Think before you speak. Don't say "That's So Gay."
I just saw this video on the Disney channel. I definitely thought it was worth sharing on my blog.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Providence School Board approves 5 school closures
Providence School Board approves 5 school closures: "The city will shut down five elementary schools to save money."
Click on the link to see the story of the school board voting to close 5 Providence schools despite strong opposition from the community and very little thorough data from the school department to show that any of this was thought out very well.
Click on the link to see the story of the school board voting to close 5 Providence schools despite strong opposition from the community and very little thorough data from the school department to show that any of this was thought out very well.
Wear Clean Draws
This is one of my favorite songs. It's written by the radical hip hop group, The Coup, and the lyricist Boots Riley. It deals with a lot of the issues we've been discussing in this class like gender equality, systems of power, and stereotypes.
I think that overall it's got a great message of empowerment for young girls written as an ode by Riley to his daughter.
It's got some bad language, but it's definitely not excessive. I hope it's appropriate, and I hope you like it.
I think that overall it's got a great message of empowerment for young girls written as an ode by Riley to his daughter.
It's got some bad language, but it's definitely not excessive. I hope it's appropriate, and I hope you like it.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Talking points on Shor's, "Empowering Education."
"All forms of education are political because they can enable or inhibit the questioning habits of students, thus developing or disabling their critical relation to knowledge, schooling, and society." (12-13)
I agree with this sentiment. I believe that many of our students' are silenced in our nation's schools. To me, it is really a disservice to students to "inhibit [their] questioning habits." The well-known bumper sticker reads; "Question Authority", but as John Cougar Mellencamp sang; "I fight authority, authority always wins." It seems to me that students do, indeed, learn pretty early on that you can't really fight authority. Those who do, as Shor puts it, "drop out or withdraw into passivity or silence in the classroom. Some become self-educated; some sabotage the curriculum by misbehaving." (14) In turn, these students get seen as problems in the classroom. They get blamed for not learning appropriately within the context of the way the educational system is set up. These become the lost children in our classrooms. Tragically, too often, we look at students who are not served by the education system as, to borrow a phrase from Johnathan Kozol, "Other People's Children."
"Moreover, testing policies are political choices, whether to use student-centered, multicultural, and portfolio assessments, or to use teacher-centered tests or standardized exams in which women and minorities have traditionally scored lower than men and whites." (15)
The policy of testing is obviously a very large issue in today's schools. The subject of standardized testing dominates much of the discussion surrounding public education today.
The story that Dr. Stevos published on her blog about Hope High School is a good example of how the results of standardized tests don't necessarily reflect what kind of learning is taking place. I was at many of the school board meetings where students, teachers, and parents made the convincing case that the system in place at Hope was working. The school may not have been perfect, but one got the strong sense that there was a community there that had embraced the block scheduling and the way it effected the interactions between teachers and students.
However, this is a case where the goals and concerns of the members of the school community itself were ignored. The tests said that the school was a failure, despite the fact that the members of the school community insisted that there was success happening. So, the changes that seemed to be working were dropped, saving the city some money, and using test scores as a justification. It is now likely that Hope High School, instead of continuing to grow on the successes that it had established, will continue to sink into a state of further despair. Hope High School "fought authority, and authority won."
"Education is experienced by students as something done to them, not something they do." (20)
This quote nicely encapsulates the theme of the sense of disengagement that many students feel with the education system. We need to find ways to engage students in education from an early age, and to keep them engaged throughout their school careers. The motivation for learning should not be to get a high mark on a standardized test so your school won't be closed, but rather all children should be encouraged to become active, cognizant, citizens with the ability to learn, to question, and to think critically about issues that affect them.
Education is political. Unfortunately, I feel that to a large extent, education in our country still works towards maintaining a power structure that is inequitable for many of our students. Yes, many children come to school equipped to receive the knowledge that is given to them in our educational institutions. Many of those students succeed academically to the extent that the system expects them to. Afterall, we are all sitting in a college classroom, which to some degree means that we are academic success stories.
Personally, I don't believe that any children are unreachable. However, I believe that our educational system has yet to develop into one that works for all, or even a majority of, our country's students. For us to have an education system that accomplished the task of being able to effectively serve everyone, I feel that there needs to be more of a universal acknowledgment that there are systems of inequity in place in our society.
I agree with this sentiment. I believe that many of our students' are silenced in our nation's schools. To me, it is really a disservice to students to "inhibit [their] questioning habits." The well-known bumper sticker reads; "Question Authority", but as John Cougar Mellencamp sang; "I fight authority, authority always wins." It seems to me that students do, indeed, learn pretty early on that you can't really fight authority. Those who do, as Shor puts it, "drop out or withdraw into passivity or silence in the classroom. Some become self-educated; some sabotage the curriculum by misbehaving." (14) In turn, these students get seen as problems in the classroom. They get blamed for not learning appropriately within the context of the way the educational system is set up. These become the lost children in our classrooms. Tragically, too often, we look at students who are not served by the education system as, to borrow a phrase from Johnathan Kozol, "Other People's Children."
"Moreover, testing policies are political choices, whether to use student-centered, multicultural, and portfolio assessments, or to use teacher-centered tests or standardized exams in which women and minorities have traditionally scored lower than men and whites." (15)
The policy of testing is obviously a very large issue in today's schools. The subject of standardized testing dominates much of the discussion surrounding public education today.
The story that Dr. Stevos published on her blog about Hope High School is a good example of how the results of standardized tests don't necessarily reflect what kind of learning is taking place. I was at many of the school board meetings where students, teachers, and parents made the convincing case that the system in place at Hope was working. The school may not have been perfect, but one got the strong sense that there was a community there that had embraced the block scheduling and the way it effected the interactions between teachers and students.
However, this is a case where the goals and concerns of the members of the school community itself were ignored. The tests said that the school was a failure, despite the fact that the members of the school community insisted that there was success happening. So, the changes that seemed to be working were dropped, saving the city some money, and using test scores as a justification. It is now likely that Hope High School, instead of continuing to grow on the successes that it had established, will continue to sink into a state of further despair. Hope High School "fought authority, and authority won."
"Education is experienced by students as something done to them, not something they do." (20)
This quote nicely encapsulates the theme of the sense of disengagement that many students feel with the education system. We need to find ways to engage students in education from an early age, and to keep them engaged throughout their school careers. The motivation for learning should not be to get a high mark on a standardized test so your school won't be closed, but rather all children should be encouraged to become active, cognizant, citizens with the ability to learn, to question, and to think critically about issues that affect them.
Education is political. Unfortunately, I feel that to a large extent, education in our country still works towards maintaining a power structure that is inequitable for many of our students. Yes, many children come to school equipped to receive the knowledge that is given to them in our educational institutions. Many of those students succeed academically to the extent that the system expects them to. Afterall, we are all sitting in a college classroom, which to some degree means that we are academic success stories.
Personally, I don't believe that any children are unreachable. However, I believe that our educational system has yet to develop into one that works for all, or even a majority of, our country's students. For us to have an education system that accomplished the task of being able to effectively serve everyone, I feel that there needs to be more of a universal acknowledgment that there are systems of inequity in place in our society.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Talking Points on "Schooling Children with Down Syndrome," by Christopher Kliewer
"Humility, Friere (1993) agrees, is central to democracy. 'How can I dialogue,' Friere asks, 'if I always project ignorance onto others and never perceive my own? How can I dialogue if I regard myself as a case apart from others--mere 'its' in whom I cannot recognize other 'I's' (p. 71)' (73)."
I think this is an important question to ask for the "reflective practitioner." As teachers, sure, the traditional model of education suggests that we are the ones with the knowledge, but I believe we will be more effective teachers if we recognize that we can learn from students as well. It can be very valuable to think of the relationship between the teacher and the student as a dialogue rather than as a one-way information transfer.
This sort of dialogue is what the teacher's in these integrated classrooms described by Kliewer seemed to be understanding and engaging in. They did not see their Down syndrome students as "its" but rather as other "I's."
"Those students who exhibit the canonical mind are credited with understanding, even when real understanding is limited or absent; many people . . . can pass the test but fail other, perhaps more appropriate or probing measures of understanding. Less happily, many who are capable of exhibiting significant understanding appear deficient, simply because they cannot readily traffic in the commonly accepted coin of the educational realm. (Gardner, 1991, pp. 12-13) (80)."
Thomas Gardner's quotation given in this text is one of many examples by Kliewer that points towards how the movement to educate children with "intellectual disabilities" follows much in the same lines as similar movements about how to be effective in educating any children with some form of cultural disadvantage. The term "coin" is used where often one hears or reads this referred to as either Cultural "capital" or "currency." Of course, these all mean the same thing.
I find it interesting that the acquisition of cultural tools that allow for greater inclusion into the realm of knowledge and power is so often referred to in monetary terms. To extend the metaphor, money is really nothing more than a means for acquisition. It is not something that holds any inherent value on its own. Without the power to acquire goods or services, money is afterall nothing more than printed paper.
In the same way, cultural currency has no inherent value. However, within the larger context of society, this "coin" does allow children access to a system of personal power that traditionally has not been extended to everyone. Teachers like Shayne Robbins are trying to share the means of that access to those who have previously been denied it.
"Vygotsky found that the culture of segregation surrounding people with disabilities actually teaches underdevelopment of thinking through the isolation of children from socially valued opportunities (83)."
In reading this, I thought of the large mental health institutions which were the norm for people with severe learning disabilities up until the 1970s. I spent a couple of years working in a group home for developmentally delayed adults. Most of the people who lived in the home had grown up in such institutions. The conditions in these places were described as grim, prison-like, dehumanizing settings. I couldn't help but feel that the clients I was working for may have had much happier, fulfilled lives if they had not spent the better part of their childhoods in such an oppressive setting.
I enjoyed how this reading used a lot of the language and ideas that have been used to describe other marginalized groups and applied it to the discussion of children with developmental delays.
I was filled with admiration for teachers like Shayne Robbins. I feel that the work she does with the children she teaches represents a level kindness and understanding of social justice that is uncommon. It also seems that her talent for finding strengths where others are unable to constitutes a truly remarkable talent for teaching.
I think this is an important question to ask for the "reflective practitioner." As teachers, sure, the traditional model of education suggests that we are the ones with the knowledge, but I believe we will be more effective teachers if we recognize that we can learn from students as well. It can be very valuable to think of the relationship between the teacher and the student as a dialogue rather than as a one-way information transfer.
This sort of dialogue is what the teacher's in these integrated classrooms described by Kliewer seemed to be understanding and engaging in. They did not see their Down syndrome students as "its" but rather as other "I's."
"Those students who exhibit the canonical mind are credited with understanding, even when real understanding is limited or absent; many people . . . can pass the test but fail other, perhaps more appropriate or probing measures of understanding. Less happily, many who are capable of exhibiting significant understanding appear deficient, simply because they cannot readily traffic in the commonly accepted coin of the educational realm. (Gardner, 1991, pp. 12-13) (80)."
Thomas Gardner's quotation given in this text is one of many examples by Kliewer that points towards how the movement to educate children with "intellectual disabilities" follows much in the same lines as similar movements about how to be effective in educating any children with some form of cultural disadvantage. The term "coin" is used where often one hears or reads this referred to as either Cultural "capital" or "currency." Of course, these all mean the same thing.
I find it interesting that the acquisition of cultural tools that allow for greater inclusion into the realm of knowledge and power is so often referred to in monetary terms. To extend the metaphor, money is really nothing more than a means for acquisition. It is not something that holds any inherent value on its own. Without the power to acquire goods or services, money is afterall nothing more than printed paper.
In the same way, cultural currency has no inherent value. However, within the larger context of society, this "coin" does allow children access to a system of personal power that traditionally has not been extended to everyone. Teachers like Shayne Robbins are trying to share the means of that access to those who have previously been denied it.
"Vygotsky found that the culture of segregation surrounding people with disabilities actually teaches underdevelopment of thinking through the isolation of children from socially valued opportunities (83)."
In reading this, I thought of the large mental health institutions which were the norm for people with severe learning disabilities up until the 1970s. I spent a couple of years working in a group home for developmentally delayed adults. Most of the people who lived in the home had grown up in such institutions. The conditions in these places were described as grim, prison-like, dehumanizing settings. I couldn't help but feel that the clients I was working for may have had much happier, fulfilled lives if they had not spent the better part of their childhoods in such an oppressive setting.
I enjoyed how this reading used a lot of the language and ideas that have been used to describe other marginalized groups and applied it to the discussion of children with developmental delays.
I was filled with admiration for teachers like Shayne Robbins. I feel that the work she does with the children she teaches represents a level kindness and understanding of social justice that is uncommon. It also seems that her talent for finding strengths where others are unable to constitutes a truly remarkable talent for teaching.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
"Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work," by Jean Anyon
"Scholars in political economy and the sociology of knowledge have recently argued that public schools in complex industrial societies like our own make available different types of educational experience and curriculum knowledge to students in different social classes (1)."
I believe this to be true. It seems that in this day of standardized testing, many of the reasons for the disparities in test scores between the middle and upper classes and those from lower socioeconomic groups are due in large part to the different ways different students are taught. Simply put, those students from working and poor families are not expected to learn the cultural language of academia in the same way as those of their more affluent peers. Terry Meier would suggest that this is primarily due to a lack of understanding of cultural differences. This reading, however, seems to imply that the problem is deeper than that. Possibly, it is not not only that cultural differences effect how kids learn, but also that there exists a class system that is perpetuated due to what positions in society students are expected to fill based on their background.
I thought of how this applies to the movie we watched and the piece we read about "tracking." In this case tracking is not occurring within the individual school. Rather, it occurs in separate schools. Basically, the working class schools can be seen as remedial or vocational track, the middle class school can be seen as representing a middle level "college bound" curriculum, while the affluent professional school and the executive elite school would represent an advanced placement program.
"The first two schools I will call working class schools. Most of the parents have blue-collar jobs. Less than a third of the fathers are skilled, while the majority are in unskilled or semiskilled jobs. During the period of study (1978-1979) approximately 15 percent of the fathers were unemployed. The large majority (85 percent) of the families are white (2)."
This was an interesting description for me. If we agree with SCWAMP, Delpit, and Johnson that whiteness in itself is a significant cultural privilege, then I can only wonder what Anyon's study would have found if, for example, this study was done with the population of the DelSesto Middle School in Providence. A category would have to be added before working class entitled something along the lines of poor and non-white. Of course, this study is somewhat dated, and a study done today would probably find some differences in teaching methodologies within urban, poor, majority non-white settings like the ones that our service learning occurs in. A study of this nature would likely show discrepancies in how children are taught from school to school and even from classroom to classroom.
"In the two working-class schools, work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice (3)."
This description of teaching methodology made me think of Delpit's advice that children from certain cultural backgrounds learn better if they are taught "explicitly." Some might argue that this is simply what's going on in the classrooms mentioned in this study. The point might be made that this study was done in a time (the late '70s) when teachers and educators better understood how some children learn differently than others, and that those with less academic advantages entering school need more concrete, specific instruction to catch up with those who come to school with all the cultural trappings that make it easier to ensure academic success.
I would argue, however, that while this type of procedural instruction might make some more sense in the earlier grades like kindergarten and first grade, once children start to advance in grade levels, they need instruction that challenges their cognitive development more. I don't see being clear about the rules and challenging students to think more abstractly and analytically as being mutually exclusive in a classroom. I think the film on the integrated, non-tracked classrooms illustrated ways to accomplish this method of teaching quite effectively.
Overall, I enjoyed the essay, and like all of them, I found it thought provoking. I certainly didn't see it as a scientific study that really proved a case, however. Anyon, herself, admits that the data discussed only "offers tentative empirical support (1)." I also found it significant that this study is more than 30 years old. I would like to see more comprehensive studies like this done in today's classrooms. I do suspect that finding anything conclusive would be extremely difficult, as I would doubt that most classrooms fit as neatly into distinct categories as the ones described in Anyon's study. Having said all that, I still have little doubt, personally, that the way students are taught in our schools varies greatly according to a number of economic and cultural factors.
I believe this to be true. It seems that in this day of standardized testing, many of the reasons for the disparities in test scores between the middle and upper classes and those from lower socioeconomic groups are due in large part to the different ways different students are taught. Simply put, those students from working and poor families are not expected to learn the cultural language of academia in the same way as those of their more affluent peers. Terry Meier would suggest that this is primarily due to a lack of understanding of cultural differences. This reading, however, seems to imply that the problem is deeper than that. Possibly, it is not not only that cultural differences effect how kids learn, but also that there exists a class system that is perpetuated due to what positions in society students are expected to fill based on their background.
I thought of how this applies to the movie we watched and the piece we read about "tracking." In this case tracking is not occurring within the individual school. Rather, it occurs in separate schools. Basically, the working class schools can be seen as remedial or vocational track, the middle class school can be seen as representing a middle level "college bound" curriculum, while the affluent professional school and the executive elite school would represent an advanced placement program.
"The first two schools I will call working class schools. Most of the parents have blue-collar jobs. Less than a third of the fathers are skilled, while the majority are in unskilled or semiskilled jobs. During the period of study (1978-1979) approximately 15 percent of the fathers were unemployed. The large majority (85 percent) of the families are white (2)."
This was an interesting description for me. If we agree with SCWAMP, Delpit, and Johnson that whiteness in itself is a significant cultural privilege, then I can only wonder what Anyon's study would have found if, for example, this study was done with the population of the DelSesto Middle School in Providence. A category would have to be added before working class entitled something along the lines of poor and non-white. Of course, this study is somewhat dated, and a study done today would probably find some differences in teaching methodologies within urban, poor, majority non-white settings like the ones that our service learning occurs in. A study of this nature would likely show discrepancies in how children are taught from school to school and even from classroom to classroom.
"In the two working-class schools, work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice (3)."
This description of teaching methodology made me think of Delpit's advice that children from certain cultural backgrounds learn better if they are taught "explicitly." Some might argue that this is simply what's going on in the classrooms mentioned in this study. The point might be made that this study was done in a time (the late '70s) when teachers and educators better understood how some children learn differently than others, and that those with less academic advantages entering school need more concrete, specific instruction to catch up with those who come to school with all the cultural trappings that make it easier to ensure academic success.
I would argue, however, that while this type of procedural instruction might make some more sense in the earlier grades like kindergarten and first grade, once children start to advance in grade levels, they need instruction that challenges their cognitive development more. I don't see being clear about the rules and challenging students to think more abstractly and analytically as being mutually exclusive in a classroom. I think the film on the integrated, non-tracked classrooms illustrated ways to accomplish this method of teaching quite effectively.
Overall, I enjoyed the essay, and like all of them, I found it thought provoking. I certainly didn't see it as a scientific study that really proved a case, however. Anyon, herself, admits that the data discussed only "offers tentative empirical support (1)." I also found it significant that this study is more than 30 years old. I would like to see more comprehensive studies like this done in today's classrooms. I do suspect that finding anything conclusive would be extremely difficult, as I would doubt that most classrooms fit as neatly into distinct categories as the ones described in Anyon's study. Having said all that, I still have little doubt, personally, that the way students are taught in our schools varies greatly according to a number of economic and cultural factors.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Talking points on "Race, Class, and Gender" by Peter McLaren
"The development of an underclass in American society can be linked not only to economic stratification due to capitalist relations of exploitation but also to racial stratification."(226)
This point relates to much of what we have been discussing in this course. While research has discovered the economic status is the greatest determinant towards how a student will perform on things like standardized tests, I think it is clear and unfortunate that race and ethnicity are linked to economic status in our country. Of course, everyone has anecdotal evidence of someone from economically disadvantaged families who has succeeded in school despite the odds. These stories are great, but they do nothing to help the fact that there is a larger problem in our society.
What makes it worse is that many schools are still largely segregated despite the fact that racial segregation in our schools has been illegal for more than 50 years. The segregation that occurs today is based on economics. School systems like Barrington, for example, which is predominantly middle to upper class, are also predominantly white. Poor families, many whom are non-white, simply can not afford to live in these neighborhoods. This segregation is not mandated, but it is real.
Even in a city like Providence in which the majority of students are poor and non-white there exists subtle forms of segregation. In a city where approximately 85% of public school children qualify for some form of free or reduced lunch, there is an elementary school on the East Side where more than half the children come from families affluent enough to not qualify for any form of reduced lunch (the reduced lunch program being the only way that the state of RI makes economic distinctions for its students). Its no surprise that a majority of the students at that school are white, as well. Strangely, only about 10% of the students at that school live within the one mile radius which classifies students as neighborhood kids. The rest come from other areas around the city. This is disturbing. It points to the idea that this particular school is reserved, as it were, for middle class families who want to send their kids to public schools, but are reticent about city schools that largely fit into a lower socio-economic status. This middle class school also happens to have the highest test scores among Providence Elementary schools.
This is just one example, which is close to home, that points to some form of unofficial school segregation. When the mayor of Providence announces that he is closing four schools around the city where the combined population of those schools is over 90% qualifying for free or reduced lunch, there is an equity problem. Basically, over 2,000 poor kids are getting displaced from schools, and herded around to wherever they can fit to save the city money.
No child left behind? really?
"Resistance, then, is a process in which the working-class student further solidifies his or her position in the lowest tier of the class system, helping to confirm the view established by critical theorists that a nation's educational system is subservient to its economic system."(228)
Resistance seems somewhat inevitable considering example like the one above on how school systems and other institutions systematically devise subtle way to perpetuate the systems which keeps the power structures in place. This relates to Delpit's rule that those with the most power are least aware of its existence, and those with the least power are most aware of its existence. Groups that have been marginalized are surely keenly aware of injustice. School children in these situations may not be aware of many of the ways that these power inequities are preserved and maintained, but they know that something is amiss. Considering this, some form of resistance seems inevitable in many cases. If something is inherently unfair, it seems to me only natural to resist it and rebel against it.
"Their 'failure' in school cannot be interpreted as resulting simply from individual deficiencise; it must be understood as part of a play of diffences between radically disparate cultural fields."(229)
While I think that "disparate cultural fields" does play into difference in school performance for children from different backgrounds, I believe that a pervasive system of inequity is a bigger factor. If we did not have systems of segregation in place where those in the schools from families with less resources receive less support than those of their more affluent counterparts, then I think we would start to see an educational system in our country where everybody was achieving at similar levels regardless of cultural backgrounds.
This was an interesting reading which provoked a lot of thought for me. A lot of my thoughts are also being provoked by the current process of school closings and displacement of poor children which is currently going on in my city. I am interested in how the ideas we are learning in this class are relating to real world events which have a profound impact on not only those who live and have children attending schools in Providence, but also on anyone who is planning to be a teacher here in RI, and really anyone who is concerned about issues of justice and equality.
This point relates to much of what we have been discussing in this course. While research has discovered the economic status is the greatest determinant towards how a student will perform on things like standardized tests, I think it is clear and unfortunate that race and ethnicity are linked to economic status in our country. Of course, everyone has anecdotal evidence of someone from economically disadvantaged families who has succeeded in school despite the odds. These stories are great, but they do nothing to help the fact that there is a larger problem in our society.
What makes it worse is that many schools are still largely segregated despite the fact that racial segregation in our schools has been illegal for more than 50 years. The segregation that occurs today is based on economics. School systems like Barrington, for example, which is predominantly middle to upper class, are also predominantly white. Poor families, many whom are non-white, simply can not afford to live in these neighborhoods. This segregation is not mandated, but it is real.
Even in a city like Providence in which the majority of students are poor and non-white there exists subtle forms of segregation. In a city where approximately 85% of public school children qualify for some form of free or reduced lunch, there is an elementary school on the East Side where more than half the children come from families affluent enough to not qualify for any form of reduced lunch (the reduced lunch program being the only way that the state of RI makes economic distinctions for its students). Its no surprise that a majority of the students at that school are white, as well. Strangely, only about 10% of the students at that school live within the one mile radius which classifies students as neighborhood kids. The rest come from other areas around the city. This is disturbing. It points to the idea that this particular school is reserved, as it were, for middle class families who want to send their kids to public schools, but are reticent about city schools that largely fit into a lower socio-economic status. This middle class school also happens to have the highest test scores among Providence Elementary schools.
This is just one example, which is close to home, that points to some form of unofficial school segregation. When the mayor of Providence announces that he is closing four schools around the city where the combined population of those schools is over 90% qualifying for free or reduced lunch, there is an equity problem. Basically, over 2,000 poor kids are getting displaced from schools, and herded around to wherever they can fit to save the city money.
No child left behind? really?
"Resistance, then, is a process in which the working-class student further solidifies his or her position in the lowest tier of the class system, helping to confirm the view established by critical theorists that a nation's educational system is subservient to its economic system."(228)
Resistance seems somewhat inevitable considering example like the one above on how school systems and other institutions systematically devise subtle way to perpetuate the systems which keeps the power structures in place. This relates to Delpit's rule that those with the most power are least aware of its existence, and those with the least power are most aware of its existence. Groups that have been marginalized are surely keenly aware of injustice. School children in these situations may not be aware of many of the ways that these power inequities are preserved and maintained, but they know that something is amiss. Considering this, some form of resistance seems inevitable in many cases. If something is inherently unfair, it seems to me only natural to resist it and rebel against it.
"Their 'failure' in school cannot be interpreted as resulting simply from individual deficiencise; it must be understood as part of a play of diffences between radically disparate cultural fields."(229)
While I think that "disparate cultural fields" does play into difference in school performance for children from different backgrounds, I believe that a pervasive system of inequity is a bigger factor. If we did not have systems of segregation in place where those in the schools from families with less resources receive less support than those of their more affluent counterparts, then I think we would start to see an educational system in our country where everybody was achieving at similar levels regardless of cultural backgrounds.
This was an interesting reading which provoked a lot of thought for me. A lot of my thoughts are also being provoked by the current process of school closings and displacement of poor children which is currently going on in my city. I am interested in how the ideas we are learning in this class are relating to real world events which have a profound impact on not only those who live and have children attending schools in Providence, but also on anyone who is planning to be a teacher here in RI, and really anyone who is concerned about issues of justice and equality.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Talking points on "A Particularly Cheap White Wine" by Tim Wise
"Of course, on an even more basic level, to complain about so-called unfair preferences for students of color, be it in terms of scholarships or affirmative action policies in admissions, is to ignore the many ways in which the nation's educational system provides unfair advantages to whites, from beginning to end." (P. 2)
I think that white students do receive many "unearned advantages" throughout their school careers. This is particularly true for those white children who come from families who have the means and resources to ensure quality education for their children. The truth is that, as Wise points out, the majority of non-white students come from backgrounds with less money and less education than their white counterparts. I believe that this is a cycle that continues to get perpetuated. I believe that this cycle is deeply rooted in our country's racist history. The effects of this history continue to play a role in the lives of people of all races in our country. As Allan Johnson suggests, these issues need to be acknowledged rather than ignored if we ever truly want to achieve a society where equality exists for everyone.
"Since scholarships would have been more equitably distributed between the races in a system without a history of institutionalized discrimination--and to doubt this is to assume that folks of color still wouldn't have qualified for them, which means that one would have to believe in inherent inferiority on their part, which belief is the textbook definition of racism--to now steer scholarships to such persons is only to create a situation closer to that which would have existed anyway, but for a legacy of racial oppression." (P. 4)
This is an interesting quote. I believe that in 2010 one would be hard pressed to find someone north of the Mason-Dixon line and under 60 years of age who was willing to admit to the belief in the "textbook definition of racism." Unfortunately, I think that the belief that people of color are less than white people is still more of a prevalent attitude in our society than most would want to admit. By and large, I believe that white people still see themselves as the norm, while non-whites are seen to fall outside the norm. This, to me, is one of the most insidious aspects of modern racism. If no one is willing to acknowledge that it exists, how can it be overcome?
"Surely scholarships for people of color are not predicated on intolerance for whites, nor are they based on some kind of blind contempt for whites as a group." (P. 4)
If we agree with this quote, then clearly scholarships for people of color are not racist. They exist, rather, in an attempt to rectify some of the injustices done to people in this country based on racism. I firmly believe that affirmative action policies and scholarships for non-white students need to continue and be broadened in an effort to try to undo the damage that racism has done to our country.
I enjoyed this article, and found myself agreeing with the points made by Tim Wise. Equal opportunity for everyone should be an important goal for our country. I believe that in some ways we have been taking baby steps towards that goal over the course of the last century, but I do not think that we are yet close to achieving the goal.
I think that white students do receive many "unearned advantages" throughout their school careers. This is particularly true for those white children who come from families who have the means and resources to ensure quality education for their children. The truth is that, as Wise points out, the majority of non-white students come from backgrounds with less money and less education than their white counterparts. I believe that this is a cycle that continues to get perpetuated. I believe that this cycle is deeply rooted in our country's racist history. The effects of this history continue to play a role in the lives of people of all races in our country. As Allan Johnson suggests, these issues need to be acknowledged rather than ignored if we ever truly want to achieve a society where equality exists for everyone.
"Since scholarships would have been more equitably distributed between the races in a system without a history of institutionalized discrimination--and to doubt this is to assume that folks of color still wouldn't have qualified for them, which means that one would have to believe in inherent inferiority on their part, which belief is the textbook definition of racism--to now steer scholarships to such persons is only to create a situation closer to that which would have existed anyway, but for a legacy of racial oppression." (P. 4)
This is an interesting quote. I believe that in 2010 one would be hard pressed to find someone north of the Mason-Dixon line and under 60 years of age who was willing to admit to the belief in the "textbook definition of racism." Unfortunately, I think that the belief that people of color are less than white people is still more of a prevalent attitude in our society than most would want to admit. By and large, I believe that white people still see themselves as the norm, while non-whites are seen to fall outside the norm. This, to me, is one of the most insidious aspects of modern racism. If no one is willing to acknowledge that it exists, how can it be overcome?
"Surely scholarships for people of color are not predicated on intolerance for whites, nor are they based on some kind of blind contempt for whites as a group." (P. 4)
If we agree with this quote, then clearly scholarships for people of color are not racist. They exist, rather, in an attempt to rectify some of the injustices done to people in this country based on racism. I firmly believe that affirmative action policies and scholarships for non-white students need to continue and be broadened in an effort to try to undo the damage that racism has done to our country.
I enjoyed this article, and found myself agreeing with the points made by Tim Wise. Equal opportunity for everyone should be an important goal for our country. I believe that in some ways we have been taking baby steps towards that goal over the course of the last century, but I do not think that we are yet close to achieving the goal.
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