Elizabeth Barrett Browning Middle School (M.S. 399)

The School's Profile

• Population: 455 students
• Location: Bronx, New York
• Type: Public School
• Grades: 6th-8th
• Number of Teachers: 90
• School-day duration: 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM
• Interesting fact: Closed or merged with another school due to poor performance

The next stop on the Maria Education Train is Elizabeth Barrett Browning, also known as M.S 399. This is a public middle school in New York City, and the first school I attended in the United States. In this school I was placed in a bilingual classroom, not exactly bilingual. Rather all of our classes were taught in Spanish and we had two hours of English every day depending on English ability.

From my 6^th grade class, I have very distant memories except for those that marked a before and after in my education. I vividly recall my Spanish Literature class and my teacher Ms. Lopez. She gave us a composition book and asked us to write on it every day for 15 minutes at the beginning of class. The journal helped me track my progress in the English language throughout the year. That year I had one focus, and it was to learn English. I did not enjoy the feeling of uncertainty I felt when others tried to talk to me and I could not respond.

Since I was so focus on learning English, my life revolved around the different after school programs the school offered and any books I could get my hands on. Back in the Dominican Republic, I was considered the smart one, but in this new school, no one could see me that way because I was lacking the language to demonstrate it.

Because of my intense dedication to learning the language, I neglected the other aspects of the schools, the events happening around me, and the school’s strategies for success. Thus, it came as surprise to find out that the school no longer exists because, as the teacher in the video claims, the ELL—English language learners—scores decreased by 10%. Given my recollection of memories, I believe that the bilingual program at the school could had been improve just be incorporating more English into the regular curriculum. This system is falling short in understanding the different type of languages associated to students in order to ensure that they are getting the most out of the education. As Baker puts it in the piece “Trinlingualism,” students speak different languages within a single one: the formal language they pick up at school and the informal one they pick up from their peers. The third language would be their first language or the one spoken at home. The school failed to introduced students to the formal language in a more uniform manner with the rest of the school.

Towards the end of the year, I remember Mr. Rosario, my math teacher, coming up to me and saying that he expected me to get a 4/4 on the state test because I was good at math. That is when I realized people were starting to see me the way I longed to be seen. My hard work paid off as the end of the year, I moved up from Beginners English to Intermediate English. I skipped Elementary because of how focus I was.

This experience taught me to know what I want and to go for it and that as long as I have support from people, I can achieve many of my goals. This was also the first time I questioned the system when wondering why a bilingual classroom was not bilingual and I felt the need of taking matters into my own hands. It is good to have students be self-driven and take control of their education, but it is also extremely important for the school to support students’ learning so that they do not feel it all falls on their shoulders. The purpose of education is to empower students, not make them feel like they are falling behind.