Monday, May 17, 2004
Some separate (but equal) thoughts
Things have been busy these days at Underwood High School. With merely twenty regular teaching days left on the calendar, the students have started to become even more energetic than normal. If only they could focus that energy towards getting through these last few weeks with a minimal of fuss instead of picking on their teacher for being honest on an interim report.
(Example)
Student--- Mr. ________? Why did you say on my interim report that I didn't participate in class?
Me --- That's easy, sarcastic young man who never pays attention in class and expects to coast by on his solid test scores. I marked that down because often times you tend to fool around and talk to the people sitting around you rather than contribute to discussions. Like you were just now during our discussion of the Do Now!
Student---But I pay attention most of the time...!
(/Example)
That last little bit there about how paying attention most of the time should be sufficient strikes me as significant. I can't tell you how many students think that should be enough to pass my class. They tried their best. They sometimes did homework. They volunteered regularly in class. All well and good. But if the points don't add up, I can't pass them. One kid offered me $900 for an A today. I told him offer me a million, and I'll think about it.
Perhaps it was just coincidence that all this happened on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Ed. I'm sure a lot of more knowledgable people in the blogosphere have spent a great deal more time playing pundit and gauging the success (or lack thereof) of arguably the High Court's most important decision of the 20th century. As an inner city teacher still dealing with de facto segregation, I very much wonder how big a difference that ruling has made in the community where I teach. Based on demographics, my initial response would be very little. Despite the removal of legal barriers officially segregating students, there are new systems in place to ensure the perpetuation of an underfunded, under-resourced, educational system whose chances of improvement seem doomed to perpetual failure. Although many of these factors can be explained off as unintentional, these indirect phenomena remain directly responsible for the situation in which I teach. They range chronologically to the late 50s and early 60s, with the movement of well to do families from the area immediately surrounding the school to the nearby suburbs. The decline in standard of living conditions combined with the rise of academic magnet schools ensured that the area's best and brightest middle school students get directed, not to local public high schools, but rather to bigger, better funded programs downtown. It's your standard brain drain scenario, and one can not blame those students participating in it...they just want to succeed! The school where I teach, much as I love it, sadly deals with the castasides and leftovers, the students who come from homes where learning is not typically supported and escape from the community grows increasingly more difficult. I made a comparison in conversation today with a history colleague...these students are as provincial in some ways as someone from a third world country. They may never travel 50 miels from where they grow up their entire lives. And let's not even think about employment opportunities available to them, especially the dropouts. After all, as one of my students mentioned in robotics club, even McDonalds wants a high school diploma these days.
So what do I think about Brown v. Board? I think it marked a crucial watershed in American history, throwing down the gauntlet to the states and forcing a reconsideration of the nature of race relations. At the same time, the promise of Brown is yet to be fulfilled.
Consider this poem one of my students showed me last week during a notebook check:
The world 2004
Today people are dying
And people are crying
for their loved one's
that got shot up for nothing.
Sad funeral homegoing services
for 2 months and 4 year old babies
cause of someone being dumb and killing
harmless people and things.
How about that baby that got scalded
by that man that said he was just washing the baby.
Today's world is full of violence.
It will never stop.
They don't care if they go to jail
or just kill somebody.
Guns are a man's best friend.
It takes care of everything.
Men don't fist fight.
They use guns and weapons.
This is my poem on the World 2004.
Clearly for at least one of my students, the post-Brown world still appears rather bleak. And in fairness, this could easily have been written by a moody teenager of any race, in any place. But the sentiment is the key. Despite its eloquence and grandeur, Brown's most important accomplishment lies not in closing the education gap in this country, but in highlighting its existence. And in that light, perhaps Brown serves best as a signpost or beacon, guiding teachers, students, and community leaders alike in the right direction, towards a better future for all Americans.
Things have been busy these days at Underwood High School. With merely twenty regular teaching days left on the calendar, the students have started to become even more energetic than normal. If only they could focus that energy towards getting through these last few weeks with a minimal of fuss instead of picking on their teacher for being honest on an interim report.
(Example)
Student--- Mr. ________? Why did you say on my interim report that I didn't participate in class?
Me --- That's easy, sarcastic young man who never pays attention in class and expects to coast by on his solid test scores. I marked that down because often times you tend to fool around and talk to the people sitting around you rather than contribute to discussions. Like you were just now during our discussion of the Do Now!
Student---But I pay attention most of the time...!
(/Example)
That last little bit there about how paying attention most of the time should be sufficient strikes me as significant. I can't tell you how many students think that should be enough to pass my class. They tried their best. They sometimes did homework. They volunteered regularly in class. All well and good. But if the points don't add up, I can't pass them. One kid offered me $900 for an A today. I told him offer me a million, and I'll think about it.
Perhaps it was just coincidence that all this happened on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Ed. I'm sure a lot of more knowledgable people in the blogosphere have spent a great deal more time playing pundit and gauging the success (or lack thereof) of arguably the High Court's most important decision of the 20th century. As an inner city teacher still dealing with de facto segregation, I very much wonder how big a difference that ruling has made in the community where I teach. Based on demographics, my initial response would be very little. Despite the removal of legal barriers officially segregating students, there are new systems in place to ensure the perpetuation of an underfunded, under-resourced, educational system whose chances of improvement seem doomed to perpetual failure. Although many of these factors can be explained off as unintentional, these indirect phenomena remain directly responsible for the situation in which I teach. They range chronologically to the late 50s and early 60s, with the movement of well to do families from the area immediately surrounding the school to the nearby suburbs. The decline in standard of living conditions combined with the rise of academic magnet schools ensured that the area's best and brightest middle school students get directed, not to local public high schools, but rather to bigger, better funded programs downtown. It's your standard brain drain scenario, and one can not blame those students participating in it...they just want to succeed! The school where I teach, much as I love it, sadly deals with the castasides and leftovers, the students who come from homes where learning is not typically supported and escape from the community grows increasingly more difficult. I made a comparison in conversation today with a history colleague...these students are as provincial in some ways as someone from a third world country. They may never travel 50 miels from where they grow up their entire lives. And let's not even think about employment opportunities available to them, especially the dropouts. After all, as one of my students mentioned in robotics club, even McDonalds wants a high school diploma these days.
So what do I think about Brown v. Board? I think it marked a crucial watershed in American history, throwing down the gauntlet to the states and forcing a reconsideration of the nature of race relations. At the same time, the promise of Brown is yet to be fulfilled.
Consider this poem one of my students showed me last week during a notebook check:
The world 2004
Today people are dying
And people are crying
for their loved one's
that got shot up for nothing.
Sad funeral homegoing services
for 2 months and 4 year old babies
cause of someone being dumb and killing
harmless people and things.
How about that baby that got scalded
by that man that said he was just washing the baby.
Today's world is full of violence.
It will never stop.
They don't care if they go to jail
or just kill somebody.
Guns are a man's best friend.
It takes care of everything.
Men don't fist fight.
They use guns and weapons.
This is my poem on the World 2004.
Clearly for at least one of my students, the post-Brown world still appears rather bleak. And in fairness, this could easily have been written by a moody teenager of any race, in any place. But the sentiment is the key. Despite its eloquence and grandeur, Brown's most important accomplishment lies not in closing the education gap in this country, but in highlighting its existence. And in that light, perhaps Brown serves best as a signpost or beacon, guiding teachers, students, and community leaders alike in the right direction, towards a better future for all Americans.
