I think that these free write assignments are very beneficial for both the students and the teacher. Allowing students to write about what they are passionate about or their own lives allows the teacher to get to know the student more and can help foster a stronger student-teacher relationship. Additionally, this exercise can allow students with poor support systems to have a chance to open up to someone and talk about the struggles they face in their daily lives. Overall, this assignment seems to offer many benefits in helping create a more bonded/ communal classroom environment.

It is really sad to see that no matter how hard someone works and how far they raise in socioeconomic status, they can never escape the effects of racism. People of color have to work harder to succeed despite racism, yet oftentimes I see people discounting their success online. An example of this is seeing people comment thing like "oh you only got in because of affirmative action" on a Black student's college acceptance posts.

I appreciate that the people conducting the experiment mentioned/ acknowledged that their presence in the home altered the behavior of the participants. I am taking a psychology course currently too and just recently learned about how strong the effects of reactivity can be in changing social behavior. Although families can get more comfortable with the fieldworkers in time, I question if they ever completely let their guard down during the time of observation.

I recently just watched a TV shows that portrayed this statement. In the show, a wealthy white family is depicted taking in a troubled young teenager from a poor neighborhood and provide him with more opportunities and activities. After moving in for a while, the teenager became much more well behaved and high achieving. I had always thought that the show was just glamourizing the lives of the rich and privileged but I wonder if their parenting styles truly set up their children to be more prosperous.

It is really sad to see that even teachers treat students different because of their family's financial difficulties. It is more understandable for little kids to make fun of others as they are not mature and do not realize the extent of their words. However, there is no excuse for a teacher to do the same thing as they are supposed to be educated adults who serve as a role models for the next generation.

I feel as though that statement of "anyone can succeed in the U.S." is oftentimes now used as a way to put people down. It reminds me of the model myth minority in many ways as it utilizes miraculous stories of people overcoming their poverty/ hardships against all odds, without considering individual situations. Statements such as these seem to blame victims for their situations and I have firsthand witnessed the privileged use statements such as these to argue that poor people are choosing to stay poor.

I found this statement to be quite surprising actually. My mother works as a property manager for 2 apartment buildings in a low income area and from what I have seen, the families there lack money but seem to be rich in culture/ community where every weekend the neighbors children would all hang out and parents would get together to BBQ and drink. I had generally had the impression that this is something that poorer families did and not wealthy families.

I do agree that Asian Americans possess a greater degree of racial privilege in comparison to other POC groups. However, I do not think that Asians have "the freedom of not having to think about one's racial background." For example, Asians are exposed to many racial taunts and jokes which can greatly affect one's mental health and perception of self worth. However, Asians also are generally free from police brutality in comparison to other POC groups. Therefore I think Asians have some privilege but are not free from the effects of the racial hierarchy either.

This is really sad to hear. When talking to my Asian American friends, I have discovered that the majority of us have have felt some type of internalized racism when growing up. Additionally, I remember seeing a statistic that showed Asian American women have the highest rate of facial plastic surgery, often times to attain more Eurocentric features. Luckily, as more and more Asian representation is present in media, it seems like Asian Americans are embracing their features more. I hope one day the desire for Eurocentric features will go away and people can be happy with their own racial features.

I still see quite a few racists posts mocking Asian Accents on social media. When I look through the comments of these posts, I oftentimes still see people defending these videos and saying it is joke and people getting offended are just sensitive. It is sad to see that after decades of fighting against racism, jokes like these still persist.

Growing up as an Asian American in a predominantly Asian community, I was luckily never subjected to any major racialized mistreatment by others. However, I could still feel/ see the pressure to conform to Western culture. A big example of this is seeing many Asian American students reject their cultural food and placing Western style food on a pedestal. Seeing as how strong the ideal of Western supremacy in an Asian American neighborhood was, I cannot imagine how difficult it was for Asian Americans growing up in predominantly White neighborhoods.

This is quite alarming as behavioral psychologists have found that people are likely to behave in similar fashions as the people that they are surrounded by. As both the students in Seguin and the parents of the students are not highly educated/studious, it is likely for students to feel very little drive and motivation to put effort into school as they likely have been socialized to place very little importance on schooling.

I thought this was very interesting point that I had never really thought about. It makes sense that children would respond more swimmingly to commands that are similar to commands given in their home life as that is what they are most used to. I wonder how this can be addressed in classrooms however as this seems to be more of a cultural disparity issue rather than a problem with the school curriculum.

It is really sad to see the blatant disproportionate treatment of Black students in comparison to their White counterparts. I had previously understood that there is racial bias in the educational system but did not understand how severe it is. It is really shocking how even if Black and White students are performing at the same level, White students are a lot more likely to be placed into a higher level course.

Growing up as an Asian American I can relate to this statement as well. For example, when I was a child and my parent's would pack me Asian food for lunch I would always be upset and request Western style food instead. Looking back I regret my actions a lot as I did not think about how it felt for my parents to see me complain about the food that they worked so hard to provide for me.

From my understanding, adolescence start to become more aware of their race as they start becoming more conscious of the different treatment they are receiving because of their race. When people are younger, they may also experience racial bias but they may be too immature to truly comprehend the gravity of the situation. I believe that exposure to racist treatment may lead them to prefer the company of people from their own race.

It is sad to see the negative effects that growing up in such an environment has on children. Growing in such a disadvantaged position is bound to cause many psychological problems, such as mistrust, to arise. I think it is important for schools in these areas to take this into account and try to find more ways to address these problems.

This reminded me of my own experience in high school. The high school I attended was also very academically rigorous and competitive and although this had some benefits such as motivating the student body to work harder, it came at the cost of many student's mental health. When I would talk to my friends about school, many of them would tell me the pressure to preform well was causing a lot of stress and anxiety.

As someone who grew up in a middle class community and attended a academically competitive high school, it is crazy to think that some people grow up witnessing things such as this. In my 4 years of high school, I have only seen 1 fight ever take place and it was quickly broken up. I wonder if the repeated exposure to violence in these impoverished communities causes the children in them to become apathetic towards violence.

I really appreciate the author mentioning this because I believe living in an environment with a strong emphasis on education plays a large factor in how successful a child is likely to be in school and it has not been mentioned much in the readings so far.

I think this is a very important point because it shows how difficult it is to break out the cycle of poverty. Children in schools who are at a disadvantage are unable to speak out about their needs as if they do speak out it is often interpreted as the child acting up.

It is scary to see how one small mistake made in freshman year can have such a profound impact on how someone's high school journey will play out. Personally speaking, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I first entered high school and was not really thinking about college yet as it seemed far away still. If it wasn't for my parents encouraging me to take more challenging classes I probably would be in a similar situation Chantelle. I think it is important for the education system to be more flexible and allow students to more easily rectify mistakes made when they are young and not yet sure what to do.

This reminded me of something that my mother told me about her childhood. My mother grew up in a poor and rural area in China and so growing up she faced immense pressure from her family to perform well in school. Although my mother knew that the constant pestering came from a good place as they simply wanted her to do well in school so she can rise of in socioeconomic status, it still lead to bitter feelings. This highlighted how living in poverty can affect relationships to me.

I found Harold's sister response very interesting and revealing. From her response we can see that Harold comes from a family that lacks what many in the middle class would consider common everyday items (such as new clothes) yet despite having less, Harold's sister is more giving and selfless then how I would imagine most middle class children would be. Harold's sister's mind immediately jumps to buying the rest of her family items and does not think about buying things for herself. This showcases that despite being from a lower socioeconomic status, Harold is surrounded by a loving family with strong familial values which contradicts stereotypes of low socioeconomic communities of color.

When the United States was first founded, the idea of the American Dream was very strong as that was what drew most of the immigrants that popularized the country. In modern times however it seems as though the idea of the American dream has faded both domestically and internationally which I find very interesting.