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Some of these posts have been interesting and many are concerned (and correctly so) about the quality of teachers, regardless of where they got their certificate and training.
What is very telling, is that one of my earlier posts about the source of the 'testing gap' and achievement gap in our society, NO ONE has discussed it. Liberal politics, the Great Society, Welfare State on steroids, etc. have placed America's Black families in a terrible position. Throwing more money at it clearly has not worked.
Black Americans must address this and soon. How can America rise again if the majority of our lowest social tier of the population is happy to be subsidized, incarcerated, and accept low standards for their sub culture? We have a Black middle class...but it is not powerful enough to lift their brothers and sisters up if they don't want to.
Children born in single parent homes....with mutliple fathers who are not contributing to the childrens support and education, will always be at a disadvantage. Black men must MAN up and Dads and legal husbands...or we will see an ever greater gap in achievement. Teachers cannot be the only ones responsible for turning this around.
Educators, your thoughts? Or, are you like the people of the Harry Potter series and stay silent, daring not to speak his name, Lord Vorldamort?
Recently someone on my FB timeline said that they just sent in their application for Teach For America. I only knew a little bit about it so i started researching. I found out that teach for america teacher go through a 5 week intensive course and then they are placed into the lowest performing schools. My question is WHY am I going to school for 5 years at the least busting my butt to graduate with a teaching degree when I can have the coursework done in 5 weeks?
I personally find this ridiculous. I have had Teach for America Teachers and the three of them were awful. One teacher told us that "I only came into teaching because engineering was inconvenient and I wanted summers off" Now I am not saying that they are all incapable but I would like to see research not done by Teach for America on classroom performance. According to the website, 4000+ teachers have been placed- IMO we shouldn't be surprised at the fact that we fall academically behind when schools are filled with people whose educational/teaching education his all of 5 weeks.... I don't understand
TFA is just a program designed to pad the resumes of elite college graduates who plan to enter into other fields. And all on the public dime. It is ridiculous.
Some of these posts have been interesting and many are concerned (and correctly so) about the quality of teachers, regardless of where they got their certificate and training.
What is very telling, is that one of my earlier posts about the source of the 'testing gap' and achievement gap in our society, NO ONE has discussed it. Liberal politics, the Great Society, Welfare State on steroids, etc. have placed America's Black families in a terrible position. Throwing more money at it clearly has not worked.
Black Americans must address this and soon. How can America rise again if the majority of our lowest social tier of the population is happy to be subsidized, incarcerated, and accept low standards for their sub culture? We have a Black middle class...but it is not powerful enough to lift their brothers and sisters up if they don't want to.
Children born in single parent homes....with mutliple fathers who are not contributing to the childrens support and education, will always be at a disadvantage. Black men must MAN up and Dads and legal husbands...or we will see an ever greater gap in achievement. Teachers cannot be the only ones responsible for turning this around.
Educators, your thoughts? Or, are you like the people of the Harry Potter series and stay silent, daring not to speak his name, Lord Vorldamort?
This is wrong on so many levels and I don't have time to address all of your points. Our society is setup up to make it intentionally impossible for some if our citizens to get ahead.
Drug use and sales are equivalent across all ethnic groups, more accurately white people use and sell a little bit more. Yet arrests for drugs are 2x as common for blacks (and Latinos).
Kids misbehave at school in equal levels, but black kids, particularly the boys are 4x more likely to be suspended or expelled for discipline issues and school. A huge predictor of academic performance and engagement is the number of times someone has been suspended reduces academic performance and engagement.
Teachers systemically have lower expectations for black students and treat and teach them accordingly. I experienced this during parts of my academic career and I was nearly a straight a student, and graduated high school in the top 5. I had engaged parents who were also bold enough to call out inequalities and mistreatment in school. Many peers, who were equally "smart" and "qualified" didn't have parents willing / empowered to speak out.
Now let's pretend you are on the "bad" path and you are motivated to make a change....you can't actually ever get a job and have limited housing options, even if you are "rehabilitated." You are no longer allowed to be a functioning member of society who can provide for yourself or family because you can't even get a job.
In fact if you are black and male, white felons are more likely to get job interviews than you are.
I am so sick of this BS that people are so-called looking for handouts when society (via systemic racism) is stacked against you before you are old enough to realize it.
I was lucky, at an early age I got earmarked to be one of the "exceptions" and was able to finish my academic career with lots of opportunity and teacher support. I had many peers over the years who didn't get so lucky. A small number of people do get the "choice" to be successful, but for most the choice is made for them.
This probably isn't the venue to talk about class segregation, but for black people like me (who grew up middle class) our experiences are wildly different than this who grew up with less affluence. And in many cases we never cross paths with the "other black people." Our overwhelmingly classist society causes huge problems in education quality as well. Work in income inequality and economic opportunity, Nd we.ll start to see it trickle into the education system.
And yes, TFA is absolutely relevant to the fact that prospects for teachers are not as good as they used to be. Many a teacher cut their teeth for a year or two in a less than ideal district where it used to be easier to get a foot in the door and then moved to a better one as they gained experience. TFA has definitely impacted that.
This is so true, but it is one aspect that people don't look at. On the other hand, I was astounded by the number of student teachers I mentored the last couple of years who refused to even consider applying to the urban districts in the state, which were and are mostly still begging for teachers, while they were moaning to me about not being able to get a job. That state so far has not taken TFA teachers but one district is really campaigning for it because they say they can't get enough applicants.
This is wrong on so many levels and I don't have time to address all of your points. Our society is setup up to make it intentionally impossible for some if our citizens to get ahead.
Drug use and sales are equivalent across all ethnic groups, more accurately white people use and sell a little bit more. Yet arrests for drugs are 2x as common for blacks (and Latinos).
Kids misbehave at school in equal levels, but black kids, particularly the boys are 4x more likely to be suspended or expelled for discipline issues and school. A huge predictor of academic performance and engagement is the number of times someone has been suspended reduces academic performance and engagement.
Teachers systemically have lower expectations for black students and treat and teach them accordingly. I experienced this during parts of my academic career and I was nearly a straight a student, and graduated high school in the top 5. I had engaged parents who were also bold enough to call out inequalities and mistreatment in school. Many peers, who were equally "smart" and "qualified" didn't have parents willing / empowered to speak out.
Now let's pretend you are on the "bad" path and you are motivated to make a change....you can't actually ever get a job and have limited housing options, even if you are "rehabilitated." You are no longer allowed to be a functioning member of society who can provide for yourself or family because you can't even get a job.
In fact if you are black and male, white felons are more likely to get job interviews than you are.
I am so sick of this BS that people are so-called looking for handouts when society (via systemic racism) is stacked against you before you are old enough to realize it.
I was lucky, at an early age I got earmarked to be one of the "exceptions" and was able to finish my academic career with lots of opportunity and teacher support. I had many peers over the years who didn't get so lucky. A small number of people do get the "choice" to be successful, but for most the choice is made for them.
This probably isn't the venue to talk about class segregation, but for black people like me (who grew up middle class) our experiences are wildly different than this who grew up with less affluence. And in many cases we never cross paths with the "other black people." Our overwhelmingly classist society causes huge problems in education quality as well. Work in income inequality and economic opportunity, Nd we.ll start to see it trickle into the education system.
Minority student bashing is something of a pastime on here. It's important to remember that most of teaching workforce live lives far removed from the experiences of ethnic minorities so it's easy to blow over and ignore the issue of cultural collision in the classroom. One of the most common phrases you'll hear is " ______ culture doesn't care about education". Whenever I hear or see soft bigotry being projected onto students by peers, I just shake my head and go about my day. If I were to address it directly I would just get the "reverse racism" or "why does race matter anymore in 2014?" response. It used to dig into me a lot, but it's become a lot better since I know I can talk to other minority or culturally aware teachers.
Minority student bashing is something of a pastime on here. It's important to remember that most of teaching workforce live lives far removed from the experiences of ethnic minorities so it's easy to blow over and ignore the issue of cultural collision in the classroom. One of the most common phrases you'll hear is " ______ culture doesn't care about education". Whenever I hear or see soft bigotry being projected onto students by peers, I just shake my head and go about my day. If I were to address it directly I would just get the "reverse racism" or "why does race matter anymore in 2014?" response. It used to dig into me a lot, but it's become a lot better since I know I can talk to other minority or culturally aware teachers.
1. One of the most common phrases you'll hear is " ______ culture doesn't care about education". Whenever I hear or see soft bigotry being projected onto students by peers, I just shake my head and go about my day.
2. Kids misbehave at school in equal levels, but black kids, particularly the boys are 4x more likely to be suspended or expelled for discipline issues and school
1. So when Asians score so high on their tests and get good grades (on average) it does not mean that their culture values education more than others? What's a Tiger Mom?
2. Why are teachers so racist? And how did they become that way? Is it something in the way they were taught? Or are racist people more likely to become teachers?
1. So when Asians score so high on their tests and get good grades (on average) it does not mean that their culture values education more than others? What's a Tiger Mom?
1. Not all Asian cultures are the same.
2. It could mean they value education, AND they come from a place where the way they were taught to study and interact with authority growing up pays off in American schools. It also helps to have a receptive audience who is already inclined to think you are smart.
3. Building on #2, It is possible to value education AND come from a place where the skills you learn to simply survive are not the same skills that work in American classrooms. For instance, I had a very good friend from the hood who made her kids go to school every day and was on them about doing their homework. She also taught her kids to never take crap from enyone and stand up for themselves if they felt they were being disrespected. Why? Because that's how you survive where she's from, by being tough. Guess whose kids regularly got into arguments with teachers? She'd always take her children's side because she didn't trust the teachers.. and frankly, they saw her as a PITA and were not particularly nice to her when she went to the school either. I can see both sides, but it certainly wasn't an issue of her not caring about education.
I could give you plenty of examples of people not being particularly system savvy despite caring about their kids. Yes, you have some parents that think school is a waste of time run by people who don't give a crap about their kids (or think they are better than them or their kids). You also have some people who have no clue what it takes to succeed in school - they think just getting the kid there every day is all they are supposed to do - and people who have no idea how to navigate the system when they run into problems, or even have a school equipped to handle problems to begin with. These are separate issues from "not caring".
1. So when Asians score so high on their tests and get good grades (on average) it does not mean that their culture values education more than others? What's a Tiger Mom?
2. Why are teachers so racist? And how did they become that way? Is it something in the way they were taught? Or are racist people more likely to become teachers?
1) As someone stated, asian groups are not monolithic. More importantly, Asian groups, unlike natives, blacks, or latinos choose to come to the US. The government is very selective about who can get work vistas and they're given to immigrants who have high educational attainment or are on the path towards it. Peasants in Asian countries aren't even assessed on international test even though they may "value" education because their governments know they would bring the average down.
2) I don't think a lot of people are that way on purpose or do it to be malicious, but racism, like sexism is something that your acculturated into. We're bombarded with messages for example about black and latino male youth being wild and uncontrollable. When we speak out against those messages, we're told that it's just normal or "reality". We bring those stereotypes and biases into the classroom and treat those groups accordingly whether we intend to or not. I remember one teacher who calls her students "zoo animals who need be tamed" and wondered why they had no respect for her even though she wanted to show them the "proper" ways to act. I had zero respect for her myself and I can see why students rebel against a system that treats them and their families like they're dirt.
The second half of it, in my opinion, is lack of quality exposure to the groups we intend to serve prior to becoming teachers. Part of my problem with TFA stems from this reason since the candidates are most always white college students from established backgrounds who have probably never lived in a predominantly ethnic neighborhood. Then they go into majority minority schools with degrading and paternalistic notions of "saving" them.
Parents may not have the resources to send their children to daycare or know what is developmentally appropriate for a two year old and their childrens grades may reflect that compared to white or affluent parents, but that doesn't mean they (or X group) doesn't care about education. With the way some teachers treat(and stereotype) their students or parents, I understand why some don't even want to be in the same room as those teachers or respond back to their phone calls.
Going off that same idea, when colleagues act like that, I can see why minority teachers tend to teach at majority minority schools.
Last edited by Octa; 01-24-2014 at 02:28 PM..
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