It is evident racism continues to be an issue not only in our schools, but throughout daily encounters in society. Although I have personally overcome many obstacles that poverty stricken children face, I have also confronted racism while teaching on a Native American reservation. Nonetheless, those experiences provided me with a deep understanding of others needs and an immense desire to help those who are potentially at risk. Fortunately, I have a very diverse family with interracial marriages, providing me the awareness and the understanding of Native American and African American cultures. In my opinion, building a trusting, caring, and positive relationship with all students is the number one factor to ensuring students success!
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According to Payne’s description of the educational challenges that face African Americans and children living in poverty is a bleak position to support. As educators, we are obligated to provide our students a quality education, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or any other demographic feature. Recently, when considering our school data collected from local and state assessments, the subgroup of English Learners achieved the greatest gains in reading. I believe the data is a testament to our school staff and our commitment to ensure the students’ academic needs are afforded. This is not to say, we have resolved all issues and challenges affecting African American students. In my opinion, too often, nonwhite children are referred to remedial reading and special programs because of the language, not necessarily due to their abilities. Unfortunately, special programs typically implement scripted programs and doesn’t focus on critical thinking. As suggested by Delpit (2006), academically, students need more than the “basic skill”, they need critical thinking activities, connecting background knowledge, a sense of belonging to the community, and understanding, honoring, and respecting the African American students’ culture.
In conclusion, parents of African American children want their children to be successful without a doubt in my mind. My experiences and interactions with parents communicated a pronounced interest in their children’s learning, making it evident Ruby Payne’s framework of poverty is not accurate. Personally, I appreciate the opportunities to work with African American children and families. The students and parents are respectful and appreciate the important work we do
There are many open wounds in the African-American community that have not healed what so ever. Disintegration of family structures in the African-American community has been a persistent problem for far too long. High out of wedlock birth rates, absent fathers, and the lack of a family support network for many young African-Americans have led to serious problems in America's urban areas. The persistence of serious social problems in inner-city areas has led to a tragic perpetuation of racial prejudice as well. African Americans still face a litany of problems in the 21st century today.
The video “Tale of Two Schools: Race and Education on Long Island” presents David and Owen, two African-American students with similar backgrounds and grades who attend two different high schools in separate districts that have drastically different access to resources, community support, income, etc. Wyandanch Memorial High School is located in a poor district, while South Side High School is located in Rockville Center which is a more affluent and diverse district. The effects of the districts having varying levels of access to quality resources and diversity is exemplified throughout the video with regards to the way the students interact with each other, their grades, and their careers after high school. The lack of resources of Wyandanch
Even though these successful schools produce great students many children, majority African American and Hispanic, are being left behind. In Maya Angelou’s
10). In chapter six of The Skin That We Speak, Asa Hilliard explains why it is hard to separate the historically oppressed status of African American children and the educational assessments used to measure their language abilities. Hillard also explains how teaching and learning are a direct link between shared language between teacher and student and the environment they are in. Hilliard also acknowledges that “African American children are not achieving at optimal levels in the schools of the nation” (Delpit, L., & Dowdy, K., 2002, p.91).
The educational system in America contains numerous racial disparities that affects the very core of the children who is suppose to benefit from education. This disparity comes in many forms in primary schools, a teacher’s attitude being one of them (Epps, 1995). A teacher’s attitude in a classroom consisting of a racially diverse children is a large contributing factor to the academic success of their students, more specifically, the minority African American students. It is a given that all schools should employ qualified teacher who are passionate about their students and the quality of education they provide to these students. Unfortunately, that is not the case for many urban schools that house a large proportion of African American students
Ideally schools would provide equal education and opportunities for all children, but in reality racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of discrimination still exist, albeit more hidden, in our schools today. Rather than stressing academic enrichment, the elementary schools that Chicanas/os attend to focus on academic remediation and a deceleration of the curriculum. The primary curriculum itself generally excludes or minimizes Chicana/o experiences, while also reinforcing
Although both cultures hold high aspirations for their children, they adopt very different approaches to parent involvement. “African-American parents believed strongly in home and school-based involvement and attempted to intervene inside their children 's schools. While social class within the African-American community seemed to influence this pattern, African Americans were far more likely to seek school-based involvement” (Diamond, Wang, & Gomez, 2006) Every culture develops set patterns of child rearing practices and that what is perceived to be good parenting in one culture may be regarded as maladaptive in another culture. In both the Haitian culture as well as the African American culture this was not the case.
In the United States’ current political climate, “racism” is a term thrown around so often that it almost begins to lose its original definition. The same can be said when discussing and analyzing the success rate of minority students in higher education. People are inclined to jump to the conclusion that a faculty member or institution is inherently racist instead of looking at all of the factors involved in a student’s success. The three main factors that I will be covering over the course of this essay are school tuition rates, Affirmative Action policies, and how schools handle discipline. While there are cases of inarguable racism within higher education, an in-depth analysis of the factors stated above will prove that “racism” is not
Asian students perform as well as white students in reading and better than white students in math. Reformers ignore these gains and castigate the public schools for the persistence of the gap. Closing the racial achievement gap has been a major goal of education policy makers for at least the past decade. There has been some progress, but it has been slow and uneven. It isn’t surprising that it’s hard to narrow or close the gap if all groups are improving.
Most of the children in Little’s AP class has a dark background. For example, coming from a childhood full violence or sexual abuse. But even that kind of obstacle shouldn’t stop you from succeeding in getting an education. Through the book, “And Still We Rise: The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Gifted Inner-City Students” Corwin has showed the audience that no matter where you are or where you are from, you can always succeed in
or she saw with one or two low-income student. As a future counselor, a statement in such matter showed that this person should not be a teacher. That teacher prefers to not integrate his or her school. Looking at this article through a counselor lens, I believe it is our duties to advocate for all students no matter their SES or ethnic background. There is clearly more work in advocating for students in working class school, but there are students that still needs our help in the upper class school.
Few or little African American studies in this school have taken place over the public education systems that the parents and different systems of the black society have taken note of this. Educator Larniece Spencer stated, “I have notice the lack of the African American studies in my first
Martha Peraza SOC 3340 Inequality in Education California State University, Bakersfield Abstract In the United States, there exists a gap in equality for different demographics of students. The factors contributing to educational disadvantages include socioeconomic struggles, gender of students, language or culture, and particularly for the scope of this paper, race.
Vonnie McLoyd discusses in the book Child Development that black families are more likely to face poverty in America and the effects that poverty has on those children. McLoyd states that children that have faced poverty in their lives can have “impaired socioemotional functioning” (McLoyd 311). As a result from job loss creating parental stress, parents often become
Racism: Why It Should Be Taught To Children Racism has, and always has had, a great effect on American society. Still to this day, even after the civil war over slavery in the 19th century and the anti-segregation movements of the 20th century, countless peoples still face ridicule over the color of their skin or the shape of their face. If it were to be taught in schools that judging someone based on their appearance is bad, then perhaps there wouldn’t be such an integration of racism in modern American society. Not simply learning ‘don’t be a racist’ in a high school social studies course while half asleep or thinking of what’s for lunch, but the concept of just how much it can affect someone’s life in such a negative way should be taught to children throughout their whole school careers. Without outwardly influence, children are proven to be unbiased.