Educational Crossroads

Photograph taken by student attending a one-day arts program at Sodus Central School, 2015

Father and son at a Migrant Education Summer Art Class held in Brockport, NY

Education is not a privilege; it is a human right. Social justice activists often call it “one of the most valuable rights” for liberating individuals from the tyranny of a predetermined life: instead of just one path, a child encounters many crossroads. Children of migrant farmworkers, though, face a uniquely heart-wrenching decision: School or Work? This is because they often travel with their families and work alongside of them on farms, where US laws allow child agricultural labor beginning at age ten. As Geneseo Migrant Center director Gloria Mattera wrote, “workers leave their homebases in early spring and return in late fall, thus creating serious problems of attendance and continuity of education for their children who have to attend a variety of schools” (8). Currently the average level of formal education completed by farmworkers is ninth grade, with more than a third not having completed sixth grade. Fewer than 15% report any education beyond high school (U.S. Dept. of Labor 15-16).

Migrant education programs reach out to families and advocate for their rights to education and support services. The Geneseo Migrant Center (GMC) grew out of several laws from the Civil Rights era promoting educational opportunity: Project Head Start (1964), the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965), and the Migrant Education Program (1966). Under the guidance of Dr. Mattera, a professor in SUNY Geneseo’s School of Education, the GMC became a national leader in developing innovative programs.

• Early childhood education, both in-school and programs supporting parents (Chapman)
• Developing in-camp education programs for migrant workers (Lynch and Smith)
• Coordination with home schools to reconnect with migrant students who had dropped out (Salerno and Fink)
• College preparation addressing the unique challenges faced by the children of migrant farmworkers (Fink)
• A practical curriculum for adults, called Living in America, that focused on issues like official documents or navigating healthcare systems (Yamamoto and Hogan)
• Outdoor learning experiences (DeMay)

When we envision education it’s usually associated with children in the same school classroom, day after day. Migrant education reaches out to people of all age groups, and in its earliest years the GMC ran a demonstration school and childcare center on campus specifically for the children of migrant farmworkers. But often education occurred at locations besides schools, whether in migrant labor camps or even motels. The GMC hosted so many teaching moments that they cannot truly be counted. Here are just a few to appreciate its legacies and show the continuing needs.

School as described by Michael H.

School as described by Selene H.

2. "I Know I'm Ready, But Don't Feel Like It": Art and Self-Expression

At American schools, English language learners (ELLs) can be stigmatized as less intelligent, an additional drain on school resources, or negatively impacting test data. Even well-meaning teachers are likely to “downwardly bias” their skills (Umansky and Dumont), and the children often are separated from their peers and educated for minimal competency. At Geneseo Migrant Center writing workshops, the children were asked how they felt about school…there weren’t any wrong answers. Other organized events invited children to draw, paint, photograph, collage, sing, and perform. Although we don’t have information as to the location or date of this writing workshop, it’s clear how different a migrant child’s experience could be. Michael’s poem is heartbreaking: “In school, I feel jailed / And if I were jailed, / Then I won’t have to go.” On the other hand, Selena writes that she is “ready to go back to school.” Why? A teacher who cares about her and makes her excited to learn: “Every time I look at Mrs. Weaver I smile.” In this batch of writing, there is even a poem from Grandma Lucy, who seems to be an important presence in the children’s lives. These first-hand accounts of migrant education foster questions about the true conditions of the instruction being provided to them and may cause one to wonder how much the students are benefiting from mandated schooling. They show that even a separate classroom just down the school hallway is an immeasurable distance. Dwindling financial and social support for migrant education hasn’t erased the reasons why it remains important--just ask the children--and in addition to students’ needs, the GMC’s programs for teacher training still are imperative. Tapping into the artistry of young students is crucial for their identity, and without it society is undermining the potential of migrant children outside of the life that is expected of them. Opportunities must expand beyond the realm of subject-based education for children to understand where they belong and who they are as individuals. 

The difference between reading or hearing about something, as opposed to experiencing it, is an important reason for schools of education. Aspiring teachers need to work with migrant children, in addition to learning about their unique challenges. The images here date to a time when SUNY Geneseo was a national leader in migrant education, recognized in 1969 by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). Teachers traveled from places like Virginia and Alabama to attend GMC’s summer workshops. Support by the college and its then-president, Robert MacVittie, was crucial for the initiative. It took the form of office space, funding for a demonstration school, liaison with the surrounding community, and not least his clear message that migrant education was important to the college’s School of Education. Without a coordinating space, seasonal farmworkers remained invisible--even a source of fear--and efforts to coordinate programs would have been difficult, as later years of the GMC were to prove.

Changing structures of migrant farm work meant that large seasonal “streams” of primarily Black workers from the American south--as had been the case when GMC was created--shifted to a pattern of year-round residents from Mexico and Central America, many of them undocumented. Outreach to large summer labor camps didn’t work anymore because they were disappearing; instead, teachers now “are often the first individuals in whom a student and/or family confides and reveals that they are undocumented” (Gangone). AACTE President Lynn M. Gangone writes that “there are undocumented students entering U.S. schools, colleges, and universities who were not given the option to decide for themselves whether they wanted to come to this country.” They are fearful for themselves and their parents, who travel here because American farmers hire them through farm labor contractors (FLCs). The older question of “School or Work?” remains, but the ways of reaching migrant children must change. Schools of education like that at Geneseo can encourage students to take English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and inform them about the special educational, emotional, and legal needs of migrant children. What’s currently missing are the in-person programs and relationships like those facilitated by the GMC. In absence of committed teachers, migrant children are excluded from the freedom to choose who they want to be--not what the world believes they should be.