Where your favorite blogs come alive
Today On “Ander Gets Understandably Angry About Things That Directly Affect Him” (TM) - Blog Posts
Okay, so speaking of my Writing and Critical Inquiry class, I have this "Blog Post" project. So, today, we're gonna talk about how poverty affects the education system. I *really* liked this article that I found in my college's library on this subject, so if my post doesn't suffice your thirst for knowledge (which it shouldn't, you should always be thirsting for knowledge, but that's not my point. But please read this article if you have the time it's so good.) I will preface, however, that it was made like decades ago, so he refers to black people only as Negros and says the N slur once. So, y'know. be prepared.
He starts out the article with this quote I actually really liked from Pat Sexton's "Education and Income: Inequalities of Opportunity in Our Public Schools," where he says, "There is an enormous book by a Mrs. Pat Sexton which indicates that a person is likely to get an education in proportion to how much money he has." I wholeheartedly agree with this because I grew up in Charleston, WV. This led to my parents being eager to move away because they were scared to send my sister to a middle school that was rife with drugs and violence, but they didn't have the money to send her anywhere else. This article is old as dirt, and it's very specific to its time, however, I believe that's why it's scary how accurate this is to the modern day. He speaks on how the main people who are hurt by not getting a proper education are Immigrants and African Americans. Specifically Irish Immigrants, which is my ancestry.
He speaks on what he sees in both his community and in the news across America, how we see underserved and underprivileged kids grow up to be "Criminals" and just generally not good people. He accredits this phenomenon to these kids not getting proper schooling and opportunities, causing them to not be able to work, causing them to have to turn to drugs and brothels. He also partially blames educators for this problem, which I disagree with because there are such nuances and different factors that go into teaching children. There's a bunch of red tape to sift through, and Admin is very strict on what we can teach and talk about with our students. However, I do agree that the education system needs A LOT of work. We need to teach our students things that will give them background on how to be a functioning member of society, but we also need to teach them life skills like taxes, public speaking, tolerance, and social skills.
Which brings me to the problem of America's "Education Debt." Education Debt, as paraphrased from the article "From the Achievement Gap to the Educational Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools," Educational Debt is what the American Education System accrued by giving rich, white men a "head start" on education. By implementing "Residential Schools" and by not letting black kids have access to the same schools as rich white kids, black, native, and immigrant children are less likely to succeed in schools because they are still trying to catch up both historically and economically to their more privileged peers.
All this to say, we need to find ways to make this "debt" shrink. I had to research this for my Teachers in Diverse Societies class, and my findings were that we simply learn and adapt to the environment we're in. The best way to help underprivileged kids is to give them the opportunities they need to be successful. Whether that's having better teachers in schools or districts moving tax money around so that all the schools get the same amount of funding so all kids can be equally as successful, or what. The old saying goes, "It takes a village to raise a child," but what are we doing as a village to help the children around us and not just our own children? All children deserve to have equal opportunities for success, so we as a society need to stop being selfish and help the kids who need us, not just kids who have the money to pay for that help.