The New Mexico high desert is known for its beauty.
The area enjoys sunny skies, and even snow in winter.One thing missing has been
teachers.
The Aztec Municipal School District serves about 3,000 students in northwestern New
Mexico. But, for nearly eight years, the school district had trouble finding
full-time teachers for its special education students. It instead used
temporary or substitute teachers to work with children who have physical
disabilities or difficulty learning.
Tania Prokop is Aztec’s Deputy Superintendent. She tells VOA Americans were not interested in the
full-time positions.
Aztec is not alone. New Mexico State University reported that the state
had 740 unfilled teaching positions in public schools.
A study from the Learning Policy
Institute estimates that nationwide, public school districts currently have a
shortage of 112,000 teachers.
This year, through a program that brings foreigners to teach in U.S.
schools, Aztec has eight full-time, special education teachers. All of them are
Filipinos with J1 visas from the U.S. State Department. They teach some of the
children who attend the district’s six schools.
Aztec’s Filipino teachers are trained specialists in
their areas of expertise. They come to teach for three years, and the visa can
be extended for up to five years. The J1 visa, however, does not lead to a
green card, or permanent residency in the United States.
Prokop gives high marks to the Filipino
teachers, saying it has been “a wonderful experience.”
Not all of it has been easy.
Different cultures
Both the Filipino teachers and the
American students have to get used to the differences in their cultures. Prokop
says managing the classroom is “one of the biggest things” the teachers have had
to learn.
Learning in the classroom is not just limited to reading books and doing
homework.
Prokop said that many of the students
have never traveled far from home.
“So to have somebody come from a whole different country across an ocean
and share those experiences and share pictures and share stories and share food
and we're coming up to some holidays. So they'll be sharing some different
experiences with holidays.”
Treated like family
Prokop said the community welcomed the
eight Filipino teachers and helped them settle into their new homes.
Riva Alipin is one of the eight. She teaches mathematics — integrated
Algebra — at Aztec High School with another teacher.
“Working in America is a dream of every Filipino teacher,” she told VOA.
She said she believes America provides an “excellent” chance for them to
improve their teaching.
Coming here to teach in America, she said, she needed
"a lot of guts.” In other words, one must be brave. Alipin also said it
was “risky” because New Mexico is so far away from her homeland.
Worried about discrimination
She also was concerned about
discrimination.“There has been news in my country that Filipino teachers have
been taken for granted, not by the school admin (leaders) but by the students,” she said.
“The students have bullied teachers for being a non-native English speaker.
Filipinos are discriminated because of our accent” — meaning, the way they
talk. But she said that, “my experience in Aztec High school proves it wrong.”
She says the students are kind and respectful.
How the U.S. is different
Some things the Filipino teachers will
need to get used to? The food and weather. Americans eat different foods. In
addition, New Mexico has very different weather from the Philippines. The eight
teachers are excited about winter, since it will be their first snow.
Alipin found her job through a business
called Bepauche International LLC.
Cheryl Marie Maghinay is co-owner of the company. She left the
Philippines and moved to the United States over 10 years ago to accept a job as
a teacher. In 2016, she launched her company to help other Filipino teachers
find work. This year she helped place teachers in schools across the country,
from Florida to Montana and Colorado.
Bepauche is based in Farmington, New Mexico, where
Maghinay was a high school teacher. She told VOA almost 1,000 teachers a year
contact the company. Of that number, 100 to 200 find jobs in U.S. schools.
Maghinay works with the teachers before they start in their new
positions. She said it is not easy for them when they first arrive.
But she adds that the foreign teacher program increases understanding
between people from different countries.
“I see the benefits and I see the beauty
in diversity. You know, different people come together and learn together.
Different practices and also knowledge about each other's culture. It's really,
it's really nice.”
More than
3,000 teachers given visas
The U.S. State Department says 3,252
foreign teachers were given exchange visas in 2018. The countries sending the
most teachers were the Philippines, Spain, Jamaica, China and France. The top
five states with the most foreign teachers were North and South Carolina, New
Mexico, Texas and California.
In Illinois, 138 teachers from Spain
work in public schools under the visitor exchange program. The state has been taking
part in the program for 22 years.
The Illinois State Board of Education
(ISBE) told VOA it plans to hire an International Teacher Recruitment Specialist “who will be responsible
for establishing relationships with other countries.”
In an email to VOA, Jackie Matthews, an official with the ISBE, said the
goal is to employ teachers who speak English and can “teach in areas of need.”
But, she called it a “short-term solution while ISBE continues to support ‘grow
our own’ teacher programs.”
What is causing the shortage of teachers?
Matthews said Americans give different
reasons, including pay, pensions and working conditions. The ISBE says another problem is that
educators are not always being prepared to teach subjects where there is the
highest demand in U.S. schools. Illinois’ biggest shortages are in bilingual and special education.
Anne Ball wrote this
story, with information from the Associated Press. The editor was George Grow.
What do you think of this story? Write to me in the comments section
below.
Words in This Story
district – n. an
area or section of a country, city, or town: such as an area established by a
government for official government business
superintendent – n. a person who directs or manages a place,
department, organization
residency – n. the
state or fact of living in a place
manage – v. to
have control of (something, such as a business, department, sports team)
take for granted – v. to fail to properly notice or appreciate
(someone or something that is helpful or important to you)
bully – v. to
frighten, hurt, or threaten (a smaller or weaker person) : to act like a bully
toward (someone)
hire– v. to
give work or a job to (someone) in exchange for wages or a salary
pension – n. an
amount of money that a company or the government pays to a person who is old or
sick and no longer works
bilingual – adj. able
to speak and understand two languages
Since ancient times, owls have been
called many things, such as mysterious. These birds can be found in many parts
of the world. And today, one kind of owl is causing a problem in forests of the
northwestern United States. Barred owls are a large species native to eastern
North America, but they began moving west at the start of the 20th century. By
1973, large numbers of barred owls had arrived in the western state of
Washington. Later they moved south into Oregon and California.
In parts of the Pacific Northwest, the owls are now
believed to be causing a drop in the population of a smaller, less aggressive
bird: the northern spotted owl.
In many ways, the barred owl is the spotted owl’s worst enemy. The
barred owl has more babies per year and eats the same animals, like squirrels
and wood rats. And their numbers are now larger in many parts of the spotted
owl’s traditional territory.
David Wiens is a biologist with the U.S.
Geological Survey, a federal agency that studies the Earth and its natural
resources. He and other officials are doing something unusual to protect
spotted owls: killing barred owls.
It is a controversial,
experimental program. More than 2,400 barred owls have already been shot.
Wiens is the son of a well-known bird expert and grew
up with a fascination for birds. He has mixed
feelings about the program.
“It’s a little distasteful, I think, to go out killing
owls to save another owl species,” he says. But he adds, “We knew that barred
owls were outcompeting spotted owls and their numbers were growing too
fast."
To catch barred owls, officials put
digital bird callers on the ground. Then they step back and wait as several
sounds from the devices fill the air. All of this happens in the dark of night.
Barred owls dislike other birds in their territory, so
they will fly down and chase other owls out. That is when Wiens and his team
try to shoot them.
The federal government has been trying
for years to save the northern spotted owl. Some years ago, this bird was at
the center of a huge battle over logging rights
across Washington, Oregon and California.
In 1990, the northern spotted owl was listed as
threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
Then, officials suspended logging on millions of hectares of forests to protect
the bird. But the spotted owl population continued to fall.
During that time, researchers began to study another
threat: Larger, more aggressive barred owls were competing with spotted owls
for food and space and pushing them out of some areas.
Now comes this final effort to see whether the
government can save spotted owls.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
launched the experiment a few years ago. It has raised questions, such as: How
much is it possible to reverse a drop in
population that has been happening for years, caused in part by human activity?
And, as climate change continues to push species out and affect how and where
plants and animals live, how much should people get involved?
Just
as with other conservation measures that involve
killing one animal to save another, the program has also led to legal questions
and debate. Still the Fish and Wildlife Service has a permit to kill up to
3,600 owls and, if the program works, could decide to expand its efforts.
In four small study areas in Washington, Oregon and
California, Wiens and his team have been killing barred owls to see whether the
native birds return to their land once their competitors are gone. Small
efforts to remove barred owls in northern California and Canada’s British
Columbia have shown promising results.
Wiens now sees his gun as a research tool. He said
that, by getting involved, humans “may be able to achieve more biodiversity in
the environment, rather than just having barred owls take over and wipe
out all the prey species.”
But not everyone agrees.
Marc Bekoff is a professor of ecology and
biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He strongly opposes the
experiment and says humans should find another way to help owls. Bekoff notes
that there is no way to see it as a good thing “if you’re killing one species
to save another.”
Michael Harris directs the wildlife law program for
Friends of Animals, a nonprofit group. He thinks the government should direct
its attention on what humans are doing to the environment and protect habitats
rather than blaming barred owls.
Some Americans see a responsibility to get involved.
They note that humans are to blame for activities like logging, which helped
lead to the drop in spotted owl numbers. But other people just see a losing
situation.
“A decision not to kill the barred owl
is a decision to let the spotted owl go extinct,” said Bob Sallinger. He is
conservation director with the nonprofit Audubon Society in Portland, Oregon.
If reducing the barred owl population improves the
number of spotted owls, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife may consider killing more
barred owls as part of a longer-term effort. Enough success has been noted that
the experiment already has been extended to August of 2021.
I’m Dorothy Gundy. And I’m Bryan Lynn.
Words in
This Article
controversial – adj. relating to or causing
much discussion, disagreement or argument
fascination – n. the act of being very
interested in something or someone
logging – n. to cut down trees in an
area for wood
reverse– v. to move backward;
to make something the opposite of what it was
conservation – n. the protection of animals,
plants and natural resources
wipe
out – v. to kill or destroy someone
or something completely
ecology – n. the field of biology that deals with the
relationship of organisms to one another to their environment
Task 1. Listen to the record of the
article.
Task 2. Write out the new words paying attention to the pronunciation.
Task 3. Fulfill the Quiz - Should People Kill One Animal to Save Another?
Task 4. Write 5 questions to discuss the article.
Task 5. Write a rendering of the article.
Note - to fulfill these tasks go through this link⤵
I have always been convinced that if a woman once made
up her mind to marry a man nothing but instant flight could save him. I have
only once known a man who in such circumstancesmanaged to extricate himself.
His name was Robert Charing. He was no longer young when he fell in love with
Ruth Barlow and he had sufficient experience to make him careful; but Ruth
Barlow had a gift (but should I call it a quality?) that renders most men
defenceless, and it was this that dispossessed Roger of his common sense, his
prudence and his worldly wisdom. He went down like a row of ninepins. This was
the gift of pathos. Mrs. Barlow, for she was twice widow, had splendid dark
eyes and they were the most moving I ever saw; they seemed to be ever on the
point of filling with tears; they suggested that the world was too much for
her, and you felt that, poor dear, her sufferings had been more than anyone
should be asked to bear. If, like Roger Charing, you were a strong, hefty
fellow with plenty of money, it was almost inevitable that you should say to
yourself: I must stand between the hazards of life and this helpless little
thing, or, how wonderful it would be to take the sadness out of big and lovely
eyes! I gathered from Roger that everyone had treated Mrs. Barlow very badly.
She was apparently one of those unfortunate persons with whom nothing by any
chance goes right. If she married a husband he beat her; if she employed a broker
he cheated her; if she engaged a cook she drank.
When Roger told me that at last he persuaded to marry
him, I wished him joy.
“I hope you’ll be good friends,” he said. “She is a
little afraid of you, you know; she thinks you’re callous.”
“Upon my world I don’t know why she should think
that.”
“You do like her, don’t you?”
“Very much.”
I couldn’t say less. I knew she was stupid and I
thought she was scheming. My own belief was that she was as hard as nails.
Roger introduced her to his friends. He gave her
lovely jewels. He took her here, there, and everywhere. Their marriage was
announced for the immediate future. Roger was very happy. He was committing a
good action and at the same time doing something he had very much a mind to.
Then, on a sudden, he fell out of love. I do not know
why. It could hardly have been that he grew tired of her conversation, for she
had never had any conversation. Perhaps it was merely that this pathetic look
of hers ceased to wring his heart-strings. He became acutely conscious that
Ruth Barlow had made up her mind to marry him and he swore a solemn oath that
nothing would induce him to marry Ruth Barlow. But he was in a quandary. It is
always awkward for a man to jilt a woman. People are apt to think that he has
behaved badly.
Roger kept his own counsel. He gave neither by word
nor gesture an indication that his feelings towards Ruth Barlow had changed. He
sent her flowers; he was sympathetic and charming. They made up their minds
that they would be married as soon as they found a house that suited them. The
agents sent Roger orders to view and he took Ruth to see a number of houses.
They visited house after house. They went over them thoroughly, examining them
from the cellar in the basement to the attics under the roof. Sometimes they
were too large and sometimes they were too small, sometimes they were too
expensive and sometimes they wanted too many repairs; sometimes they were too
stuffy and sometimes they too airy, sometimes they were too dark and sometimes
too bleak. Roger always found a fault that made the house unsuitable. Of course
he was hard to please; he couldn’t bear to ask his dear Ruth to live in any but
the perfect house. They looked at hundreds of houses; they climbed thousands of
stairs; they inspected innumerable kitchens. Ruth was exhausted and more than
once lost her temper.
“Don’t say that,” he answered. “I beseech you to have
patience. I’ve just received some entirely new lists from agents I’ve only just
heard of. There must be at least sixty houses on them.”
They set out on the chase again. For two houses they
looked at houses. Ruth grew silent and scornful: her pathetic, beautiful eyes
acquired an expression that was almost sullen.
“Do you want to marry me or do you not?”
There was an unaccustomed hardness in her voice, but
it did not affect gentleness of his reply.
“Of course I do. We’ll be married the very moment we
find a house. By the way I’ve heard of something that might suit us.”
“I don’t feel well enough to look at any more houses
just yet.”
“Poor dear, I was afraid you were looking rather
tired.”
Ruth Barlow took to her bed. Every day Roger wrote and
told her that he had heard of another house for them to look at. A week passed
and then he received the following letter:
Roger,
I do not think you really love me. I have found
someone who is anxious to take care care of me and I’m going to be married to
him today.
Ruth.
He sent back his reply by special messenger:
Ruth,
Your news shatters me. I shall never get over the
blow, but of course your happiness must be first consideration. I sent you
herewith seven orders to view; they arrived by this morning’s post and I’m
quite sure you will find among them a house that will exactly suit you.
Roger.
Task 1.Read the text be ready to discuss it paying attention to the words in bold. Task 2. Write linguo-stylistic analysis of the text.
