students speaking spanish

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students speaking spanish
By JM

I don't really have any advice to offer. I only have experience from this as a student perspective from when I was in high school. I went to a high school where we had a high percentage of spanish speakers. I am white and
do not speak spanish. I can remember many of the students would only speak spanish. In high school I felt extremely alone because so many people around me would not speak english or include me in conversations. If I was lucky there would be maybe 2 or 3 other white students in my class. Teachers would never make kids speak english even though they knew they could speak it. And then teachers

would wonder why the white students were only friends with whites and the hispanics were only friends with hispanics. It was because the hispanics would make whites feel left out and excluded by always speaking spanish. And the teachers and other staff who spoke spanish didn't help any by speaking spanish to the hispanics right in front of white students. They were contributing to the problem. My memories of high school are absolutely awful because of this experience.