After taking the short test on pages 38-40, please take a moment to think about your responses, and, perhaps more importantly, those items to which you are completely alien. Please post a response of a reflection on what this implies about our disconnect from our own students.
3 comments:
I grew up here in the Northeast (and still live here-5 minutes away from THMS) and have many friends who went to Terrace Hills and now their children also attend our school. Many Northeasterns are military and mobile. Many are lower to middle class relying on those monthly paychecks. Many of the parents are in school. Many of the parents don't have degrees or have diplomas or GEDs. Some parents have vocational training, while others have college degrees. Some families are renters while others have nice homes. We have a wide range of cultural diversity. The thing I would really like to understand about the socioeconomic dynamics of our students is where on the spectrum they actually lie. Do I have students living in abject poverty? I mean, I understand we are a Title I school, but in our immediate neighborhood, it really isn't "the hood." There are low income apartments, as well as, traditional apartments. There are nice little houses that when I checked price range of sales, are valued from approximately $85,000 to $115,000. We get city utilities, not like when I taught in Clint where many of the kids lived in colonias with no running water or electricity. I am not trying to sound callous, because I do understand that many of our students parents are living check to check, making just enough to get by from month to month. I also know that many of our students receive lots of government aid including free and reduced lunch. I also understand that many of our student’s home situations are a disaster. But in the socioeconomic spectrum, are they in abject poverty? And if so, how in this area of town (not to sound like a snob)and why?
I agree with rb's questions, 'tho I don't have the answers. We really do need an analysis of the community that reveals the diversity and complexity. Also, I think there are some factors that are not included in the resources identified at the beginning of the book. For example, where does education come in? And, what about cultural changes generated by two parents working (and/or going to school, etc.) and not having time to do the things parents used to do. Not just helping with homework and making sure that kids could take advantage of academic opportunities, but also teaching basic courtesies, and even table manners!
Dory stated: "Also, I think there are some factors that are not included in the resources identified at the beginning of the book. For example, where does education come in? And, what about cultural changes generated by two parents working (and/or going to school, etc.) and not having time to do the things parents used to do. Not just helping with homework and making sure that kids could take advantage of academic opportunities, but also teaching basic courtesies, and even table manners!"
This is very much part of teaching humanity and breaking cycles. We need to change paradigms. An example of this is one of my closest friends. Her family is from Juarez and immigrated here when she was in grade school. They got a rental off of Norton and her parents did menial labor. No one spoke English, yet her parents instilled in her and her sisters the importance of education. The two oldest girls (there was a seven year spread between oldest and youngest) had to work to help keep the roof over their head. They were also expected to go to school and learn English. What their parents did do is emphasize that they wanted the girls to become educated to have a better life. Her parents were functionally illiterate in Spanish yet they made sure the girls could read in both Spanish and English by just emphasizing the importance of education. These parents never used any of the issues of their life as an excuse. Needless to say the all three girls graduated from Irvin with a high school diploma. The two oldest girls went on to university and are both teachers, one in Canutillo and one in EPISD. The youngest, who the girls helped raise worked retail a while before getting an associates degree as a court transcriber. I believe this is because it was never acceptable to feel sorry for their situation. Instead, the emphasis was placed on improving quality of life. Their situation reminded me of the play, "Pygmalion" where Professor Higgins boasts that if one were to improve their language skills they would have better lives, but as the play progresses it is not just language, but as Dory stated, it is dress, manners, ect. That is the change in climate or paradigm that needs to happen on a school campus to model to our students. They need to see that there is a much larger world out there. They need to see that they have the opportunity to become a positive contributing member of that world and that their situation is something they actually have control over, moreso than they know, but they have to be willing to do the work. Otherwise we as a community just feed the cycle of socioeconomic failure.
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