And Still We Rise Analysis

In her ethnography account Women without Class, Julie Bettie explores the relationship that class along with race and gender work to shape the experiences of both Mexican American girls and white working class students. In her work, Bettie finds that class cannot only intersect to impact the school experiences of both working class and middle class girls, but also their transition to adulthood and their future outcomes. Thus, Bettie explores how working class girls are able to deal with their class differences by performing symbolic boundaries on their styles, rejecting the school peer hierarchy and by performing whiteness to be upwardly mobile.

“The First Day” by Edward P. Jones is a short story written in 1992. The short story is about an African American mother taking her young daughter to school for the first time. The daughter becomes ashamed of her mother because she sees where her education level is at. The mother is also ashamed of herself because she didn’t get education throughout her life. In “The First Day” the opening scene sets the tone for challenging the status quo and creating a life of success.

“Kids at Hope” has become a part of the Herndon High School’s framework for all students and the entire staff. Kids at Hope is “a strategic, cultural framework designed to engage entire communities to support success for all children, no exceptions”. It is a cultural framework with strategies based on three leading principles and practices: We Believe, We Connect and We Time Travel. The “We Connect” component of Kids at Hope supports the notion that as long as children have meaningful and sustainable relationship with caring adults they will be successful. Those caring adults are called the ACES. There are four ACES of Kids at Hope: Ace of Heart, Ace of Clubs, Ace of Spades and Ace of Diamonds. The ACE of Heart is those adults responsible

How often are women admirable? Ellen Ochoa, An hispanic engineer, astronaut, and now a director of the Johnson Space Center, is one of the most admirable persons. Ochoa, a dream chaser who encourages others to go after what they really want. Education lead Ochoa to where she is now; However, this career she chose brighten up women making Ochoa their hero.

Throughout Jonathan Kozol’s essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid” (347) and “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” (374) by Beverly Tatum, both Kozol and Tatum discuss racial issues in the educational system. Kozol and Tatum explain racial issues by presenting two different instances that racial issues have played a roles. These two instances being visiting different public schools by Kozol and noticing the cafeteria segregation by Tatum. Using their own personal experiences, their arguments essentially come to similar conclusions, so by comparing their essays, the most significant problems are brought to the table.

How important is it for a person to stand up for what he or she believes in? Barbara Johns had a lot of courage to plan a protest against segregation. Courage is the bravery to do something even if it frightens one. “Imagine This Was Your School”, a article by Teri Kanefield, contains all of the courage and bravery Barbara had to earn equality in schools. Kanefield gives evidence of the disrespect Barbara and the other students faced since they were black. Similarly, Irene Lathom illustrates how daring Barbara is in her poem “Barbara Johns Reaches For The Moon” ADD SOMETHING HERE.

The essay by kozol shows the harsh reality about the uneven funds and attention given to the schools were many poor and minority students attend. During a visit to Fremont high school in 2003, Kozol claims that school that are in poverty stricken areas appear to worse than school that are in high class neighborhoods. Throughout the essay, kozol correlates between the south central Los Angeles high school and the wealthy high schools that are in the same district. When he learned the graduation requirement at Fremont and the classes the school had offer to accomplish this requirements, Kozol was amazed at how academically pointless the graduation requirements at Fremont and the classes to accomplish them were. Kazol compared this to AP classes

Dolores Clara Fernandez Huerta was born on April 10, 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico. Huerta is an American labor leader, civil rights activists, and was the co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association. Huerta’s father, Juan Fernandez, was a miner and a farm worker and later became the State Assemblyman of New Mexico. At an early age her parents divorced. Huerta lived most of her years with her mother, Alicia Chavez, and two brothers in Stockton, California. Huerta’s mother worked two jobs to provide for her family. Huerta would take music lessons and dance lessons. She was also a Girl Scout and won second place in a national essay contest. At school, Huerta encountered racism because of her background. She was accused numerous times of stealing other student’s work due to the teacher believing she was

The author of the book, Wes, who is one of the key characters in the book, had arduous childhood and overcame most of the obstacles in his life because of his mother’s support. When Moore was three, he witnessed his father’s death. After his father’s passing, his mother become stand guard. “Baltimore was getting more and more dangerous; there had been a rash of break-ins in the houses around them” (Moore36). Since, his mother had tough time raising three kids by herself and Baltimore was getting more riot, she took him and his two sisters to live in the Bronx with their grandparents. At the beginning of their movement, Wes had hard time to adjust in new environment. His grandparent’s rules were stricter then his mother’s; all chores had to finished before he went out to play and he had to back home by the time streetlights went on. Immediately, his mother got him enrolled in Riverdale Country school which was in the other side in Bronx. unfortunately, His progress was not excellent in Riverdale. His grandparents dropped him and his sister to train

The excerpt from Claudia Rankine’s poem Citizen chronicles several instances of modern everyday racism that the narrator faces. Rankine uses her own experiences to demonstrate the microagressions and racism that African Americans face every day. While some African American individuals try to change parts of their world, other people who do not face the same oppression do not understand that it needs to be changed. Throughout the poem, the narrator’s character growth is marked by her willingness to stand up for herself and her race.

''The boundary line between self and external world bears no relation to reality; the distinction between ego and world is made by spitting out part of the inside, and swallowing in part of the outside.''

Education has been a major influence on government policy and social standards concerning American youth. With hard work and education, one can better themselves and open up more opportunities for financial and social success. Waiting for Superman directed by Oscar winner, Davis Guggenheim, counters that the current education system is failing students by limiting their upward mobility, particularly among minority and low income groups. The documentary advocates for a radical change in the modern education system, modeled after charter school curriculums. Even though these successful schools produce great students many children, majority African American and Hispanic, are being left behind. In Maya Angelou’s

Kristin incorporates numerous details from historical accounts and articles about the integration of Little Rock Central into her novel. A few of the similarities in the novel and accounts were black children integrating into the High Schools, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Governor Faubus closing all of the High Schools. In the book, it talks about black kids integrating into the

As Nelson Mandela once said, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Donovan Livingston, a graduate at Harvard Graduate School of Education, has similar views on education. His passionate and inspiring speech called “Lift Off” was given at HGSE’s Commencement Ceremony on May 25, 2016. The speech discusses the importance of education as well as the obstacles and injustices students, especially those of color, have experienced throughout history in getting an education. Livingston’s graduating classmates who are becoming teachers, as well as teachers and educators in general, are the audience of his speech. He directly speaks about past teachers and experiences with education he's had, and his hopes for future teachers.

Living in vastly different circumstances and the difference can have a dramatic influence on a child’s development. Bronfenbrenner (1989) believes child developments takes place in home, schools, neighborhoods and communities. This case study will look into the contextual factors of family and schools that affects Alexander.