So I'm up in the woodbury outlets getting it done. $200 dollars of willams sonoma, perry ellis, northface, and timberland are already in my friends trunk and I'm heading to Geoffrey Beene to finish off the coup d'etat. I had already bought a reasonably cheap pair of dress pants, but then I found one of the coupon books they give to tourists. So I went back to the cashier so she can reapply the savings from this coupon, which don't really amount to more than the nickels and dimes laying around my apartment. The cashier totally knows the drill, a return and an immediate repurchase. Since she knows this will take a while and its pretty simple, no folding, de-sensor-izing, or bagging, she starts chatting it up with her co-workers. I jump in and the co workers do something and now we're talking. And then one of those moments I live for comes up.
Her: I guess I'd only go to the manhattan campus if I lived in the city. Do you live in the city?
Me: Yeah
Her: Where
Me: The Bronx...I mean North Harlem, near the Bronx, like 145th st. I work in the Bronx.
Her: What do you do there?
Me: How is the teaching there?
At this point I am glad and am looking forward to an opportunity to explain to this person what it is like to teach in the city. I could explain all of the good things that are going on in our school this year. But this would require on her part some knowledge of why these things are good and not just normal. In these moments, where I have a chance to talk about what I do and where it fits into the larger picture that is America, I try my best to gauge where the person is and then explain why what they think about schools is wrong because the problem is more systemic than you think, and I finish by explaining how despite our systemically entrenched problems our school and my students are tangible having success. If there's time I'll try to project what effect that success will have on our students our school and our society. I want to get good at this because I have to do it alot.
Today I didn't hit it. It seemed like she was a little bit off when she responded to my "the teaching's pretty good." She was telling me that her sister taught special ed in a way that made it sound these kids were less than human. I can't type her subtext but it was disturbing, it made me think, correctly, that if she couldn't grasp that some people are born physically differently than others she probably wouldn't be able to wrap her brain around the situation faring people born with socialogical, cultural, and economic differences. I talked about how elementary school is really hard to do for anyone, and that I teach High School. I was about to go into a little about Special Education, and how hard it is, maybe about how little attention we get from the city and state to take care of our Special Ed population. It didn't seem like I had the time to get into a lengthy discussion about about schools and urban education, as she was already deep into the "repurchase" phase. Then she casually mentioned something that I wish I had known right off the bat.
Her: Yeah, My cousin teaches in Newarka, the kids there are bad. And they say that she can't fail kids or else they lose their job.
Me: Well yeah the No Child Left Behind legislation, the one that the congress has to vote on pretty soon causes schools to do that. They put such horrible consequences on schools that they don't get a chance to really do a good job with any kids.
Her: Yeah, she says that maybe next year she will get to fail 3 kids, this year its only 1. Its like they're just pushing them out the system
Me: I'm surprised they don't have to take a graduation exam to graduate, they must be expecting these kids just to fail. If they actually wanted to give the students of Newark an Education they would have them there til they are 20, which is the age of some New York students.
Her: Yeah and she says one student got really mad at her and went behind her to punch her. I be Teachers get punched and hit and robbed all the time in those schools, the kids there are pretty dangerous.
Wow, how did we get here. I was just trying to be polite and listen and now as receipts are being stapled she lets me know that she thinks that the students are the problem. I would have liked to have said I got somewhere, but right from the start of this last exchange it seemed like she was in "horror story" mode. Where I am supposed to underscore her current misconceptions with horror stories of my own that sort of line up with hers. "Oh yeah, a teacher almost got punched the other day for breaking up a fight, and another teacher got $1000 stolen from her this past friday" But stories like these aren't going to help her to think about the school any better, or urban schools any better. It is going to underscore the same mentality that lets the powers that be get away with basically ignoring urban schools altogether. So I had to try to tie off this interchange and let her know that she should at least examine what she thinks about urban schools, to see that there is no open and shut case against the kids that go there. I didn't have time to get into kids, to explain how students do those pretend to hit people all the time when their mad for example, but instead I jumped write over that into the systemic stuff. I was saying how for years these areas have been ignored and marginalized, it is almost automatic that they are going to have trouble passing because that is what is expected of them. She replied "the parents probably can't find a really good jobs either."
And then I more or less got up and left. What I should have done is stopped and said, hey this is important. What the parents are is a product of these same schools. Those jobs they work have employees because of these same schools, is there little doubt that their children will hold the same jobs after attending these same schools? Since that probably is the case except for a small precentage, the schools then are basically set up to produce lower class citizens. These kids that act up when they don't like school are smart, they know enough that they won't get anywhere through schools unless they are extremely academically gifted, but they don't know what else they can do with their school careers. The other kids who don't act out are instead placing their trust in a system that, more than likely, will put them out onto the streets a year or more behind the rest of the country. It seems unpatriotic that these students sit and quietly put themselves in the lower rung of society, settling only to get by and not to try for the best, the opposite of the American Dream. These kids that act bad, that cut class, that join gangs, that punch teachers are often ones that realize they can do more, realize that they will not get the chance to, and decide to take some action and protest because of this. These students and their spirit should be cherished and it is a moment of shame for our country when we miss the opportunities to engage these students another one of these students never takes advantage of their education. But instead I said 'nice talking to you' and headed toward the door with my savings of 2.10
6 comments:
so should every kid go to college? or should we be designing some schools as trade schools rather than traditional math/science/english?
are you searching for a way to harness the power of the "lower class" / "underprivileged" (euphemisms for poor)... do you think all kids can be directed to constructive activity?
what do you think of the notion that for all intents and purposes, the primary purpose of schools (including colleges) is to maintain order until people mature past their violent / rebellious / hormones raging stages?
In england and most of europe you take a test at age 10 or 12. The results of the test told people whether they were capable of college, vocational school, or just getting a diploma and getting spit out of school at age 16. If you did good on the test you got a free education, regardless of where you lived. If you did bad on the test, you could study hard in vocational school and still be eligible for free college regardless of where you lived. No matter who you were you could recieve a high class education if you were capable of it. Likewise, if you didn't want to go to school, you're done at 16 and can go get a job, but still, if you realized that school would help you out you could still go back to school up until age 23, for free. The result is that people recieve education based on their merits, so it is more of a meritocracy.
Does it help America to have a bunch of stupid poor people hanging around? Is it good plan to fill our jails with more prisoners than any country on earth? Of course these kids can be directed to some constructive activity. Perhaps not while in dilapidated facilities, run by ineffective beauracracies, but the possibility is there. The preponderance of the idea that it is impossible, that "lower class" "underprivileged" and "poor" schools can't do anything. If the schools could construct activities that engages the poor kids then they would do it. Instead we give them test practice booklets, and they go the bloods, crips and latin kings for their constructive activities.
I agree, the main purpose of compulsory high school is to keep kids off the streets. Kids know this, and in some cases decide to come anyways. Once here they not only are allowed to exist in a society away from regular society, but they also undergo a socialization process that prepares them for the real world. They learn how to produce work for a superior, about discplinary codes and in some cases judicial hearings, and more. Some kids decide they don't want to be a part of this order. Often these are kids who feel separate from the rest of the society as it is. Marginalized kids, like poor kids, who already aren't part of mainstream society, don't see people like them hosting tv shows or holding political office, and who make a conscious decision not be a part of the socialization process that is school. They are against order, and actively want to create disorder when around the dominant culture. Since the primary goal of schools is to maintain this order, we have a lot of problems in area that serve a population like mine, mostly poor, and black and latino. If we changed the primary goal to something that these kids did believe in, maybe we wouldn't.
so what do these kids believe in
ah, the all-too-familiar urban teacher blog post. the only line that didn't show up: "those kids are so lucky to have you."
thank you for writing about it so eloquently.
First I would come out and say their heritage, their block, and their family. But I don't know if I can say much on these matters. All to often the overeducated outsider comes into the urban environment and throws policy around like a proselytizing priest throwing bibles around to indigenous peoples some where in hopes of civilizing them and ending their backward ways. The savior mentatlity that describes the bad taste left in your mouth after 'freedom writers'.
I can say whats been successful to grab kids.
Where there has been success is where you just tell kids the truth, 'you are behind, you need to work double to catch up, you have to stay at school for long hours and on saturdays doing extra work' and weed out the ones who aren't serious. Schools like this are as mechanical as a factory, burn out teachers with long hours, and prepare their graduates for futures at prestigious private schools. They are amazingly successful because they can weed people out.
There is also the option of mobilizing the community, the parents, etc. Getting them to see what they are missing and demand what they need. The example of this is in chicago. http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/7851/1/289/
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