Class and culture seem to be the strongest forces that keep students from entering the secondary discourse of academia. Kosult, in her essay, proves that those students coming from blue-collar families do not have the cultural knowledge and opportunities that higher class students have had. This, in turn, keeps them out of the larger academic community because language, experience, and overall knowledge differs between these two groups. In the same respect, Deplit argues that minorities are often rejected from the academic community because it is “harder” (per say) to transition into the mainstream discourse. The overall problem of education seems to be that educators often do not understand that all students come from different places, have different backgrounds, and cultural values. These often play a role in how children learn and what they understand and are essentially overlooked by the curriculum in many schools.
When looking back on my own education, I realized that I never learned anything about minorities’ histories, cultures, or religions. I received little, if any, non western history education about the Middle East, Africa, Mexico, etc. This is an extreme flaw in the education system. In order to bring students of all cultures in, it is a necessity to have lesson plans that can be related to the students. In addition, I think it would be easier for white students to accept minority students into their mainstream discourse if they, too, had an understanding of where they are coming from. It is extremely problematic for students to not have an overall knowledge of the world when they enter college, especially because college is much more diverse than a lot of high schools.
One thing that somewhat bothered me about Deplit’s essay is that she seemed to blame the teachers for giving up on minority students. While I do agree that this occurs, I think that this must also be related to the idea of teacher burn out and them having a feeling of failure. My mom has been an MPS teacher for almost thirty years and I have watched her become extremely disappointed in her job. All she wanted to do was teach students music, something that she loved with all her heart. Instead, everyday seemed to be a challenge for her just to get her lessons taught to her students. They not only did not give her the respect she deserved, but they cared little about classroom rules and anything that was taught there. My mom always tried to teach music to her students that could be related to them, yet still accomplished little. I think this is why teachers give up on their students. Teacher, generally, are not racist people who feel that all of their minority students are meant to fail. In fact, I think that some teachers are more willing to work with students who more “at risk” than others. Teachers should not be the first blamed for students not entering the secondary discourse of academia. I think all factors need to be looked at including the school system, curriculum, and home life. Until all aspects are understood as to how they work together, schools will be unable to bring in all students, no matter what background they come from.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I completely agree about what you say about teaching all students the history of other cultures and races. It is much easier to understand a people if you understand where they come from and what they had to overcome in order to get to where they are. The problem, however, is that many schools that do include curriculum about other cultures leave out extremely valuable information. For example, we had a very "extensive" Native American course at my high school. We learned about their traditions and how they lived here in the US. However, when I got to my Native American history class here at UWM, I learned that many of the policies taught in history books shows more or less support for white society. There are millions of rules and legislation that was left out to make what we, as a society, did to the entire race at the time.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your statements about teachers. While teachers do have a lot of say in how people are pushed, there are many other factors as well. I do agree that teachers have a lot to do with what happens to a student, but I don’t think that it always has to do with a teacher simply “giving up”. A lot of the pushing has to be done through parents as well. Even Rodriguez, although he didn’t seem to see it, was being pushed by his parents. The difference is that he was being pushed by the idea that he knew that he never wanted to be like them because he was ashamed of them. I am sure that your mom isn’t a racist person who really does try hard to get her love for music across to the students, and it is extremely hard to do as a teacher when the students simply don’t care enough to want to learn. It has to be further enrooted than in the teachers.
That's really neat that your mom is a teacher for MPS. I think your example of her experience is a perfect fit to analyze the essays we've had to read for this unit. In one of the discussion postings, I asked what other ways it would be possible to to teach the kids who want to "not-learn". Delpit offers suggestions of giving the students role models who are of the same race as them, but I can't see that always guaranteeing that the students will suddenly want to learn. I can't think of any other ways a teacher could possibly influence their students if the students truly do not want to learn, and that I'm sure is extremely frustrating for teachers all over the world. I think some personality types just don't fit in the academic world as well as others, regardless of their background.
ReplyDelete