Get Schooled

By SET

April 5, 2006 04:35 PM | Link to this

Nice colection.

Remember the Harry Potter series. Watch how the classrooms are run and notice how little concern is shown for “self esteem” and student comfort.

Reminds me of Catholic grade school in the ’60s. Especially when the teacher smacks the kids in the heads without missing a beat of his lecture when they are noticed to be talking during class (In the last movie).

By Guy Fandango

April 6, 2006 10:36 AM | Link to this

Upcoming movie this month. Akeelah and The Bee. I saw a preview screening last month. The wrtier/director was inspired by his high shcool English teacher. Great movie, excellent story about the role community and family can play in education.

By SET

April 6, 2006 11:17 AM | Link to this

I probably will see Akeelah and the Bee, but I’m sure that movie will not show the estrangement the black child experiences as she advances. Hollywood would hide that. Black women who want to stay in a black society have problems the further they go academically because of the imbalance male vs female at the higher levels. Now that’s a story.

Moreover even at the secondary levels the higher the academic levels you work in the less-black the classroom gets. If the child is not prepared for this you have a serious problem on your hands. Males and Females are affected differently. The problem is more pronounced if you are in a state without a large base of professional blacks.

I know I’m injecting a racial component into the thread but it’s a race movie. I have a problem with race movies that don’t cover the subject - just sugarcoat the issues and make the viewer think it’s all a piece of cake. The movie probably portrays the child just struggling with vocabulary flashcards and not getting beaten and cursed constantly for “acting white”.

The fact that Akeelah would win the Spelling Competition reflects two victories, the vocabulary skills and the new-found ability to leave her “peers” behind and assume new peers (her opponents in the Spelling Bees). And that second feat is very hard for any child to do emotionally. And once she changes peer groups there is no going back.

By Nikole

April 6, 2006 12:59 PM | Link to this

SET- I think you are a little too far removed from the minds of America’s black youth. The research on “acting white” occured a long time ago, and the present situation is that kids are not hearing the “acting white” much anymore. I never heard it growing up ( I was in gifted classes, with few blacks, but they were still my peer group at home) and don’t see that in black schools I have observed in the past few years. More recent research actually dispels that “acting white” myth. I am not seeing that it does not happen, but it is the exception, rather than the rule of being black in schools today. (I assume you think it happens a lot because you have mentioned it several times.)

By Leia

April 6, 2006 01:32 PM | Link to this

Nikole, you’re right about SET. It is apparent that she carries some heavy baggage from her childhood.

I too, was deemed gifted at an early age and put with a different group of kids. But, I also played sports, so I had an athletic peer group. I also attended church, so I had a spiritual peer group. My point is - I didn’t think anything of being Black and gifted. Did I get the “acting White” statement - yes. Did I let it ruin my life - no! My children don’t let it bother them either. They realize that they might get this comment from some kids (Black and not), but, they won’t let it bother them at all.

One shouldn’t segregate themselves from the “peons” because they think they are better than them. Look who Jesus hung out with - prostitutes and tax collectors!

By AJ

April 6, 2006 02:04 PM | Link to this

Louanne Johnson wrote the book “My Posse Don’t Do Homework.” It was the basis for “Dangerous Minds”

By MrLiberty

April 6, 2006 02:14 PM | Link to this

Here’s another list of books on education. Rather than just being about education, they tell the real story and the history of how we ended up in this mess. Also included are some great books on homeschooling for those finally considering the wise change. Enjoy the read.

Dumbing Us Down : The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

The Exhausted School: Bending the Bars of Traditional Education

A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling

The Exhausted School: The First National Grassroots Speakout on the Right to School Choice

All by John Taylor Gatto, Teacher of the Year several years running in both New York City and state.

Separating School and State: How to Libertate America’s Families by Sheldon Richman

Education: Free & Compulsory by Murray Rothbard

The Twelve-Year Sentence: Radical Views on Compulsory Education by David Boaz

Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why America’s Children Feel Good About Themselves but Can’t Read, Write, or Add by Charles J. Sykes

The Feel-Good Curriculum: The Dumbing-Down of America’s Kids in the Name of Self-Esteem by Maureen Stout, PhD

The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America: A Chronological Paper Trail by Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt

Public Education: An Autopsy by Myron Lieberman

The Worm in the Apple : How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education by Peter Brimelow

So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling: Fifteen Families Show How You Can Do It by Lisa Whelchel

Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling by John Holt

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn

Guerrilla Learning: How to Give Your Kids a Real Education With or Without School by Grace Llewellyn, Amy Silver

The Complete Home Learning Source Book : The Essential Resource Guide for Homeschoolers, Parents, and Educators Covering Every Subject from Arithmetic to Zoology — by Rebecca Rupp

By Manny

April 6, 2006 02:51 PM | Link to this

*So You’re Thinking About Homeschooling: Fifteen Families Show How You Can Do It by Lisa Whelchel *

Like I would take advise from Blair from The Facts of Life!! Thanks for the laugh MrLiberty!

By SET

April 6, 2006 03:09 PM | Link to this

I hope I’m wrong about that acting white problem. I doubt it. John McWhorter at UC Berkeley has written about his experience with black students there (“Losing the Race” is the name of the book I think) - I went there for the 1st half of my undergraduate degree. Both his book and others as well as what I’ve heard from younger blacks (even my relatives) make it clear to me that this syndrome is a major problem as black students attempt to compete with mainstream students.

Of Course if there is a large enough cohort of academically competitive blacks in one place the syndrome might not apply. Morehouse and Spellman, for example. Maybe at your school?

There are books and movies that deal with Minority Academic struggles. My concern was that the struggle not be sugarcoated. Forewarned is forearmed.

And, Leia:

Thanks for the comment but to correct your observation: I didn’t have the problem because I went to nearly all white schools in California in the ‘60’s. My issues was dealing with the reaction of the whites when I beat them academically. That took some getting used to on the their part. We had very few Asians where I was. My parents moved out of black neighborhoods as soon as the open housing laws went into effect in the early ’60s. So did all their friends. Everybody scattered over a huge area so that the kids wound up in schools without children from the other black families. Yet we still socialized through Jack and Jill and other means.

My cohort had few blacks in our classes. We were “firsts”. But then that was California then. My older family and friends had to fight one way or another every day. My problems were less physical fighting than theirs. Then next half generation had competition from other minorities that began to get active. My younger cousins (10 years younger) who did well academically had Asian students breathing down their necks all their school careers.

And I have done public school speaking on career days, etc. I notice that even in majority black schools it’s mostly the non-black students who chose to go to the classrooms where the professions are discussed. And then the blacks in the room are almost all female not male. But then so are the teachers.

By jim d

April 6, 2006 03:18 PM | Link to this

Tell the kiddies to get this one before its banned.

America 2014 An Orwillian Tale by Dawn Blair

By Leia

April 6, 2006 03:27 PM | Link to this

SET - it sounds as though we had similar childhoods - you in CA and me in NY. Trust me, I do understand everything you are saying! I didn’t go for the whole Jack and Jill thing because those kids were snooty! I was the “first” at many things too! I was the little Black girl who actually won a local spelling bee and overheard an administrator say, “How did the little n* win?!” Hopefully, my daughters won’t have to deal with situations like that.

By MrLiberty

April 6, 2006 04:12 PM | Link to this

Manny,

TV versus reality. There is a difference.

If you don’t want to read her book than read the others. Maybe you will learn something.

This list was meant to show a sampling of the “other side,” not to amuse, but your comments have certainly given me a good laugh.

By Laura

April 6, 2006 04:31 PM | Link to this

Nothing written by Jonathan Kozol? I think all parents should read at least one book of his (e.g. Savage Inequalities)

By SET

April 6, 2006 04:51 PM | Link to this

Leia: the interesting thing is what you overheard as a child - and all the things that I ran into as a child - actually helped people like us make it as we got further into professions.

The minorities of all stripes who were protected and coddled burned out fast when sent out into the cold hard world - at least in law school and the legal profession.

I learned how vicious competition was as a little kid. I wasn’t surprised at what people are capable of later in life.

Every cousin of mine has their own horror stories about grade school, high school, college and professional life. The common theme is that we weren’t supposed to be or have or win something because they we are supposed to be weak or incompetent.

So you have to be better and tougher than everybody else, at least in your sub specialty. So we should be grateful for all the people who tried to block our way in the past. Walking over them was great training. All my cousins, especially the women, tend to be real tough people (ask their kids).

Jack and Jill was sort of boring at age 10 but when I see these people now, it’s old home week. We all scattered all over the state and the USA but we still have that history.

But it’s a problem when I walk into a public school on career day and try to talk to the minority kids because the world I grew up in is gone. This new world has a higher mortality rate for some people. And I got through private college and state law school with $8500 in student loans total. The economics of growing up and entering a profession has radically changed.

Then you go read “Losing The Race”. So I advocate tough love and lots of it.

By Lee

April 7, 2006 09:39 AM | Link to this

This newspaper article should be required reading for every parent who sends their kid to public school…

[http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060403/NEWS01/604030389/1002/OPINION]

In summary, an Indiana 8th grade Honors Student gets out of van and is entering school. Puts his hand in his coat pocket and discovers that he had his Swiss Army Knife (a multi-purpose tool with a very small blade) with him. He goes straight to the office and turns it in. The stupid, moronic, head up his a$$ principal suspends student for 10 days and recommends expulsion.

Student does what he is supposed to do and gets punished.

For you teachers who have asked about the us vs. them attitude between schools and parents, Now do you understand?

By meme

April 10, 2006 09:58 AM | Link to this

Was it a teacher who suspended him or an administrator? This attitude is another reason that it is us vs them.