help her poverty stricken mother. This must mean she was poor. America is a wonderful country, with no family here she found a way to live and eat and already she has learned enough about computers to do a power-point demonstration. I have been struggling with power-point for a couple of years and still havent conquered it. I kinda think this girl was planted there by someone.

[Tax-chick]

Although she is not a citizen of the United States and has no means of funding her education, Villalobos said, "I will never give up."

Get a job.

[twas]

Let's see, there's somewhere around 11 million illegals from Mexico alone flooding our country and ONE is a success.

Is this a good return on investment?

"If we choose to teach in public schools, then we choose to protect all of our students, whether we agree with them or not," Eskelsen said. "I am not agreeing only to teach those who look and think like me."

Translation: 'The kids should run the school and set the curriculum and standards. We can make multiculturalism work if we strive for the lowest common denominator'.

[ladylib]

At one time, in the beginning of the last century, public schools (and religious schools) made it their job to take immigrants and turn them into Americans. Not anymore.

[Mike Darancette]

Villalobos came alone to the United States from Mexico when she was 14 years old, "seeking a better future."

Can you say "Illegal"?