Learning from My Educational Experiences in Jamaica: Meaningful Learning takes Place in Motivated Children

My family immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s, as Hmong refugees after the secret war with the Pathet Laos. My family originally settled in San Diego, California for several years before they decided to move to Fresno, California. When my parents came to Fresno they were receiving welfare and attending adult school. My father noticed that their friends and relatives were earning more money working in the fields than going to school. My parents dropped out of adult school and started farming to support themselves and my five siblings. My parents felt they couldn’t stop farming because this was now their only way of earning an income to support the family. Growing up, my parents would emphasize the importance of school and getting a bachelor degree.

Education, or the lack thereof, has always been something that plagued my immediate family. I come from a background of immigrant parents—hard-working, yet unable to acquire academic achievements. My father did not graduate out of high school in Vietnam because he was drafted into the Vietnam War and escaped as a refugee thereafter. My mother, on the other hand, graduated from high school but was not able to pursue higher education due to the burdens she had working and raising me as a child.

The educator and learner are both vital to the learning process in order to perform new ways that enable them to see the real world as their field of experience

The educational system of the united states is not capitalizing on the full potential of its people. Jonathan Kozol in his article “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid”, discusses the drastic difference in the quality of education based on a family’s income. Kozol discusses how economic disparities usually coincide with race, but focuses on the economic gap of education. Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast “Carlos doesn’t remember”, gives a story and a personal touch, to the issues low income students face. Kozol writing and Gladwell’s podcast, both show that the quality of a child’s education is pure chance. A lottery of being born into a high or low income family dictates the outcome and capitalization of a child’s future.

Being born of 2 immigrant parents, who work menial jobs and have no education has always had its weight on me. Neither one of my parents are high school graduates and no one in my family has obtained a collegiate education. I have been able to experience first hand how difficult a life with no education is. I recall other students sharing how their parents provided aid with their homework and read to them, knowing I did not get to experience that made me gloomy. I had no other choice but to learn everything on my own and then attempt to teach my parents. This peculiar lifestyle has pushed me harder in academics and has given me a genuine appreciation for the value of an education.

Throughout my life, education was a big part of it, and according to my mother, the thing I needed to focus on the most. Like my own mom, McBride’s mother “had no model for raising us other than the experience of her own Orthodox Jewish family, which despite the seeming flaws- an unbending nature, a stridency, a focus on money, a deep distrust of all outsiders, not to mention her father’s tyranny- represented the best and worst of the immigrant mentality: hard work, no nonsense, quest for excellence, distrust of authority figures, and a deep belief in God and education… believed that money without knowledge was worthless, that education tempered with religion was the way to climb out of

My parents grew up during the Vietnam war when being educated was a privilege. My mom drop out of the 9th grade to work for a small metal factory her family owned and my dad didn’t finish the 5th grade in order to help his family’s restaurant. Since I’m a first generation child to be born in America and to have a complete education,

“Something that I never had in life, something that you have but are taking for granted, I won't stand for it.” Game controller in hand, I gulped hard, with sweat rolling down my head. My eyes pointed directly downward, not daring to look up as my mother gave “the talk.” My mother’s words echo in my head. Having lost her father during high school, she was denied her right to higher education. She married at a young age, moved to America, and gave birth to me. The first born, the carrier of the American Dream. We were what one would expect from an immigrant Indian family; working hard, valuing education, and hoping for a better tomorrow. As my parents worked hard to sustain our family, I strived to excel in school, motivated by their hardship.

Growing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, I truly was not receiving a proper education and I knew that my education was the only way for a more successful future. When I was young, my mother read a book to me every day until I was old enough to read by myself. She would purchase English and I would read them to the best of my ability. This is how I began teaching myself English. I came to the United States at the age of five years old because of all the violence, and was able to because of my status as a Canadian citizen. The court assigned my aunt legal guardianship of me, the reason being that it was not a safe choice for me to go back to Haiti, I became active in the U.S and attended school. My mother always pushed me to be and do better, this is

In the summer of 2013, my mother told me that I would be moving to the United States, for reasons that she didn’t disclose to me. In the Dominican Republic, children are raised to never question the decisions of their elders, so I did as I was told. Later, I understood that my parents knew that it didn’t matter how hard I worked in school, we would never have enough connections or money to find me a good job or for me to assist to a good university in my country.

Specific Purpose: To tell a story about the my experience in the United States school system compare to the Jamaican school system.

For my classroom, I think that is it important to create student experiences because they may not be able to do so in their home life. So, being able to expose students to different situations in the classroom will prepare them for future situations that they may encounter. This can be associated to “project based learning” (McTighe & Wiggins, 2012, p.30). While reading this article, it shows me that curriculum is what drives instruction. It is those teachable moments for students to see in the classroom that allows them to understand a subject matter. Then, they are able to use that moment to guide them in every way they need in order to successfully complete a task on their

“We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. The teacher 's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.”

All students have a different learning style and can benefit from hands on or real life activities in the classroom.

Every young person should experience the world beyond the classroom as an essential part of learning and personal development, whatever their age, ability or circumstances.