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Old 03-19-2013, 03:37 PM
 
Location: Penn Hills
1,326 posts, read 1,999,090 times
Reputation: 1638

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopes View Post
What if they are cutting their students breaks with compassion? I had a professor who was like this and one of my black classmates called him to task over it. He gave her a perfect grade on a paper. She turned in a draft instead of a final because she was busy with work and family obligations to finish it. It had no citations, no bibliography. It was a mess. I remember vividly when she confronted him about her grade because I was with her. She told him she didn't want him going easy for her because the real world wouldn't give her breaks, and she wanted to be prepared when she graduated. Nobody would have accused this professor of being racist. He is the nicest guy in the world to everyone. His wife of many years is black. His courses were heavily designed to inspire and motivate black students. But in essence, he meets the criteria of your definition of a racist because he didn't demand as much from his black students. So, I think you're painting a very broad brush with your definition of a racist teacher. I believe he was fully aware of what he was doing but he wasn't doing it with ill intentions.
There are multiple studies done on this issue. You are free to look into it. I already linked to one. The issue at hand isn't just "teachers going easy on black kids," the issue at hand is teachers having low expectations for black kids as soon as they step into the classroom because they inherently see them as less capable than white kids, and the actions that follow from that. They tend to include giving them adequate support, not spending as much time on them, not giving them as much positive feedback and encouragement, not following up on bad assignments and grades, and being harsher on black kids with discipline than white kids who commit the same actions. This is an extremely large topic within the field of education and educational psychology, and it is well known to be a large contributing factor to the achievement gap between black students and white students. You can be sure that I care more about the millions of black kids who are impacted by institutionalized racism than your white professor who is ever so nice. "Compassion", really? That's called being extremely misguided at best, patronizing and ignorant at worst. Regardless, anecdotes aren't science, they aren't statistics.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/...judice/256951/
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Old 03-19-2013, 03:46 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,259,082 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by sparrowmint View Post
Teaching Black Women To Embrace Breast-Feeding : NPR

Why Don

Why are black women less likely to breastfeed? | Life and style | The Guardian

There's lack of clarity on the issue. Depends on the individual, but formula marketing, ignorance about the importance, ignorance about how it changes the body, and sexual hang-ups seem like common reasons that come up repeatedly.
Actually, breastfeeding has not really been found to increase intelligence. Mothers with higher IQs are more likely to breast feed. When maternal IQ is accounted for, there is no difference in the IQs of breast-fed and fomula fed kids.
Breast feeding does not increase children's intelligence

Even in studies that show an increase in IQ among breast-fed children, the difference is small, and not likely to affect school performance.
Science-Based Medicine » Are the benefits of breastfeeding oversold?

There are many good reasons to breast feed, but school performance probably isn't one of them. Since this is a thread about schools, I'd hate to see us go way off-topic about breast-feeding.
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Old 03-19-2013, 03:59 PM
 
43,011 posts, read 107,679,689 times
Reputation: 30710
Quote:
Originally Posted by sparrowmint View Post
You can be sure that I care more about the millions of black kids who are impacted by institutionalized racism than your white professor who is ever so nice. "Compassion", really? That's called being extremely misguided at best, patronizing and ignorant at worst.
I agree it was patronizing, and that's why my classmate flipped out on him. His response was that he knew she was a talented writer, and he based his grade on her past work. He often encouraged her to pursue writing when she graduated. I know she truly is a very talented writer because I collaborated with her many times. I think he just has a misguided way of inspiring students.

Reading the article from the sociologist from Stanford reminded me of his class. It details how to best adjust curriculum for teaching ebonic speaking black students how to read, starting with reading in ebonics and then slowly moving them to standard English. It reminded me of his class because his curriculum was heavily designed to appeal to the black students. For me, it was interesting because I learned things I didn't know, but it also became repetitive and boring to have a whole term of subject matter that didn't apply to my world.

That made me wonder how elementary school reading teachers can adjust their curriculum like the Stanford sociologist says achieves the greatest reading results with black students without it hindering the performance of the white students in the class. It's just logical that if ebonic speaking black students have a difficult time learning to read starting with standard English that white students would have a difficult time learning to read starting with ebonics. It's almost like they would need to segregate reading classes, but that would be illegal because separate is not equal. It seems like a quandary without a solution.
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Old 03-19-2013, 04:38 PM
 
Location: Mexican War Streets
1,584 posts, read 2,086,128 times
Reputation: 1389
Quote:
Originally Posted by robrobrob View Post
So, good schools aren't important to you. Ok. I bet a good education is important to you. Right? Basically, you are in favor the same thing as the suburban parents you just disagree on how to get there. The choices you made are personal and wouldn't necessarily be the right choices for others.

Most parents are willing to make sacrifices for their kids.
I don't particularly appreciate the smug, patronizing conclusion to the above post, but whatever makes you happy.

The term "sacrifice" implies that my family and I would be giving up something for a tangible benefit. It's precisely that tangible benefit that remains illusive.

The entire subject was broached because Mr. Mon indicated that he (and others) wanted to remain living in the City and the sole reason he was contemplating a move was due to the City schools. In that instance, I feel that you should live where you are the most happy absent clear evidence that you kids' education would suffer meaningfully unless you left. I've seen little in the way of compelling evidence for that proposition. That "everyone else is doing it" is not especially persuasive to me.
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Old 03-19-2013, 05:08 PM
 
43,011 posts, read 107,679,689 times
Reputation: 30710
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lobick View Post
The term "sacrifice" implies that my family and I would be giving up something for a tangible benefit. It's precisely that tangible benefit that remains illusive.

The entire subject was broached because Mr. Mon indicated that he (and others) wanted to remain living in the City and the sole reason he was contemplating a move was due to the City schools. In that instance, I feel that you should live where you are the most happy absent clear evidence that you kids' education would suffer meaningfully unless you left. I've seen little in the way of compelling evidence for that proposition. That "everyone else is doing it" is not especially persuasive to me.
Maybe Mr. Mon is more connected to the community than you are and he is more aware of the risks associated with sending him to whatever school his neighborhood feeds into. Maybe he has friends and relatives who have lived in the city for generations and already sent children through the entire school system.

It's difficult to listen to people tout parenting involvement when they haven't put a child through a school system. Sometimes parental involvement is a blame shifting phrase used by educators. Once you have a child in school, you'll find out quickly that the school doesn't want parental involvement. They want you involved at the level of a robot being involved exactly how they dictate. If your child has problems, you'll find resistance from teachers to do anything that involves extra effort on their part to help your child. It's like that in most public schools, even the suburban schools. Add the additional problems of the city schools, such as violence, and you can only wonder how your involvement could have an even greater impact on your child's education in a school that doesn't have those additional challenges.
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Old 03-19-2013, 07:53 PM
 
Location: Mexican War Streets
1,584 posts, read 2,086,128 times
Reputation: 1389
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopes View Post
Maybe Mr. Mon is more connected to the community than you are and he is more aware of the risks associated with sending him to whatever school his neighborhood feeds into. Maybe he has friends and relatives who have lived in the city for generations and already sent children through the entire school system.
Maybe...but that would be purely anecdotal and as such, largely discountable.

Personally, I think public schools have much in common with Congress, namely, most people have a negative perception of them yet they like their incumbant/school.

Quote:
It's difficult to listen to people tout parenting involvement when they haven't put a child through a school system. Sometimes parental involvement is a blame shifting phrase used by educators. Once you have a child in school, you'll find out quickly that the school doesn't want parental involvement. They want you involved at the level of a robot being involved exactly how they dictate. If your child has problems, you'll find resistance from teachers to do anything that involves extra effort on their part to help your child. It's like that in most public schools, even the suburban schools.
I'm not sure who this is addressed to since I've not framed my argument around the merits of "parental involvement" and this tangental response doesn't really address the points I was making. However, I do think it's interesting to note that since you paint all public schools with the broad brush of disavowing "parental involvement", you've largely conceded a percieved advantage that suburban schools regularly tout over their urban brethren.

Quote:
Add the additional problems of the city schools, such as violence, and you can only wonder how your involvement could have an even greater impact on your child's education in a school that doesn't have those additional challenges.
Frankly, this is nonsensical and thus doesn't merit a response since one cannot be formulated.
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Old 03-19-2013, 08:58 PM
gg
 
Location: Pittsburgh
26,137 posts, read 25,802,562 times
Reputation: 17378
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lobick View Post
My entire point is that "good schools" shouldn't be that high on the list and that all too often people make their decisions through the prism of a false choice.
I hope you are kidding. Right?
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Old 03-19-2013, 09:16 PM
 
Location: Mexican War Streets
1,584 posts, read 2,086,128 times
Reputation: 1389
Quote:
Originally Posted by h_curtis View Post
I hope you are kidding. Right?
No.

Curtis, I don't really expect you to understand since this requires contemplation, an understanding of nuance and the ability to appreciate statistics.

Try to answer these questions though:

What makes a "good school"? How is it defined? More often than not, isn't it really a school with a lot of advantaged kids going to it.

If you have a smart kid or a dumb kid for that matter, what effect does the individual school have on their education?

My general thesis is that people make choices about where to live based upon this belief in "good schools" that ultimately don't have nearly the impact that they think they do and might actually be a loss from a total life opportunity cost standpoint.
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Old 03-19-2013, 11:10 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,259,082 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lobick View Post
No.

Curtis, I don't really expect you to understand since this requires contemplation, an understanding of nuance and the ability to appreciate statistics.

Try to answer these questions though:

What makes a "good school"? How is it defined? More often than not, isn't it really a school with a lot of advantaged kids going to it.

If you have a smart kid or a dumb kid for that matter, what effect does the individual school have on their education?

My general thesis is that people make choices about where to live based upon this belief in "good schools" that ultimately don't have nearly the impact that they think they do and might actually be a loss from a total life opportunity cost standpoint.
I'll agree the definition of a "good school" is subjective, however, many people would agree that a high school that offers a variety of courses and has a good track record of kids getting into college is a "good" school. Someone else might be looking for a school with an outstanding music program, or arts program, or a Vo-Tech program, or whatever.

I'm not sure what "total life opportunity cost" you're talking about. Maybe you could elaborate?

Last edited by Katarina Witt; 03-20-2013 at 12:03 AM..
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Old 03-19-2013, 11:56 PM
 
781 posts, read 1,613,373 times
Reputation: 293
Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
Generally speaking, you don't need to worry about safety on the elementary level. Yes, there are some horror stories, but few K-5 kids are doing drugs, getting raped, involved in shootings, or even getting into physical altercations. There is zero reason to be concerned about this until the middle school level.
Not true. There are a lot of fights and alarming aggressive behavior. My son's classmate was shoved down the stairs while being called a f*g which resulted in a broken foot. This was grade 3 or 4. The sexual language and cursing that some kids know is unf-king believable. I am not shocked easily, but I heard things at a k-5 I would expect to hear at a prison.

My son ended up in therapy for a year in 4-5th grade, he was so stressed out at Minadeo. It isn't a joke, there is no disipline (district wide) and it is needed for children of all color.

Last edited by Sideblinded; 03-20-2013 at 01:07 AM..
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