Final Blog

The most important thought to me has to deal with the entire education system, how it is set up, and its overall history. I feel like it is important to examine critical aspects of the processes used in educating youth, such as contents of curriculum and how educators interact with students. Basically, people involved in the educational system should pay close attention to who is being taught what, how they are being taught, and why.

The video about changing education paradigms was one of the more poignant pieces to me. I thought using animation to embellish what was being explained was a good way to make the speech more interesting. But even if you disregard the animation, I would say that Ken Robinson did an exceptional job breaking down the public education system and connecting the dots to show how the current system is based on a scholastic model that is incredibly outdated. In addition, Robinson describes how the current public education system is actually detrimental to children and their academic growth.

The question I will be continually asking myself and trying to answer is: How can I affect a positive change in the way things are done in the educational system? Another question I ask of myself is: How do I help current and future students to navigate through the current process until adequate changes are made? Whatever steps I take or moves I make will be strictly for the benefit of all children; and I know it will take a considerable amount of effort on my part to consistently fight for what is right for them.

I hope to continue to learn and grow more through experiences, as opposed to reading and taking courses. I feel that best way for me to learn is to talk and interact with children and their families from all different cultures and lifestyles, and learn more about them, as well as teach them things they might not know about me and my culture. Although I consider myself to be pretty patient, I feel I still need to grown in that regard as well; when working with young people, I find myself getting frustrated often when trying to get them to do things, especially when they are wound up with a lot of energy, or I am trying to get them to do something they do not necessarily want to do, or if they are angry or frustrated about something.

Observation #5

I currently volunteer/observe at the Pillsbury House in their After-School Arts program. As of now, I have spent a little over 25 hours working with the children in the program. I spend time reading with the children, observing them while they are doing their homework, helping them with art projects, working with them when they learning certain skills, like walking on stilts, or how to play tennis. I also play games like football, tag, and other games that involve physical activity with them. There are also times when I interact with the kids while doing music-related activities.

The Pillsbury House seems to be a very family oriented facility, and they have information that could be helpful to families. There are plenty of pamphlets and flyers right on the first floor, and they are often in multiple languages. I think that Pillsbury House makes a strong effort to connect to families and provide information to them that can help them with their daily lives.

There were many strengths that I saw being exhibited by the adult staff working with the children in the program. I thought they did a good job calming down children when they would get excited, and making children feel better when they were seemingly in bad moods. I thought that most of the programming was able to maintain the children's attention for the most part. For instance, since the kids seem to enjoy play that is rather physical in nature, one of them is often getting hurt. When this happens, one of the staff is usually pretty good at making sure the child who gets hurt feels better and does not overreact by going to the child immediately after the incident and talking to the child calmly.

Family Engagement

In the readings and videos we watched this week, there were a few things that were subtly presented, yet grabbed my attention right away.

The first things I noticed in the Negril-Pool reading was how it was an example of the fact that many parts of the country are still very segregated, but there is no mention of why that is; the issue for some reason was making Kalena, with her "dark, thick hair and chocolate brown skin" feel "comfortable" being an a classroom full of "predominantly European American" children. Even though, from how I understood it, the teacher was of Mexican descent, she still seems to hold "European American" (I put European American in quotes because I am not sure if she is referring to Americans with actual European ancestry, or Americans who have the physical characteristics to pass for, and therefore claim to be white) culture as the standard. I also found it interesting that the teacher only felt it necessary to expose her students to other cultures another culture when there was a student who was "different" in the class.

What I found interesting about the Genzuk article was how the "funds of knowledge" theory sounded like the concept of bartering, and that it is someone's way of trying to get money by rehashing and renaming old ideas. I also could not get over how in the story about Jacobo the motivation for visiting his home and getting to know his family was initially sparked. I wondered how the teacher would have went about if Jacobo behaved how he was "expected" to.

In the videos, I felt that most of them displayed attitudes and beliefs that had me questioning their intent, as well as their values. For instance, Jeannie Oakes seemed to have no problem making communities of color being synonymous with poor communities; nor did she show any hesitation in claiming to know why "many" of the people in those communities are having issues with getting their children access to a quality education. I also felt like Oakes somewhat shifted the blame on the people in the community, claiming that the issue with most families is that they are too shy to get involved.

I also felt that Nel Noddings stating that people were actually scared was interesting as well. I felt like Noddings, along with Oakes, were implying that it was people in the community's fear, and subsequent non-action based on those fears, is the reason that children of color and from poor communities are being neglected and not given access to quality education opportunities. They fail to mention how often scenarios people are supposed to be fearful of happening actually occur.

I was also put off by how Jacqueline Jordan Irvine and Noddings seemed to not have any genuine interest in or interaction with children. But with all that said, it was not all bad; I really liked what Victoria Purcell-Gates had to say about getting families involved in the education process. I also thought what Joyce Epstein was saying about principals taking the lead in engaging families and the community was very important, and I think it can be an effective strategy if done properly.

My plan for engaging with families is simple; I will let them know that I care, and that the best possible scenario would be to have every adult (even peers, older children, and teens) that is a part of that child's life to be involved with making sure that are put in the best possible position to learn as much as they can, and that they take advantage of the situation.

Observation #4

I have been observing and working with kids in an after school program at the Pillsbury House in south Minneapolis. I do more interacting with the children than just sitting back and observing; which is something I am encouraged - and I actually prefer - to do.

I spend my time with them doing a variety of different activities, such as reading, drawing, doing art projects, dancing, and playing games. There has also been a couple of times when I sat with children during the time designated for working on school work; the kids usually already understood what they needed to do to complete the work, so I would not say that I helped them, but just monitored them to make sure they stayed on task. I have observed for approximately 20 hours so far.

So far, I have not noticed any specific lessons or any other signs of the staff looking for opportunities to talk with the children about race, class, sexuality, or gender. I believe the focus is more on occupying the children's time than creating learning opportunities, which is understandable since it is an after school program; but that is not to say that there are not opportunities to engage the children in conversations about those topics.

As I mentioned, the majority of the time the kids are participating in some type of reading, art related, or interactive play activity. Sometimes during these activities, an opportune moment when a situation touches on one or more of the topics presents itself, but no attempts are made to encourage the children to talk about them. To be fair, though the racial/cultural makeup of kids who attend the after school program on the days I am there is pretty diverse, the children do not seem to have any underlying issues, at least in regards to race, and they all play and get along with each other pretty well; the only bias they exhibit when interacting with each other is in their preferred activity and styles of play.

From what I have observed, I have not been able to distinguish any specific educational philosophy being followed by the staff. There seems to be a heavy focus on exposing the children to the arts and being creative, but I have not witnessed any moments where the activities offered to the children were intended to create a teachable moment beyond the actions related to the activity itself, or engage the children in conversation. 

Classrooms as Sites for Confronting Privileges, Changing the World

There are many topics we discussed and read about so far that has stuck with me, but I would say the Changing Education Paradigms video - where Sir Ken Robinson talks about the history of public education, its intended purpose when it was initially developed, and how little it has changed over the years - and Huerta's writing on the history of public education in the United States and the Greek influence on what is taught, what is deemed as valuable knowledge, how it is taught, and who it is taught to are what will likely have the most impact on what I would teach (I would also include the impact racism has on education, but that factor has played a part in my interest in working with young people long before this class).

Society has gone through many evolutions, and so much has changed since the days when public schools were first established in this country; yet the current public educational system still operates largely in the same manner as it did when it was initially conceived. Sadly, this system is more geared towards creating obedient workers that walk, talk, and dress the same than actually educating the youth and giving them the tools to become knowledgeable, skilled, critical thinking, and compassionate adults.

I definitely feel that the classroom is a place to talk about privilege and creating change. It would be even better if classrooms were more diverse - with children from various cultures, neighborhoods, economic backgrounds, and family compositions sharing the same classroom - but meaningful conversations could still be had in classrooms that are not so diverse.

I think that it is important for everybody to learn as much about as many different cultures and lifestyles as possible, and the younger one is introduced to them, the more susceptible they are to developing a true understanding of different cultures and people who do not look like them. I am not sure if privilege should be confronted as much as people being denied opportunity and being treated unfairly. I also feel that change is a part of life, and without it people are in danger of accepting things that are harmful to themselves and society as a whole - because that's "just the way it is".

Observation #3

So far, I have spent about 10 hours volunteering/observing youth in an after school program at the Pillsbury House in south Minneapolis. I believe there are four full-time staffers that work with the children in the program; during the days that I have volunteered, there were always one or two artists of various disciplines, and a number of college students volunteering, on site working with the youth as well. Out of the staff, two of them are African American, and the other two are white, and they are all women. The artists working with the children that I have come in contact with was an Asian male, an African American male, an Indian (or possibly Arabic) woman, and a white woman. All of the volunteers that I seen were young white women. The administration that I have met consisted of a white woman (the volunteer coordinator) and a Hispanic woman (front desk receptionist). The students in the program seem to be of various races and cultures. During the days that I volunteer there is usually around 40-50 kids in the program, and there are usually a few more girls than boys. The kids in the program are in the age range of first through sixth grade; they all seem to get along with each other for the most part, and there is no division amongst them in terms of race or gender, but they do sometimes tend to group together based on their age groups.

Since it is an afterschool program and not specifically a learning institution, I do not think that too many of Delpit’s principles applies to what the program does. There is time set aside for the children to do their homework, but there are no instructors, and they do not communicate with their teachers to know what the children are supposed to do for their homework. However, there are some principles I think that the staff does address on some level, including:

CREATE A SENSE OF FAMILY AND CARING IN THE SERVICE OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

The staff does seem to communicate with the parents or other family members that pick up the children, talking to them about their day, regardless if the child had a rough (or good) day.

HONOR AND RESPECT THE CHILDREN’S HOME CULTURE

The children in the program represent a diverse number of cultures, and the staff seems to respect that; the most telling examples of this is when they talk with the parents, often times speaking with them in their native language.

There is a lot of arts related programming, such as music, dancing, painting, drawing, crafts, writing stories, reading, and acting, but the projects that I have seen the kids take part in were not specific to any certain culture.

Education Debt

I have many concerns in regards to the educational system and its history of educating students of color, particularly African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. I am not overly concerned with the terms used to describe the situation; although I do see the difference in referring to the issue of disproportionate numbers of minority youth not having access to high quality learning opportunities as “educational debt” as opposed to the “achievement gap”.

What I wonder about the most are the intentions of the people who make the decisions regarding public education. I wonder if they really believe that they are doing what is best for all children, if they are only concerned with what happens to a certain segment of the population, or if they care at all about any of the youth their decisions impact. I wonder if getting caught up in arguing about the semantics of the phrases used to describe the issue is an intended distraction from the issue itself; I also wonder if popularizing the use of the term “educational debt” instead of “achievement gap” would cause anyone to act any differently.

When I hear people say things like, “I use the term ‘achievement gap’, I do it because I’m so use to saying it”, it makes me think about people’s actions, and how much of what they do is based on how they have been more or less conditioned to think and act in a certain way.

You would think that many decisions that do not seem to have the best interest of the youth in mind could be justified by simple economics. But the cost estimates from the Closing the Gap: Early Childhood Education article on the ASCD website state otherwise, noting that “conservative cost-benefit models show that for an initial investment of roughly $15,000 per child, the return to society was roughly $250,000, or $17 for every dollar invested” (Nelson).

The only reason that makes even the slightest bit of since as to why the public is not strongly advocating for investing in early childhood education is that are simply not aware of the cost advantages of doing so. You would like to think that the welfare of children should be enough motivation, but it obviously is not since the current system is operating as it has been for years with little resistance. I will do my best to help change that by spreading the word about the benefits – both social and economic – of investing in children’s education early on.