Slip through the cracks

[lblanco]

How do I translate the idiom "slip through the cracks" in the following phrase?



"We need to make sure our 6th grade students receive the guidance they need so they don’t slip through the cracks when they get to 7th grade."

Thank you

[poli]

I think pasar por alto is a close translation.

[Luna Azul]

Originally Posted by lblanco

How do I translate the idiom "slip through the cracks" in the following phrase?

"We need to make sure our 6th grade students receive the guidance they need so they don’t slip through the cracks when they get to 7th grade."

Thank you

I'd say "para que no se les escape nada..."

[aleCcowaN]

Aren't teachers risking to "lose" students? (figuratively, because they are no longer able to follow the classes). If that's the case, I suggest:

"Necesitamos asegurarnos de que los alumnos de sexto grado reciben la orientación que necesitan de manera de no perderlos por el camino cuando lleguen a séptimo."

More context may be necessary.

[poli]

Slip through the cracks means slip through the cracks of the system.
It's a failure no of the student but of the education beaurocracy.

[aleCcowaN]

But "pasar por alto" may be a deliberate action on part of the agent, or at least a failure to detect or correct something that the agent is obligated to do, so somebody teaching in 7th grade is not doing what is expected, and that has presumably nothing to do with guidance given or not in 6th grade. If the system is which "pasa por alto" then no action is undertaken during 6th nor 7th grade.

Context continue to be necessary because, which is the guidance needed in 6th grade and who give that? And if not given, how exactly the students will slip through the cracks?

"Perder estudiantes por el camino", is a figurative way to say that there are students that stop making progress because they lack an ability needed to build upon, like a course of bricks that being faulty it makes all the courses above to fall apart. That makes sense to me, but I have invented a context because I lack one, so we are "como cuando vinimos de España".

[poli]

The failure of the educational beaurocracy in which some students may slip through the cracks is sometimes intentional and other times not. You can watch someone fall and not do anything about it, or you can be so busy doing other things that you don't see the person fall. In the teaching environment metaphorically the same things happen.

[Elaina]

Creo que en sí no tiene una traducción.... pero se puede decir que "tememos que se nos escurran por las rendijas al llegar al 7to grado"...

Mis

[aleCcowaN]

I repeat: Can someone describe clearly and thoroughly an instance of a student "slipping through the cracks" making clear the position of that student at the beginning of the process and how he or she stands in relation to the educational process once the student has "slipped"? Literal translations are sort of Spanglish.

There are many ways to describe in Spanish any kind of process where something falls in the shadows and continue unnoticed or it vanishes without anybody missing that. By using trial and error we're not getting the answer to post #1, what is pretty disturbing as this very thread stands second in Google when "slip through the cracks" and Spanish are used. "Pasar inadvertido", "explotar los defectos del sistema" or "perder (a alguien) por el camino", can be some of many possible translation to the general expression "slip through the cracks".

[Elaina]

Okay.......Let's pretend Johnny is in 6th grade. He skips school once in a while and sometimes even smells of alcohol. The teacher knows that Johnny is hanging with the wrong crowd, and she also knows that Johnny's home situation is not good. His parents recently separated and Johnny is living with a father that doesn't care about Johnny. BUT the teacher turns a BLIND EYE to the situation and thinks that by putting Johnny in detention, she is doing all she can for Johnny.

NOT!!!

By not intervening with the appropriate agencies or social networks, she is letting Johnny "slip through the cracks"..... he will eventually stop going to school and he will become someone else's problem, probably the legal systems'. Johnny was not given the support and the tools to deal with his home situation which is pushing him to be with the wrong crowd where he is accepted.

The teacher should do an intervention and start with available resources in the school system. What can we do Johnny? Let's do everything we can to help Johnny.




I don't know if this helps you understand "falling through the cracks" more easily.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Elaina

I don't know if this helps you understand "falling through the cracks" more easily.

Yes, it helps a lot! So far it is a little bit what I suspected as it all depends on what the system is supposed to do. Here we'd say "salirse..." or "caerse del sistema", it's like the system is a conveyor belt and something on it falls out, nobody notices it and everybody step on it until it's pure waste.

[Elaina]

That is sooooo true and realistic! I must say, you have a way with words!