As a member of a working class community, my life has been a struggle between resources and opportunities available for me. Having sparse resources has lead me to the constant push of working towards the things I’ve achieved. Social identities have become a guidance for my future goals and abilities. Being working class Latina, raised in a Catholic family has created many barriers and pathways into the future I wish to hold. Furthermore, taking all the social identities I have grew into have become the bases for my educational goals and identity.
Standardized testing (SATs), in the United States has been present for years and has caused plenty of teachers, students, parents, and other individuals who are informed about it to have different perspectives and opinions on it. Before doing my research on the different opinions people had on standardized tests, I always believed they were encouraged by professors and school facilities. As a student myself and on the behalf of other students, standardized tests were always perceived to be stressful and unjust. Test taking was never a strength of mine especially if the test was timed because it just added more pressure to answer the questions quick. In high school, my teachers never discussed how they felt towards the SATs, which made
In James W. Loewen’s “The Land of Opportunity,” he states that social class affects the way children are raised. He discusses the inequality in today’s society and how the textbooks in high school do not give any social class information. The students in today’s time are not taught everything they should be taught. He states that your family’s wealth is what makes up your future. Loewen discusses that people with more money can study for the SATs more productively and get a better score than someone who has less money.
Within the reading of chapter four of Our Kids by Robert Putnam one key point of his argument is that it really matters where kids attend school and who they are attending school with. The overall growing class gap is extremely evident within the American school system. However, schools are not responsible for the creation of the opportunity gap because the gap already exists before schools are put into the picture. While this may be true, the schools that kids from affluent families are attending are significantly different than schools that children from poorer families are attending. This could be a product of the fact that affluent and poor families are usually not living in the same areas. Adults with enough money are able to choose to buy houses in areas with good schools for their kids. The success of children is also affected by who they are going to school with because kids are strongly influenced by their peers. Therefore, if a child is in an extremely competitive school environment they are more likely to work hard and succeed. A negative school environment where kids don’t feel safe and no one is trying to learn
What is school really trying to do with our lives? The article “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto is an article that talks about the problem of schools and how the goals are not what they say they are. First. the author talks about how the school system creates boredom and what could be done to fix it. He then talks about how school is not needed in its required class times, what the schools say the goals are for the students, and where our school system originated from. Next, he talks about who helped create the system we use today, and what the goals are for the schools in 6 functions. Finally, he talked about how the schools teach students to perform certain tasks in the future, how mandatory schooling made students not think about what
Education is a noticeable social establishment used to sustain the overall estimations of a general public. Many of us believe and expect that, education should be an engaging procedure that permits and assistants kids to build up their interests, basic considering, critical thinking, empathy, and introduction towards smartness for favorable activity. The article Inequality in public school by Michael Godsey, the U.S. department of education mentioned that, “equality in education is vital because equality of opportunity is a core American value” and integral to the country’s economic strength (P. 71). As I believe that everybody has the privilege to get the education and there ought to be equivalent open door for every one of the general population
Public school is one of the primary sources of education for many children in the United States, therefore it should be the school 's sole purpose to teach them the essential elements they need to succeed in life. This means more than teaching math, science, history, and English. A school, primarily high school, must provide courses that focus on a student 's future career plans, courses that challenge a student academically, and courses that help a student navigate their life as adults.
Today many schools in impoverished areas have the same policies for poor ethnic children, these policies are hidden under the pretense of closing the education cap between wealthy and poor students. Poor Teaching for Poor Children …in the Name of Reform, by Alfie Kohn, is an article about the difference in the educating of wealthy, middle class and poor children. In his article and on his web site, alfiekohn.org, he sites educators and researchers who have studied the difference in teaching styles in different social economic
In “The Land of Opportunity” and an excerpt from his book “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” author James Loewen addresses such issues as inaccuracies left uncorrected in today’s textbooks and the growing sense of ignorance amongst young generations concerning economics and social class. Loewen studied at Harvard University and became an American sociologist, author, and professor. Loewen has written numerous books challenging the history that is taught to students today. “The Land of Opportunity”, and “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” are examples of James Loewen’s passion for functional and accurate educational systems and equal opportunity
In the article "Social Class and Hidden Curriculum", Anyon studies the relationship between the course work and student-teacher interaction in different communities. She looks for evidence to show the difference between schools in poor areas vs areas were people are rich. During the 1978-1979 school year she studied five classes by classroom observation along with interviewing students and facility. After studying each class Anyon classified each class from "work class" to "executive elite schools" depending on what socioeconomic class the community was from. Anyon observed that in the "working class" school teachers tend to focus more on the procedure and on how each assignment relates to real life. In the "middle class" school, Anyon saw
Howdy! In this week’s lecture, Dr. Mackin went over two broad sociological explanations of stratification in society today. These two explanations are basically the same but in different words I believe. Same message, different wording. “Between schools” basically suggest that the stratification and economic gap starts with everything outside of
“Just the way it was”. That was Anne W. viewpoint of poverty when she was growing up and going to school. Anne and I met working for the same school district. She was born fifth of eleven children and started her schooling in the 1960s. Although Book’s writes about poverty in a more modern time a lot of what she writes was still true to Anne’s schooling. Her mother stayed at home and her father was a farm cropper, but never owned his own land. Book’s reminds us that poor people are working people, and to “Consider the role of the working poor in a market economy. Unable to support their own families, they provide a wealth of services to others.(Chamberlin 1999)” (PG. 29) That was true to Anne’s family; her father’s job gave food
People dream of freedom. A freedom that can bestow opportunities, a freedom that can establish equality, and a freedom that can promote success—people dream of the American dream. Many pursue it believing that education is the primary pathway to achieving success, and through education and hard work they can lower barriers; thus, being capable of scaling upward in the social ladder. Sadly, this dream has been tainted by myths that are associated with education. For example, some people claim that education is the grand equalizer of society, so through proper schooling everyone has the same chance of move up the social ladder. In addition, others claim that a school education helps students attain their full potential and helps them acquire
Anyon’s essay made me realize the way teachers actually go about educating their students. I was astonished by the way each teaching style had its own focus and rules. She explains that as the average social class of the students increases, the school’s way of educating becomes more open to let leaders or thinkers step up. The reason this essay amazed me is because I never looked at the way I was taught. After reading the essay, I can categorize how all my teachers informed me in my classes. In elementary and middle school, it was the regular, “Solve this, and get that” or “Just memorize this and you will be good on the test”. I would say I was in the working-class schools for those years. My high school experience was where all different teaching
Education plays a vital role in shaping the future. Creating workers, entrepreneur, and leaders, school is what gives you the skill necessary to strive for success. We are made to believe that the education system is to prepare us for the challenges of the adult life. However, the truth is that public school is an outdated system that is still clinging on to the ideas of if you do well in school, you will be successful. It's a system that choked out creativity and valued efficiency over mastery, pushing an incomplete