For those of you who are new around here, I teach middle school SIFE in Nashville, TN. The next obvious question whenever I tell someone that is:
What is SIFE?
SIFE stands for Students with Interrupted Formal Education. It means that my students are new to America, missed at least two years of school in their home country, speak no English and are illiterate in their first language.
Where do they come from?
This graphic is a few years old, and some of these countries are much more difficult to come to the US from now, but most of our students are still from Central America and Africa.
How long do they stay?
Our program is designed for students to stay about one calendar year (if they arrive in February, they stay until February), but these are the criteria for exiting the SIFE program:
From my classroom, they move into a level two or three ESL class and into grade level science, social studies, and math classes.
Catching these students up to grade level is a tall order, but this is my dream job and these are my dream students. We're still looking for a math teacher for this year if anyone's interested in joining the team! We start back in a few weeks and I can't wait to see what this year has in store.
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