In other words, one problem created by poverty begets another, which in turn contributes to another, leading to a seemingly endless cascade of del-eterious consequences.
This is why getting out of poverty is hard. Poverty consists of so many different problems in life. Living in poverty influences a person’s both mental and physical health.
Some parents don't come to school because of a hectic work or personal schedule that leaves little room for even small changes in routine. Other students may have trouble getting school items signed by a parent or guardian who works long hours or on a night shift. The point is, it can be a mistake for a teacher to make assumptions about a student's circumstances or support system without knowing the situation.
Based on the situation illustrated here. I wonder how can we , as an educator, do to know more about a student’s family situation instead of asking them or their parents directly. I feel like you have to make a relation with the student first. But I don’t know what to do next.
The sisters draw a simple moral: You can't trust anyone, even your best friends.
This is also one significant difference between children who live in a safe community and those who don’t. Children, who live in a dangerous community for a long time, will spend more their energy to worry about their safety. If one’s energy is limited, children who lived in dangerous areas have to pay more energy on their surroundings instead of their studying, learning, and their personal development.
Kira independently describe their typical school day in virtually identical terms: arrival at school 7:00 a.m., classes and then sports or other extracurriculars until 4:00 or 5:00 p.m., followed by four to six hours of homework after dinner, which left only five to six hours
To be honest, the schedule is tighter than I expected. I went to a public high school in Bay Area. It was pretty chill. You usually went to school at 8 something, then left at 2 or 3 in afternoon. Some people might have extracurricular activities, but for those who didn’t have any activities, they were free to go home. It’s pretty much nothing for a day.
it didn't feel like that. It was mostly stress from academics. I guess at other schools if somebody called you a 'nerd,' it was an insult, but it just wasn't at Troy. You wanted to do better than ... I don't wane to say better than other people [laughs], but as well as
It is interesting to know if you were in a hard-studying environment, no body called you a ‘nerd’. To be honest, I love that! Every one just focus on their studies. There is not much competition from socio-economic status, clothing, and there is not much discrimination related to races, background, personal identity. It creates a more pure environment for children to grow.
Everybody is friends and everything, but some-times you can feel it. 1he only bad thing about chat is that it's almost like a double-edged sword that you have to be in the cop 10-12 per-cent. Getting Bs was considered failing
After knowing the situation of the gangs involved schools, competition in study doesn’t sound like a bad thing. At least, they can focus on studying instead of some social issues existed in society. Students are too young to face the gangs problem, their minds can still be easily influenced by their surroundings.
They were our role models and our mentors,
This reminds me of the last week’s reading about the importance of role model in children’s adolescence. Even though they grew up in poor, a good role model will lead their way and teach them how to confront challenge.
We witnessed the initiation of [would-be] gang members, where they get beat up badly by the gang members. The word is "courted." You get courted into the gang, and they time it for two to three minutes, and you're nor supposed to fight back. If you fall down, they'll hurt you more, so it shows that you're tough if you're up, bloodied and bruised, both girls and boys. Back then it was just fistfights and maybe bats from time to time. Nowadays to get initiated into these gangs, they shoot people in the community, even innocent bystand-ers.
I grew up in China, where is a free of gun place. And it is pretty safe that you feel safety to walk outside at night. There are always people even at midnight, especially in big city. Therefore, crime, gun, gangs activities are far away from me. It seems like from another world.
People here are friendly and trusting," Isabella will later tell us, "because it's a safe area
This quotation implies that a place that is safe will influence people’s mood in some extent. People live in a safe environment would more likely to show their friendly and kind to strangers.
Students at Santa Ana are four times more likely than students at Troy to drop out, roughly ten rimes more likely to be truant or suspended, and only one third as likely to take the SAT. If they do take the SAT, on average they score in the bottom quartile nationwide, whereas the average SAT taker at Troy scores in the top 10-15 percent.
It is surprising to see the gap exists so early and so large between two really close areas’ schools. Moreover, the gap will only become bigger and bigger after they get into college and go into society.
Troy offers a richer menu of extracurricular activities than Santa Ana, but, as we shall see, private fund-raising explains chat differ-ence, not unequal investment by the school districts.
This is how high income family provide for their children to take advantage of other children. Lots of extracurricular activities, high quality teachers, and rich resources provides a really fertile environment for children to grow.
The net result of these demographic transitions is that economic inequality within the Latino community in Orange County has grown significantly during the past four decades, just as it has within the black community in Atlanta.
During the past four decades, the economic inequality keeps increasing. Even though the poor work hard and save their money, the value of money on their hands is decreasing. The harder they work, but the value of their salary before ten years and after ten years are different. If they didn’t invest or had a big increase on their salary, then they actually were losing money.
Latinos in Orange County are more likely to live not only in poverty bur also amidst street violence and gang activity. Santa Ana alone is home co 29 street gangs.
Does poverty increase the chance to have violence? Or it just because the rich has the ability to pay the policemen to patrol their community.
Children are more successful in school when they are able to pay at-tention, when they get along with peers and teachers, and when they are not preoccupied or depressed because of troubles at home.
This also applies to students at different school level. Even in college, students who engaged more in school has more motivations to do well in school.
HE AMERICAN DREAM IS A POWERFUL CONCEPT. It encourages each person who lives in the United States to pursue success, and it cre-ates the framework within which everyone can do it. It holds each person responsible for achieving his or her own dreams, while generating shared values and behaviors needed to persuade Americans that they have a real chance to achieve them. It holds out a vision of both individual success and the col-lective good of all.
I am glad that it mentions the concepts of individualism and collectivism. For the American Dream, it links the individual success and the collective good together. But in the realm of education, we could see a lot of conflicts between individualism and collectivism. Moreover, while the America is promoting the American Dream, people from different races did not get an equal opportunity to access education in some ways.
For instance if a student does not attend a high-quality school in a wealthier, better-funded district, programs such as the International Baccalaureate (IB), advanced place-ment, and other college credit programs that often facilitate the matriculation of students into postsecondary settings are not likely to exist. Furthermore, if the school is located in an economically exploited area characterized by racial diversity, as is the case in the lowest-income wards in New Orleans and the most highly populated Latina and Latino schools in Houston, high schools may even have a more vocational, trade-based, law enforcement, or strictly military focus (Buras, Randels, ya Salaam, & Students at the Center, 2010). They are designed to steer poor students into trades, vocations, and jobs, not professions and high-paying careers. On purpose.
As we all know, the social resources are limited, especially for the poor. We can say most of them lost at the beginning of their life compared to the rich’s children. I felt so bad to know that “they (the poor) are designed to steer poor students into trades, vocations, and jobs, not professions and high-paying careers. On purpose.”
is that teacher and peer expectations for academic achievement (and their subsequent treatment of students) are based largely on low and negative perceptions of the poor, regardless of their actual ability. We know that disproportionate numbers of poor children are far more likely to be identified as less academically adept or even as having special needs. The early tracking and labeling of children reared in poverty is cumulative and devastating.
It totally impact children’s development from multiple aspects. How could a child grow well if the environment around them is unfriendly to them. They did not feel safe to express themselves.
Why are people poor? Because our historical and social structures mean them to be.
But why we need people to be poor? If everyone was richer, they were taxed more money and they were capable to spend more money so that our economic would be better. But the fact is 1% of the people in America have half of the country’s wealth.
are particularly concerned that even after all students h been offered "12 years of free schooling," they are unable to "lift themselv::~ out of poverty.
Why students cannot “lift themselves” out of poverty through 12 years of schooling? Is it because the purpose of school does not serve as a tool to help the poor to lift up?
In the transformed classroom there is often a much greater need to explain philosophy, strategy, intent than in the "norm" set-ting
In the transformed classroom, the teachers need to explain more to avoid misunderstanding because there are so many different cultures’ students. They want every students to take it in a right way.
." To teacb effectively a diverse student body, I bave to learn tbese codes. And so do students
How do you apply different “cultural codes” in one classroom setting? And why students need to adapt this code as well?
Students are much more willing to surrender their depen-dency on the banking system of education than are their teachers.
Why students are much more willingly to surrender their dependency on the banking system of education than are their teachers? Is it because if you put the issues on the system of education, it became a “big problem” that a student barely can change it?
They bave told me that many professors never showed any interest in hearing their voices.
School should be a place that regardless one’s background, race, and identity. People go there is for study. School should be inclusive so that everyone can share their thoughts. Therefore, we can improve and learn from each other. In a school, the priority is to learn.
The experience of professors who educate for critica! consciousness indicates that many students, especially students of color, may not feel atall "safe" in what appears to be a neutral setting. It is the absence of a feeling of safety that often pro-motes prolonged silence or lack of student engagement.
For people of color, classrooms are never a “safe” place because it is a white dominant space. They don’t know the cultural rubrics, language, and customs. They cannot understand the context. They cannot fully protect themselves if they said something wrong and they didn’t realize in that environment. It is reasonable to create a safe and open environment so that thoughts and ideas are sparking.