Helping the Chicano Pupil

Abstract

MEETING THE NEEDS Of Chicano students in mixed classrooms requires that educators adopt intervention measures which may not be appropriate for the entire student body. These measures are necessary to adjust traditional methodologies to the unique experiences and background of the Chicano. If Chicano youngsters are to be brought into the mainstream of learning, it is also necessary that many of the usual school practices be given up as ill-fitting any concept of multi-cultural education. Heretofore, the traditional myths of the homogeneous classroom and the melting pot mission of the school have lulled educators into a false sense of complacency. For many years teachers and administrators have been using a curriculum grounded on uni-cultural premises, and taught through a blanket methodology geared to an ephemeral middle group of students. Within this system, the occasional success of an isolated Chicano student clouded the