Blog 9

The more time I spend at my service learning site, the more I am able to connect what we discuss in class to a real world situation. In class we have discussed education its contribution to the poverty circle seen frequently in America today. I have mentioned this before but, the place I spend time at, Educare, is a head start pre-school. I have never heard of a program like this before and interestingly enough, lately there has been discussion of these programs in several of my classes. In my history class we have been discussing President Johnson and his push for the development of programs such as Head Start pre-schools. In my other education class I recently had to read two positions articles on Head Start programs. One of the authors discussed the notion that the programs are not really achieving their goal, to close the education gap between children of low income families versus children who do not suffer from poverty. The articles also discussed issue of which things are more important to teach these children (social aspects or force academic learning), and possible solutions to improving and adding more accountability and regulation to these programs. I have been doing a lot of thinking about these issues. When I am at the pre-school I can tell right away that this place is the only place where the children have the accessibility to things that will enhance their learning such as puzzles, books, and arts and crafts. I think this program does whatever it can to ready the children for school. They close the education gap as much as they can, it is later on when the children start to slip, and therefore I think more accountability needs to be placed in elementary schools. I think this is really where the education gap thickens.

Identity

I am not exactly sure which stage of Pang's racial identity list I fall under. I know that sometimes I feel I can identify with the uncomfortable stage and other times I feel closer to the fifth stage, acceptance of self and group. I really like what Mrs. Ridgeway said when she described the stages she went through. In grade school we had only one racially diverse family in the entire school. When I got to high school it was much more racially diverse, but not very economically diverse. I think this is where my struggle with picking a stage comes in. I have noticed that it often depends on the situation. I was perfectly fine in high school, I never even really acknowledged race unless someone pointed it out. It never made me feel uncomfortable. However, in situations that involve encounters with people of a different race that are a different economic class, often I feel uncomfortable. I do a lot of volunteer work and I often get very comfortable with the people I encounter, but at first I feel uncomfortable. I can't help but wonder about the influence of race in the many privileges I have in my life. I know my parents had wonderful schooling opportunities and worked hard to achieve the level of success that they currently have, but how did the fact that they were white play into that?

Service Learning and Identity

When we discussed the MacIntosh article and the article about culture today, I kept thinking about my race in relation to the race of my students, in both my pre-school classroom and my Sunday school classroom. All of the children in my pre-school class are black and even in kids as young as three and four it is easy to tell that their culture at home is very different than mine. I stick out like a sore thumb. I was thinking about the way parents look at me when they come to pick up their kids. Sometimes its sort of a look like, why on earth do you come all the way over here to teach our kids, like I only do it because I feel sorry for them. It would be much easier for me to develop relationships with the parents if I did not look like a white girl from the suburbs.
In my Sunday school class, my students are either Hispanic or Asian. I teach at a tri-lingual church. English is a second language for most of my students and they attend big public schools. I have always gone to a private school and I speak spanish, but I'm not quite fluent yet. It took me a while to understand that in the Asian culture children are taught to be reverent, listen and internalize. It was such a challenge to get my students to speak up in class. It has also been a challenge trying to get the children of different cultures to mingle. Slowly but surely they are warming up to me.

McIntosh Reaction

After reading this article I immediately thought of an experience I had this summer. It was the first real first hand experience I had with racial issues. I was an intern for Week of Compassion, a ministry program affiliated with the disciples of christ church. We lived in Texas and built a church for a small community that lost its church to the series of hurricanes in the past five years. Another intern was hired along with me. He was black and from Atlanta. The program was going to place him in a different state, doing a different type of servie work, but a black women on the board suggested that he be sent somewhere else, there is a stereotype about black boys from Atlanta, and they had no time to deal with him. Therefore, he came to live with us in Texas. He was the only person of his race on staff. Occasionally we had volunteers that were African American, he was mainly surrounded by white people and our boss was a stereotypical white alpha male with a bad temper. This was not a good mix because the other intern (Gabe) also fit a stereotype of black men growing up in the "hood". He wore huge clothes, shuffled around, was aggressive, cussed all the time, made lots of threats, and was essentially very lazy. He and my boss but heads all the time. Building a church from a concrete slab was a labor intensiving very time consuming job that required a work ethic Gabe did not seem to portray. My boss wanted to fire him in the middle of the summer, but there was a huge controversy over whether or not to fire him, because of his race. According to my boss, it would shed negative light on program to fire him. I never realized race had such an impact still today, especially in a church organization. I suppose I went off on a little bit of a tangent but McIntosh's article made me think of this instance right away. This summer I realized the privileges I have always taken for granted because of my race.

High Stakes Testing

I found myself feeling frustrated several times during our last class discussion about high stakes testing, federal aid, and No Child Left Behind. There is a lot of controversy surrounding aid in the education system and the consquences of high stakes testing. Personally, I am a terrible test taker, so I have very negative feelings towards testing. I was aware of negative conquences high stakes tests can have on students, but I did not realize it effected teachers so much. I went to a private school, so our teachers did not necessarily have to test us to comply with state educational standards. I did not realize that teachers pay could be altered according to the test scores of their classroom (merit based pay). If a teacher's pay is going to increase based on test scores, it makes sense that they would alter their teaching specifically to the test. A lot is lost when a teacher does this. I think that learning does not happen completely until application in a realisitc setting occurs, then the knowledge will be encoded and more likely remembered. When students learn information only for a test,the information is lost quickly and no actual learning has even taken place. However, without such academic standards, would teachers have the same incentive for their students to do well? I would like to think the answer to this question is yes, but its hard to say for sure, because I know of many examples in which teachers without an incentive do not put as much drive and passion into their job. However, I think the negatives of high stakes testing outway the positives, and that testing should not have such a weight in the educational system.

Warriors Don't Cry

The furthur along in the book I get, the more taken back I become. I am astonished by Melba's bravery. I can not imagine being her age and dealing with some much. She seems to take on the world and she has to grow up quickly to help her overcome a lot of the experiences she has during the integration. It takes a special type of person to be so patient with other people's hatred. I know that there are times when it really gets to her, but she does not lash out, or fight with anyone in school, even when she is physically and verbally abused by people who are supposed to be her classmates. I am glad that we were assigned to read this book for class. I have learned about immigration several times, but its interesting to be able to be inside someone's head who actually experienced the immigration.

Educare Backdoor Learning

 Last week I was able to spend my first hours at my service learning site. I volunteer at Educare. It is a preschool. This preschool is a diamond in the rough. It is located in a mostly rundown area. To my surprise this preschool is government funded. Only kids who qulify financially are allowed to attend the school. This means only children of very low income families attend this preschool. The preschool does more than that just teach the young children. It works with the whole family, to ensure the child is in a good environment. They meet with the families to make sure they can feed and take care of the child efficiently. This amazed me. I am so excited to be able to be apart of a place like this. When I got to educare a few hours a week I am essentially a student teacher. I work and teach in the classrooms with the children along with the hired staff member. I can not wait to spend more time at my site!