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Social class and educational achievements
Effects of racism in schools
Social class and school success
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Dangerous Minds is an 1995 film that is based on the autobiography My Posse Don 't Do Homework by LouAnne Johnson. Ms. Johnson was once a U.S. Marine, who around the 1989 became a teacher in Carlmont High School in Belmont, California. She was very eager to teach, but was stunned by the quick response of an open position. However, she later found out the reason for the opening. On her first day she was greeted by disrespectful students who called her names and where in their own worlds, not paying attention to her. Most of her students were African Americans and Latinos who came from East Palo Alto; a city with racial segregated and high on poverty. Ms. Johnson later learned that with an attention grabbers and some patients her students are …show more content…
One of the components that consist of the student success includes their environment, in other words, the school itself. School is a place where the students spends most of their time, interacting with people and friends. As I recall, high school served as a second home for me, in which I felt very comfortable and safe in. Most of my days I was in school surrounded with friends and teachers that supported me, causing me to keep moving forward and succeed. In Dangerous MInds, the school was first shown with a positive appearance as its location seemed to be in a so to say “white” neighborhood; no grafitti, spacious residence zones, and people from high incomes who are able to afford houses and cars (2.25). Though that was just a facade; inside the school was not very appealing because of the way students behaved themselves, which mostly involved Ms. Johnson 's students. An example was when a student threatens Emilio to death because …show more content…
Hollywood inflated the audience 's view of the neighborhood as it was shown in black in white, focused on graffiti with sirens in the background, and even entered a drug deal happening in front of the students as they entered the bus. It can be speculated that the living conditions the students live in is what causes them to develop tough attitudes toward life which causes behavior problems. This idea is seen today as well; students are the creation of where they live around. From past experience, I observed that the students that misbehaved and act out were the ones that came from a broken home or live in a rough neighborhood. For example, when Ms. Johnson first entered the class every student was in their own world doing what they wanted to do. None of them payed any attention to Ms. Johnson, but the ones that did were disrespectful by calling her “white bread” (8.00-9.35). In the movie Freedom Writers, the same reactions to a new teacher was expressed by the students (10.15). In both cases the students where minority students that come from low-income families. In both of these movies most of the teacher in the school accepted the student 's misbehavior and did not want to teach them or have anything to do with them. In Dangerous Minds, the students were even referred to as the special kids by the vice principal and by Hal, a teacher
Too often, students are taught that their lives are defined by who they are and what they do, not by circumstances. But circumstances can be very crucial to determining how a person’s life is shaped. It’s no secret that not all schools and neighborhoods are created equal. Some schools offer advanced classes, and college prep, and opportunities, while some schools don’t even have textbooks. Even within the circumstances, there are circumstances. The students in the latter school that lacks textbooks may have parents who go the extra mile to ensure that they have more opportunities, or could have parents who don’t have the resources to do that. Environment and circumstance can make a huge difference, and Wes Moore’s The Other Wes Moore is a fantastic
My perception was changed completely after reading this book, I never knew that so many schools were situated in the ghettos and were so badly overcrowded or only had two toilets working for about 1000 students, and no toilet paper. What really upsets me is the fact that within the exact same city limits, there are schools situated in the suburbs which average 20 per classroom and have enough supplies and computers for every child to receive one as their own. Of course the majority of these suburban schools are dominantly white and the urban schools hold the minorities. The dropout rates that are listed in the book are ridiculous. Most of the children drop out in secondary school and never receive a proper education because of the lack of supplies or lack of teachers' interests. The majority of the kids are black or Hispanic in the poor schools and the suburban schools hold the upper-class white children and the occasional Asian or Japanese children who are in the gifted classes. The small population of blacks and Hispanics that go to the schools are placed into the "special" classrooms and their "mental retardations" can be blamed for their placements. The majority of these students are not mental and they belonged in a regular classroom among whites and Asians.
Lafeyette and Pharoah are faced with many hardships in their day to day activities. Their apartment, the once beautiful complex, now has broken appliances, poor plumbing, horrible security and from the basement come smells that one housing manager described as “foul odors” that “no equipment presently in use by staff could be used to withstand the odor beyond a minute” (p. 240). The boys wake up every morning in this horrible public housing that would most likely be condemned if it was located in any decent neighborhood. Lafeyette and Pharoah get ready for school, usually putting on clothes which have been washed the night before in the bath tub, and then leave for school. Pharoah, who loves school, is always in a hurry to get there, leaving the apartment before anyone else. School is the one place for Pharoah to stand out and get away from the neighborhood for a while. He even attended a summer school program that was supported by the University of Illinois. Lafeyette, on the other hand, isn’t into school very much; which explains why he has such a large number of tardies. Both boys are always careful as they walk through the streets to school to be alert for gunfire, they don’t want to die young like so many friends of theirs.
Otherwise, why now the parents spend a lot of money to send their children to a good school to study, because the school education environment to the children’s influence is very important. When Wes A moved to Bronx, his mother had made a decision to send her children to private school after her seeing how poor the public school system had become, so she worked multiple jobs to manage the cost and relied on her parents to take care the children before and after school while at work. “My mother decided soon after our move to the Bronx that I was not going to public school. She wasn’t a snob, she was scared.”(47) Because she knew, if the children are growth of a bad education environment, the children of the world to know nature will be distorted. Without a good education, there is also no habits; No good sense, and also there will be some bad behavior. Today, the rate of crime is high; almost all can find the root cause of their growth environment. Maybe the lack of discipline, discouraged by mistake friends or too much stress, but all shows the importance of good education environment for children to grow
“School can be a tremendously disorienting place… You’ll also be thrown in with all kind of kids from all kind of backgrounds, and that can be unsettling… You’ll see a handful of students far excel you in courses that sound exotic and that are only in the curriculum of the elite: French, physics, trigonometry. And all this is happening while you’re trying to shape an identity; your body is changing, and your emotions are running wild.” (Rose 28)
...lms these students get away with murder and still go on to college. This simply does not happen in real life; therefore, looking to Hollywood films for the true colors of schools is not in the best of interests. We have to realize that directors produce these films in their vision of American culture. We as Americans always look to the American Dream of sometime “making it.” The films neglect to see the loser’s point of view, meaning Hollywood films only look to a positive ending because it is in our nature to believe in the American Dream. This book allows our society to actually look past the films fantasies and observe the true inequalities in school. Although Hollywood films do correctly show how urban, suburban, and private students behave in schools, they do not show the true outcomes of real life.
For some students it is difficult to get a good education. These students live in a poor community and are required to go to schools that have a low graduation rate. These schools have a certain reputation such that other students refer to it as the “ghetto school”, “where the pregnant girls go”, and the “dropout factory”. This
Students encounter many complications during their school career. Some students are smart, but just don’t apply themselves, or have similar hardships that are going on in their lives. These can be fixed if one can find motivation and confidence. In the story “Zero,” Paul Logan coasts through high school and college. Logan doesn’t know the tools to succeed in school, which causes his grades to fall. In the story “The Jacket,” Gary Soto explains how the way one dresses can influences how they feel about themself. Which in this case he gets an ugly jacket; which causes him to be depressed and his grades to fall. Albeit Logan and Soto went through similar hardships, they both succeed with motivation and confidence.
Many fatal consequences, caused by illogical reactions to problematic situations, can be avoided through a few easy, simple and “common sense” steps. In the essay “Deadly Mind Traps” author Jeff Wise writes to the everyday man and woman. Mr. Wise in his essay explains how the average person can make deadly mistakes even though logically they make little sense. Wise, offers multiple key terms to help the reader better understand his reasoning for his thesis. As well as, Wise produces multiple examples for the reader to connect the key terms to real life situations. Moreover, Wise not only gives key terms and examples to support his thesis he also gives examples of how to stay out of those situations. Wise from his essay demonstrates that his reader is an everyday person by using words such as we, us, you and our. And he uses everyday simplified words and terms which suggest inclusion instead of exclusion.
At work, Joshua Boren was a well-respected law enforcement officer, often referred to as a big "teddy bear."
Everyday students attend school, but not every single student attends the same type of school nor do they receive the same type of education. This thought may be very concerning to some, but for others, this is all too much a reality. For example, some may ask how is it possible that students in public schools that are located within the same state somehow receive a different education; the answer is simple. The concept of quality is a factor that can hinder or facilitate anything, especially ones education. The difference between a public school education in a particular town compared to another is its demographic. Some students are fortunate enough to be afforded the opportunity to attend school systems that perform well, while others do not have the privilege to do the same. Something as simple as a couple of miles can be the difference, the difference that makes some feel entitled to certain things such as higher education while others can only hope to appreciate a secondary or trade school education. Therefore, education is not a right rather a privilege, and the level of quality is contingent upon the environment wherein the learning takes place. The immense importance of environment is self-evident in examples
One of these is normative social influences, this is “the influence others have on us because we want them to like us (King, 2013, p. 447). Andrew shows this when he talks about how he got in detention. Andrew states he bullied a kid, so the kid would think he was cool. You see that Andrew does this disgusting action to this kid so he could be seen as cool. Another social behavior that is seen in the film is the fundamental attribution error, which is observers overestimate the importance of the internal traits and underestimate the importance of external factors when explaining others behaviors. We see the fundamental attribution error a lot in this movie. First we see it with Brian, everyone sees him as smart. But when Brian explains that he failed shop class people were surprised; they never thought this kid would ever fail, since he is so smart. Another is with Bender, they see him as disrespectful and aggressive. What they do not know is, at home, he is being verbally and physically abused by his dad and has to defend himself. This can bring us to conformity, which is a change in a person’s behavior to get more closely with group standards. We see this with all five of the students. Let’s start with Andrew, he covers up his hatred for him father so he wouldn’t be seen as abnormal. Then you have Brian who talks about contemplating suicide for failing a class. He did not want to
Some school critics and statisticians have observed that drug-dealing, vandalism, robbery, and murder have replaced gum-chewing, “talking out of turn,” tardiness, and rudeness as the most chronic problems afflicting today’s schools. If the intent of this observation is to shock and rattle the public’s sensibilities, it’s working. Of course, some of us may interpret such suggestions as merely dark, stoic, and cynical—“scare” tactics quite in keeping with the current national mood about many social issues these days.
My eagerness to embrace life in high school squashed when I came face to face with extreme mean behavior at the hands of kids my own age. My grades started falling, from an honors student I had turned into someone who just hated school. From sulking, to rebelling to being remorseful, had become my permanent demeanor.
“We fight each other for territory; we kill each other over race, pride, and respect. We fight for what is ours. They think they’re winning by jumping me now, but soon they’re all going down, war has been declared.” Abuse, Pain, Violence, Racism and Hate fill the streets of Long Beach, California. Asians, Blacks, Whites and Hispanics filled Wilson High School; these students from different ethnic backgrounds faced gang problems from day to night. This movie contains five messages: people shouldn’t be judgmental because being open-minded allows people to know others, having compassion for a person can help people change their views in life, being a racist can only create hate, having the power of the human will/goodness to benefit humanity will cause a person to succeed at any cost and becoming educated helps bring out the intelligence of people.