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The next day, Ms. Hill did not warmly greet me at the beginning of class. I raised my hand, and she called on me last. When I shared my perspective, she was noticeably silent. She had something positive to say about everyone else's comments but mine. Soon this treatment became the new norm. I stopped meeting with her during my lunch periods. As weeks passed, Ms. Hill never gave me praise, so I became silent again. This time my silence did not matter to my classmates or Ms. Hill. No one cared. I was invisible to them
It is interactions like these that occur with students and teachers that are very discouraging in a student's education. This student was more than happy to participate in class, but was excluded because of the teacher's different set of beliefs. This then led her to become a silent student that was no longer confortable in participated in class.
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Unfortunately too few schools prepare their students to understand and navigate the hidden curriculum. They rarely provide poor youth with the con-nections and resources to which wealthier students have access simply because they were born with money.
This is so big! How are students expected to "move up the ladder" at the same rate as the wealthier ones. It is still possible, but it is made 10X harder for these students, while the others often just get the handouts.
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Starting in kindergarten, schools rarely reward poor students for the quali-ties they bring to their schools: their perseverance, compassion, flexibility, patience, and creativity, just to name a few. Instead they are judged on quali-ties determined by dominant cultural norms: the attitudes, preferences, tastes, mannerisms, and abilities valued by a system that never was designed to meet their needs (Apple, 1982, 1990).
I can connect to this personally. Growing up I would make an effort into schoolwork, but I had experiences with teachers that made me feel less-than. When the whole class would be rewarded, I wasn't rewarded because "I didn't deserve it." Although schoolwork doesn't have to be rewarded, it is the exclusion that sticks with you. I can sit here and tell you that I was a good student, even though I wasn't the smartest. Students who would behave poorly and weren't doing the best academically would often still be rewarded.
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During office hours, however, students reveal to me that they grew up poor, and often they tell me that they are the first person from their family to go to college. They talk about the social distance they feel from their peers who have money.
I can totally relate to this! It may even be weird to connect the two, but I feel as though imposter syndrome should also be discussed. It is very easy to feel imposter syndrome when it comes to this. I feel like as I was growing up, I never felt like I an equal to most of the students in class/school. To this day, I continue to feel the same. Although I am a student at UCI and have put in the effort to be able to attend this university, I feel like a part of me feels as though it isn't real. One reason being that I never thought that I'd be able to attend college due to the how costly it can be. As well as the setbacks I had in my academics in school.
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y students rarely out themselves as being poor. You could not tell they struggle financially by the papers they turn in to me or by what they say when we discuss things in my sociology classes at the University of St. Thomas.
I feel like this is because people don't want to be seen as the "poor person" they wanna be seen like everybody else. I feel like that can go for a lot of things not just socio-economic status. In other words, people don't want to be defined by their circumstance(s).
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As we will show, these seemingly neutral aspects of the school structure chat coo often are taken for granted play a central role in reproduc-ing patterns of success and failure and, by extension, in reproducing inequality and privilege.
I Agree!! I can totally connect with this. I've written before that it was very difficult for me to do well in school due to the lack of "tools." For example, being a first-generation Mexican-American was for sure a big contributor to this. The lack of education my mom was able to get was another layer to that. I also didn't have anyone I could ask for help when it came to homework. My mother was always busy with work and even if she could help, she never had the time (which I always understood). Socio-economic status also stacks onto this one since I was not able to receive help/assistance from my mom, I was also unable to afford a tutor that COULD help me
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The juxtaposition of Cha1ntelle's and Jennifer's experiences reveals that student resources--cconomic, social, and cultural cap-ital-interact with the structure of the school to perpetuate dispar-ities in student outcomes and experiences.
Once again this supports that students do not perform poorly because of their race/ethnicity. This provided more support to the fact that equity is needed in the education system to be able to fill in some, if not all of the gaps.
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he Diversity Projccr's class of 2000 research team found that 83 percent of rhc ninth graders who were placed in Math A, the low~crack prealgebra class, were African American. In contrast,►87 Qercent of students from that same cohort of ninth graJers \yho were placed in Honors Geometry, the advanced-track math class,
Once again this is showing us that this is where a lot of misconceptions form! From this, the misconception can form that White people are smart and that African Americans are not. NOT TRUE!! This is showing us the gap between the advantages that are found in most of these families... leading to these placements.
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Moran, McCready, and Okahara (2000), in rheir paper on institu-tional reproduction. of racial in.equality at Berkeley High, state that these students "are able to 'hoard' the best teachers while the need-iest students end up with the teachers deemed least effective .... To underscore this point, there is currenrly an email tree among par-ents listing the preferred teachers and warning parents against other teachers, and this has obvious consequences tied to income and the 'digital divi<le,' which are both tied to race" ( p. 4
This is interesting! Another thing I wanna add to that is often times the teachers who are better equipped for the job often expect higher wages than the schools that are on the lower-income side can afford therefore leading them to employ less capable teachers.
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he tracking system is not designed to cheat some stu<lents anJ reward others. le has to be navigated, anJ srudcnts and their parents are the navigators.
Whether this is intentional or not, due to the lack of resources that lower-income students have, it is still very impactful towards them.
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Policies such as self-scheduling also do so by perpetuating the myth th.=it students choose their own path-ways through high school.
I am completely behind this!! Allowing a student the ooportunity to be able to make this choice provides them a sense of freedom and also allows them to take classes whiich they value and/or are interested in.
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Depression and other forms of psychological distress can profoundly affect parents' interactions wi
Humans--most for that matter-- are afraid of what they do not understand/know. Most if not all of my friends had parents that weren't well educated, much less on mental illness. In addition to the stigma that was included in most of their culture. Which leads for parents to "brush off" their child's needs/feelings.
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The study generated the often-cited finding that over a year's time, pro-fessional parents utter an average of eleven million words to their toddlers. The corresponding figures for working-class and welfare families were six and three million,
This really caught my attention! This is crucial in a child's language development! I have seen children that spend less time with their parents and are interacted with at a minimal level... even the iPad kids. I feel as though a lot of millennial parents hand over their phones or give their children an iPad in a way you'd give a baby a pacifier. I feel as though giving these children iPads, they aren't interacting enough with their surroundings which (I feel) could alter their interactions, possibly their education/learning.
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Alexander's family was able to spend far more money on Alexander's education, lessons, and other enrichment activities than Anthony's parents could devote to their son's needs. Both of Alexander's parents had professional degrees, so they knew all about what Alexander needed to do to prepare himself for college.
Here we see that Alexander is being provided with more than enough "tools" to succeed in his education, EVEN enrichment activities! I find it interesting that it is crucial to including the information of the parents' educational background. It is brought up that Alexander's parents knew what was needed in order to prepare him for college. I can connect to this in the way where I look at it from the other side. I was not at all prepared for anything college related due to there being no prior knowledge that was passed down from my mother.
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It shows that children from families in the top 20 percent of the income distribution already outscore children from the bottom 20 percent by 106 points in early literacy.
Once again, this is showing us that there is a complete disadvantage when it comes to being of lower-income. Without fail, this makes our education system more than clear...without the right tools, it is very easy to get left behind. How can we change that? Can we even change that successfully in the long run?
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As we saw in chapter 2, the income-based gap in college graduation rates is even larger and has grown sharply over the last three decades.
I find this interesting, you would assume that as time is going on, more and more change is being made, but this is not the case. Unfortunately, the differences in these students have drastic effects.
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It has been as a teacher in the classroom setting that I have witnessed the power of a transformative pedagogy rooted in a respect for multiculturalism. Working with a critica! pedagogy based on my understanding of Freire's teaching, I enter the classroom with the assumption that we must build "communi-ty" in order to create a climate of openness and intellectual rigor. Rather than focusing on issues of safety, I think that a feeling of community creates a sense that there is shared com-mitment and a common good that binds us
What I love about this passage is that, it humanizes the teachers at schools when they're all about getting to know their students and being able to build that "community." Not many teachers do this, but it is truly beneficial to the students, it can help students be eager to learn and ready to come to class. In addition to that, whenever there is confusion on any sort of material, it is easier to ask for help since the teachers have already gained the trust of their students.
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Often, students have corne to my office complaining about the Jack of inclusion in another professor' s class. For example, a course on social and political thought in the United States includes no work by women. When students complain to the teacher about this Jack of inclusion, they are told to make suggestions of material that can be used. This often places an unfair burden on a student. It also makes it seem that it is only important to address a bias if there is someone complaining.
This passage brings to light something is seen throughout our education system. I myself have also been subject to this. Especially when I was younger, the teachers would ask us the best ways we learned material, but most children that age usually are unsure of what is most beneficial to them. I even remember taking a survey to figure out what types of learners we were in order to include all of them in the curriculum.
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Agam and agam, 1t was nec-mc . . ¡· . 11 t remind everyone that no educatwn 1s po 1tica y neu-essary o . . 1 Emphasizing that a white male professor m an Enghsh tra. ,. ak d arttnent who teaches only work by "great white men IS m -ep . . ing a political decision, we had to work cons1stently agamst and through the overwhelming will on the part of folks to deny the politics of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and so forth that · form how and what we teach. We found again and again that :most everyone, especially the old guard, were more distur~ed by the overt recognition of the role our political perspectives play in shaping pedagogy than by their pa~sive acce~tance of ways of teaching and learning that reflect bmses, particularly a white supremacist standpoint.
This passage demonstrates how actions that may appear harmless can be negatively charged. This professor is only portraying what appears to be valuable; "white men." This brings me to a time in high school. My senior year I took an African American Lit class, but the person who was instructing the class was a white male with blue eyes. The teacher was well aware of his place and knew the confusion that would strike within students upon finding out that it was him that was teaching the class. Although, he had no ill-intent, since the teacher was white, I don't believe he truly could've fully understood the material to that extent... As in, he has never had to experience it.
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Despite the contemporary focus on multiculturalism in our society, particularly in education, there is not nearly enough practica! discussion of ways classroom settings can be trans-formed so that the learning experience is inclusive
Although there is inclusivity that is implemented to our education systems, it still manages to fall short. Inclusivity isn't just in reference to skin color, it can be to learning style, and many other things. For example, when learning math in elementary school, with a bit of explaining some kids could solve math problems left and right with just a piece of paper and pencil. For others, they may have needed a visual. For example, an easy way to provide a visual for these students is to give them a bunch of block that from there they can do simple math equations. Which also leads me to this; what happens to those schools that aren't funded well enough, how can they create accommodations for students that learn differently than the rest of the class? Or do they just get left behind?
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Her high school counselor never called her in for counseling, "noticed her potential," or placed her in contact with various colleges and admissions offices around the country. Those consultations hap-pened frequently for her White counterparts. She had no idea when applications were due, what they entailed, what fee waivers were, or when to take standard-ized tests. She dreamed of attending James Madison University. She ended up at Norfolk State University because it was the only college to accept her applica-tion late. She dropped out before the midpoint of her first semester.
This passage is frustrating. College applications are confusing as is, whether you are a first-gen college student or not. Now, imagine that you have no idea what any of the "lingo" is and what all of it means and does. It's like trying like being asked to navigate a large cluttered room blindfolded, it's nearly impossible.
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Take a shot. Go for it. Take a risk. Get the education. Borrow money if you have to from your parents. Start a business." Just like that. By the time students-especially poor students-enter high school, one of the most crucial forms of cultural capital they will need is the ability to pay for . a college education. On the basis of the lack of access to generational wealth, inexperienced parents who often have not attended college, and the pangs that stem from being a first-generation college goer, high school becomes a critical juncture at which students are either aware, prepared, and savvy about col-lege admissions or woefully behind in their ability to navigate the application process
Privileged students are often the ones who can only benefit from this mindset; Borrowing money from parents. What if there is no money to borrow? What do you do when your parents don't have savings for college? How does that mindset work then? It just doesn't. Like I've mentioned previously, I've been a part of low-income my entire life, when I was in high school, most if not all of my friends parents had money saved up for them. When I asked my mom if we had anything, the answer was as expected--we did not. I experienced this very thing, the urgency for money that I needed for college. In addition to that, I am a first generation college student, (at the time) I had no idea what FAFSA was or how it worked. So the second I could, I started working. I would go to work every day, after school and on weekends. I frantically worked so I would (hopefully) have enough money for college.
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Children of color, boys, and students from economically exploited backgrounds are consistently excluded and underrepresented in such programs (Callahan, 2005). Gifted programs are not the enemy, but the muddled definition of what constitutes "giftedness" is, and it overwhelmingly excludes poor and minority children.
In other words, this passage states that the programs themselves are not harmful, but the image it can portray. Look at it like this, imagine the elementary school you attend has a gifted program. Now if you see that the children that are a part of the program are often not minorities or are less fortunate, you would not tend to associate "giftedness" within those communities. This can create bias or stereotypes, negatively impacting those who are apart of these communities.
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This form of early tracking, or dividing children into labeled groups based on the teacher's designation of their skill level, seems innocent. What we know, however, based on mounds of research-most notably among them Rist's (1970/2000) study of same-raced children of various social classes-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 not only hampers students' self-esteem and cripples their own expectations of themselves but also, as Rist (1970/2000) discovered, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for what too often becomes a trajectory of underachievement.
This passage describes the negative effects of "tracking" and how it can appear totally harmless to group the kids that are at the same level of proficiency. Yet, it can have a negative impact. I can relate to this when I was in elementary school. For example, back then, there were a "select few" that would go to a separate teacher's class and these "select few" were students that were struggling with not necessarily academics, but in language, yet it wasn't ESL. When I first started going to this separate classroom, I didn't understand what the reason was initially, but later on I began to realize why and it did alter with my perspective of myself when it came to my academics.
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Their pay on full-time jobs continues to lag, with women earning a mere 81 cents to the dollar when compared to men with equal or fewer credentials (Mundy, 2012). I often share with students that my sister's employer worked her 39 hours per week for years to avoid providing health insurance. She had no access to pap smears, annual "well woman" breast exams, birth control, or a regular physician when she took ill. My mother recently ended a one-year stint at Walmart, where she was daily promised full-time employment. She is 63 years old, takes 11 prescrip-tion medications and suffers from a number of health conditions that require frequent doctor ;isits. She was consistently worked just shy of 40 hours-again, the employer avoiding having to provide full-time benefits. During her final week on the job, she worked 39.5 hours.
This passage emphasizes how common it is for people to be overworked (specifically women) right under 40 so employers are NOT obligated to provide for medical insurance. Unfortunately, I met a few people who are well in their 30's that experience the same thing. Although they're in good health, medical insurance is something they should have access to.
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Why are people poor? Most notably, why do the same groups of people te~d to endure poverty from generation to generation? And ultimately, why do chil-dren of the poor predictably perform poorly in public schools? As noted earlier, a historicized and contextualized view points to several factors, including the by-products of imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and racism. Bourdieu's cul-tural and social reproduction theories, alongside the Marxist "correspoocle~ce principle," just to name a few critical tools, help provide answers to our querie
Reading this reminds me that there are people out there that genuinely don't know why people are poor and why it is that they continue to live in poverty. As someone who has been low-income my entire life, it can be difficult to climb up the ladder financially. Often times, those less fortunate are living paycheck to paycheck and are subject to public schools that aren't well funded and/or don't have teachers with the same knowledge as those who are fortunate.
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Work or extracurriculars?
This image actually brings me to another thought of mine. In this diagram, it includes "Work or extracurriculars?" When thinking of success in school, there is also the possibility that students have another responsibility--a job. Although for some it can be more of a necessity than a choice, it can be easy to overwork yourself, especially when you're left with no choice but to work. Another small thing I wanted to add was that when applying for colleges, they may ask for your extracurriculars, and for those students who are at work all the time it can be difficult to also pick up an extracurricular on top of everything that they are already juggling.
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What scores of students-well-meaning educators, all-fail to realize is that public education does not serve its intended function as the great equal-izer. Quite contrarily, schools actually structure inequality (gasp!) in insidiously subtle ways.
I completely agree with this statement. Although the thought behind public education is good, it still doesn't get these less fortunate kids "out of the woods." For example, for me it was really difficult keeping up in school (elementary - high school) due to several different obstacles. One being that I couldn't get the help I needed in school because I could not afford a tutor. Another being that I could not ask anyone at home since they did not speak English. As well at the people at home never finished their education. Specifically, the highest grade my mom got up to was 6th grade. Those are just a few of the obstacles that were holding me back. Now, imagine a bunch of other struggles that other less fortunate children had...
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Whether inspired by Mann's plea to elevate the masses to higher moral and financial ground via schooling, or other notions of social justice, even now Europeans refer to publicly funded education as "the social elevator" (Lopez-Fogues, 2011). As Mann originally conceived the function of public education, there was overt recognition that something in society was amiss, and that "something" could be effectively redressed by offering public education to all-not just some. The same "something" that Mann was acutely aware of and deeply troubled by was and is the gross and growing disparities among the social classes. We continue to need methods for shrinking overwhelming and widen-ing class divides. Many of us choose to address the equity gap by struggling to supply universal access to high-quality, free, and appropriate public education. Nearly two centuries later, "the great equalizer" cannot equalize soon enough.
I feel like this couldn't have been said better. Equity is essential to "level the playing field." The way I think of it is you have two kids. One has a thick cotton blanket, the other doesn't. To make it fair, you give the other one a blanket, yet it's not the same. The other child receives a thin cotton blanket. Yes, they both now have blankets, but they aren't equally as effective.
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Public schools are essential to make the American dream work, but schools are also the arena in which many Americans first fail. Failure there almost cer-tainly guarantees failure from then on. In the dream, failure results from lack of individual merit and effort; in reality, failure in school too closely tracks structures of racial and class inequality.
There is a section of this statement that discusses "almost certain" failure when students do not succeed in school. Although I do believe I can understand where this comes from... since they aren't able to put their efforts into something that will only "benefit" them, why would they put any effort into better their lives. Yet, I know several people that weren't scholars in high school and are still successful. For example, a tattoo artist of mine did not graduate high school, but is a very talented and dedicated person and has made his career skyrocket. Although being a tattoo artist isn't the same ass being lawyer or a doctor, he still is successful and more than financially stable, and most importantly happy.
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Americans want neighborhood schools, decentralized decision making, and democratic control. They see these devices in part as ways to ensure that schools can accommodate distinctive community desires, and to give parents a greater say about what goes on in them. Despite the fact that participation in school elections is very low and information on which to base a vote is often scarce, Americans will not surrender local control without a fight. They simply will not permit distant politicians or experts in a centralized civil service to make educational decisions. The reasons for this preference are complicated, in-cluding the incredible diversity of the population and the huge size of the coun-try. Not least important, however, is the fact that local districts mirror and reinforce separation by class and race. Democratic control, therefore, not only provides support for public education but also creates a forum for the occa-sional exercise of bigotry and xenophobia; localism not only accommodates community idiosyncrasies but also serves as a barrier to changes in the distri-bution of students and resources
This statement discusses how the community's values are often portrayed in the schools as they are able to vote in school elections. It is then brought up that this can create "bigotry and zenophobia." Which I think raises a question for schools in general, not just the public ones. And that is; Should we embrace differences from other communities or should we keep it how it is? Now, this is where it gets complicated. Some may ask, why should people who are not a part of "said" community be able to make decisions on it. Another thing is, if this was possible, how effective would it be? Would we see a sharp positive reaction or would it eventually decline?
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Most importantly, life chances depend increasingly on attaining higher education, but class back-ground is as important as ever in determining who attends and finishes a four-year college.
This statement is leaning towards the idea that attaining a college education takes you in the right direction of success. Although that may be true, I have met too many people who have gotten their degrees, yet end up at a job that you often see high schoolers or college students at, in other words, a temporary job. Many people spent their time and money into getting a degree, yet didn't end up moving forward in their life. How is that? How can we change that? Is it up to the person or should there be more opportunities? I feel like the possibilities are endless when it comes to this. And for every person there are special circumstances, whether they could or couldn't have been prevented.
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The paradox stems from the fact that the success of one generation depends at least partly on the success of their parents or guardians. People who succeed get to keep the fruits of their labor and use them as they see fit; if they buy a home in a place where the schools are better, or use their superior resources to make the schools in their neighborhood better, their chil-dren will have a head start and other children will fall behind through no fault of their own.
This highlights how people are set up for success or failure at birth, in a more light-hearted way. It states that "the success of one generation depends at least partly on the success of their parents or guardians." In other words, one of the main ways you will succeed in life is if you're parents/guardians already are. And if i'm not mistaken, the "only way" to do that is almost like you're pre-destined for it. I find this both inaccurate and accurate. Yes, I do believe that those who have parents that are successful struggle less in more ways than one--not just in their education. Specifically, it is easier to fail when you do not have the right resources and/or support. This is not to say that all of those who are less fortunate fail--it just makes it 10X as difficult.
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Not all residents of the United States believe all of those things, of course, and some believe none of them. Nevertheless, this American dream is surpris-ingly close to what most Americans have believed through most of recent Amer-ican history.
I find this interesting. It makes me question those who believe none of the things listed above, not in validity, but in curiosity. So what is it that they believe in? If it is not education that helps us progress, then what does? I, myself do not believe in everything that is listed above. Not everyone has the "freedom and opportunity" to do and make whatever it is for their life. There are countless limitations that I can begin to list that can/may hold back many of us. Unfortunately, often times those who have more limitations are people of color, those who are a part of less fortunate communites, etc.
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