Wow! There were so many instances where I just could not follow the author as I read through chapters 1 and 2. There were some interesting ideas that the author touched on that I would like to respond to. What I did take from the article was Hick's frustration with the public school system. The frustration that the public school institution was not created for all students. Most educators all ready know that to be a fact and we are frustrated with that knowledge as well. The one thing that I never really considered is that poor White children are included with the minority children that get left behind. In my experience it’s just never brought up, not even once in the many disaggregated data meetings that I have to attend. Usually all we ever hear about is the huge achievement gaps in black males. When we look at test data the “Caucasian” category is not broken down in to rich Caucasian, middle-class Caucasian, and poor Caucasian. So what happens is that we assume that all White children are doing well in school, even though we know that this is not true. So what are we going to do about it?
I agree that the “larger educational and social constraints” need to be dealt with. The reality is that (most) teachers want to deal with them and are ready for change. The other reality is that we are not lawmakers/politicians, and although we would love to redefine traditional values and teaching practices our country’s “No Child Left Untested” motto leaves little room for a change upheaval. The way we are operating right now is “if you don’t get it, you lose out and you will be lost forever”. How fair is that? And like Hick's mentioned we do have progressive pedagogies like writer’s workshop (and also reading workshop) that allow more students to feel successful, but those pedagogies are far and few between. By no means am I saying let’s rid ourselves of accountability, but let’s find a better way to do it. If you talk to a teacher we already have great ideas on how to accomplish this, but hey, who asked us?
Just like with minority children, poor White children are being failed by our educational system. Good teachers know that,and do everything possible within the (little) freedom we have in our classrooms to produce fewer failures and more success stories. If every teacher just takes one disadvantaged child and makes him/her a success story, how long would it take before American schools became a learning environment for all students?
Cherrita Hayden-McMillan
Comments (1)
Cherrita,
Like you, when I taught in elementary school the Caucasian students were always grouped together. I feel that we are failing the group of poor Caucasians by putting them with the rest that are living in literacy rich environments. They face many of the same challenges as our other minority students but are somewhat left to fall between the cracks by being grouped with the majority. I do feel that now that I am in PreK we are working to help these students as well as other minority groups gain experiences that they may not otherwise have. However, I do not think that once the poor Caucasian children enter elementary school that they are regroup with the majority. It is almost expected that the one year in PreK closed the gap versus being a stepping stone.
Posted by Amy Spade | March 31, 2009 9:42 PM
Posted on March 31, 2009 21:42