I thought the article "Living Savage" gave great insight into the underpriveledged school systems of America. Large cities, such as Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, and others continue to be racially segregated, in not just neighborhoods, but obviously schools and important places. The article highlights the broken school systems of these large cities extremely well by describing the 5th graders situation. It's upsetting that elementary school kids have to fight for what should be rightfully theirs in the first place, which is a safe and sanitary environment to learn in. I think it's incredible that 5th graders are learning about their government and petitioning at such a young age. Their teacher gave them a wonderful opportunity to learn, achieve, and create change for themselves. The knowledge they will aquire will surely not go to waste.
On the other hand, I wonder what kind of education they have to sacrifice in order to fight for a better school. I wonder how much math and science they can learn with the remaining time, drive, and yearning for knowledge they have left over from their main goals. While their efforts for their school is applaudable, I hope they still have the opportunities to be like any other 5th grade student. I hope they are able to learn about multiplication, division, and about scientific things, like the ecosystems and what molecules are. At the same time, I wonder if they are able to learn mathematic and scientific concepts, how useful these concepts would be within their lives.
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It's great that you pointed out an issue that is sort of hiding "under covers" in this essay. I'm sure the 5th graders are learning an abundant amount -- more than they would have ever learned otherwise, due to the environment they live in daily. And one does have to wonder how (and hope that) they will be prepared to learn the basics of arithmetic and science if they aren't on any curriculum.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you have to remember that these students didn't have all of the opportunities we did in 5th grade. The standard curriculum wasn't working for these students. Had they been concentrated on learning the basic math skills, they would have been bored to death and probably given up. Truancy would have gone right back up. There's no doubt these concepts are useful within our lives, but they had to sacrifice some key concepts for a broader 'glimpse' of education. I hope they learn these skills in the near future also, but the most important key was to get these students excited about their schooling again, enough to get them to go to school and take in some type of knowledge important for their future.
The following link explains what a fifth grader is "supposed" to learn throughout the year. It's sort of like a loosely-knit curriculum. Look at some of the points in math: In this case, I'm sure most, if not all of these concepts were incorporated somehow, such as using a calculator and finding averages for the amounts of the city budget being allocated to the education system, or basic research skills needed for science.
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=2134
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/2000census-_Black_Residential_Segregation.JPG/410px-2000census-_Black_Residential_Segregation.JPG
ReplyDeletethe following link is a picture of a census for the year 2000 of Milwaukee, WI. The blue dots represent African American residents. As anyone can see, it shows why Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities year after year. It's a good thing that someone is trying to help the situation, even if it is a 5th grade teacher and his students
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ReplyDeleteI think that its a shame that the densely packed urban schools are the ones that are often filled with violence and don't have the curriculum to keep kids/teenagers interested in all that there is to learn. I find it sad that there is a general consensus among experts that urban schools just don't provide the right learning environment. In the link found below, the author states
ReplyDelete""There is less a feeling of alienation in small schools and more of a real community feel," says educator and author Michelle Fine. "The curriculum is radically reconfigured and small schools tend to have more student-inquiry, performance-based assessments and rigorous curricula.""
So is the only option to expand, that is, to build smaller institutions and disperse students accordingly? Because of the lack of tax money in these dense urban areas we know that there are slim possibilities of this, unless the tax money can be reallocated into the different districts.
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-2826426_ITM