Day 8

When looking at social class, race, and school achievement, there are a few reasons for low achievement among the low-status students. There are twelve main obstacles in the classroom. Some of these obstacles include inappropriate curriculum and instruction, lack of previous success in school, teacher perceptions of student inadequacy, ineffective homogeneous grouping, overly large classes, and differences in teacher and student backgrounds.  Sometimes curriculum and instruction can expect that the students have a certain level of vocabulary or understanding of concepts when in reality they do not. When they begin to fall behind in subject areas, they have a harder time catching up, and it takes away from learning later on. Once students believe that they are inadequate learners and lose control of their future, they are less likely to work hard to overcome the areas that are behind in their ability to learn. Some teachers look at their classroom and see low achievement and jump to the thought that their students cannot learn. When a teacher questions the students’ learning potential they are less likely to work hard to improve their academic achievements because it could require more of their energy. Sometimes students who are struggling are also put into small groups, but those groups tend to be taught with lower expectations.  There have also been too large of classes and it makes it harder for teachers to provide sufficient help to overcome the difficulties in learning. Smaller class sizes offer the teacher and students more opportunities to work on more critical thinking. Teachers from middle-class backgrounds may have difficulty understanding and motivating their disadvantaged students. It is difficult for the teachers to communicate effectively with their students because of the difference in dialect, language, or cultural background.  

In a blog on edweek.org (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/futures_of_reform/2011/05/bolder_broader_action_strategies_for_closing_the_poverty_gap.html?cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS1) titled “Bolder, Broader Action: Strategies for Closing the Poverty Gap”, written by Secretary Paul Reville, explained the recent ideas of school reform. Reville referred back to his thoughts claiming that education reformers should realize that “closing achievement gaps is not as simple as adopting a set of standards, accountability and instructional improvement strategies.” He continues with his arguments as he points out that,

“it is now clear that unless and until we make a more active effort to mitigate the impediments to learning that are commonly associated with poverty, we will still be faced with large numbers of children who are either unable to come to school or so distracted as not to be able to be attentive and supply effort when they get there.”

This blog explains lots of the injustices of the education system and how it is affecting all of the students. There needs to be a new way of doing thing within the school districts to help the lower-achieving students end up having success in the classroom. It is important to look into the classroom and see how things can be changed to give the students the best learning environment possible.  

                It is sad to see how the struggle of low-status students is a continuous struggle because nothing has been done to step in and fix it. I do not like reading about teachers giving up. I feel like some of the things described in the text about the teachers feeling frustrating and just setting the standards lower can relate to the situation I am witnessing at Nathan Hale Middle School. I have grown up with my mom’s stories from her experiences and she has always been one to reach out to those struggling students. Yes, that extra energy can be draining, but in reality I find that the extra time spent helping a student can be very rewarding. It is important to remember that God has an upper hand on these situations and he has a plan for each one of His children. Even if they are in poverty now, they might be able to change the outcome of their future through something in the classroom that gave them the confidence to find greatness. It would be hard to know when to keep moving and when to slow down and help a few students catch up but there is time to find a balance. It is hard hearing teachers speak negatively about their students because I know that if the student continues to hear something about them, one day they will begin to see that comment or thought as true. While being at Nathan Hale, I have seen and heard things done by the teacher that I was not too happy with, but it has helped me think about my actions in the particular situation and plan for similar future encounters, going about addressing them in a God honoring way.

Levine and Levine provide an intermediate viewpoint, in midst the revisionist view and the traditional view that realizes that not all “low” students fail, and not all “high” students have success. However, many kids tend to “freeze” at their parents status because they might not know any other way or have the resources to get out more. Schools do not continue the existing social-class structure into the next generation, nor do they provide sufficient opportunity to break the general pattern in which many working-class students perform at a low level. As stated in chapter 11, “social and demographic trends have also concentrated many children in low-income urban and rural communities in schools extremely low on achievement measures” (350).  Some students are placed in schools that reinforce their disadvantages through ineffective instruction, and other students attend schools with “teaching and learning conditions more conductive to high performance” (350).

There is such a high focus on standards and improvement of the instruction in education. In the blog on edweek.org talking about closing the poverty gap, the author realizes the importance helping those students stuck at a lower socioeconomic level. I think the ideas behind the blog noted the ideas in the intermediate view in the sense that not all “low” students fail and not all “high” students experience success. Reville states that, “we must create a healthy platform in the lives of all our children if we expect them to show the learning gains expected to result from optimized instructional strategies.” There need to be strategies with measurable outcomes to guarantee success in the schools. Some of the strategies might include transforming the lower performing schools and looking at their teachers and administrators.

The biggest thing for me to remember is to push kids toward success no matter what. I find that while looking at the Christian worldview, God wants us to love everyone and He created everyone in His image and loves all of us. With the organization “By the Hand” they take the students struggling in areas at their school and they offer them an afterschool program with many benefits. They offer students a meal, and help them grow in their faith with God and tutor them in the areas in school they need help with. The organization has had a lot of success stories coming out of their program and I think they do a great job helping the students see something greater for their lives. A lot of the students in this program seem to gain the right mindset that they can do something greater than their parents or siblings and they refuse to be frozen on the socioeconomic status that their parents are at. I think that this organization is a great thing for these students and if they really commit to what the program is offering, it could change their lives forever.