preview

Linda Cliatt Wayman Is A Poverty Stricken And Crime Ridden North Philadelphia High School

Decent Essays

Linda Cliatt-Wayman is a school principal for Strawberry Mansion High School, a poverty stricken and crime ridden North Philadelphia high school. This year, I watched her Ted Talk as she explained how she reformed this low-performing school and tackled problems from garbage issues to funding for more teachers. She said, “We have to make sure that every school that serves children in poverty is a real school…that provides them with knowledge and mental training to navigate the world around them.” She imposed a “non negotiable” rule, which is a behavior based program that gave students more responsibility. It was proven to be effective when the high school was taken out of the “low performing and persistently dangerous” list after five …show more content…

I had the opportunity to experience a challenging and at times tumultuous education system in Quezon City, an overpopulated city in the Philippines. Being poor placed constraints in both the students who wanted to pursue a proper education and on the academic institutions that provided them. Public school classrooms were overcrowded and dropout rates were at an all time high. Poverty stricken children were unable to afford schools that had an advanced curriculum and properly trained educators. Most students completed their academic career in high school and ended up in local call centers earning minimum wage. Eventually, they will have families they can barely support and send to school. It became a never-ending cycle with no one to lead them to a brighter future. This experience stayed and inspired me. My academic career at Saint Peter’s University provided me with the understanding in behavior modification, cognitive and personality development, economic disparities in urban communities, and cultural discrepancies. I found that these are interacting variables in academic and personal achievement. During my junior year, I had the opportunity to create an independent research project and presented it at the Eastern Psychological Association Conference with Dr. Maryellen Hamilton. The multiple socio-cultural environment of my school inspired me to investigate the linguistic factor of learning in an urban school. From my

Get Access