As far back as Alejandra Franco can remember, the frames hanging in the hallway of her family’s Coachella Valley home were always empty. The unfilled wall décor did not represent a home devoid of memories or a showcase for an unorthodox interior decorating theme. Instead, they were an intentional symbol of an unspoken expectation of the future for Alejandra and her three younger siblings.
With only a grade school education, Ana and Marcelino Franco came to America penniless and told their kids that their only job was “to obtain an education because it is the key to your future.”
In 2000, they put their mantra into action almost immediately by enrolling three-year-old Alejandra in the Head Start Program administered by the Riverside County Office of Education within the Coachella Valley Unified School District (CVUSD). After two years of preschool, Alejandra received a completion certificate that was immediately hung with pride in a picture frame inside the Franco family home.
Jim Greene, a veteran educator who was the Director of Children and Family Services for CVUSD, had suggested a tip to parents who wanted to establish education as a priority in their families that they could visually and nonverbally reinforce the importance of education simply by hanging empty picture frames in their homes to symbolize the expectation of forthcoming diplomas from junior high, high school, and college. As each of their children would reach graduation milestones, the framed diplomas
In his article “Against School”, John Taylor Gatto criticizes America’s system of schooling children, arguing that the whole system is bad and unfixable. In the majority of the essay Gatto relies on personal anecdotes, historical examples that do not correspond with modern day society, and bold unsubstantiated claims. Due to this, instead of convincing parents to take their children out of school and rethink our societies schooling structure, he just leaves the reader confused over what the problems he’s criticizing truly are.
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.
In the narrative called ‘Scholarship Boy’, by Richard Rodriguez. One can say that the biggest turning point is when Mr. Rodriguez himself realizes, at the age of thirty. The biggest attribute to his success and determination is schooling as a young boy. This is when Mr. Rodriguez had to live two separate lives. One as a young boy eager and willing to learn and develop, and another as a son and sibling to his family. At the age of thirty he finally is able to come to terms with this fact and be able to talk about in public and not have to keep it bottled up any longer. During this time in his life he is writing his dissertation and finds a written piece by Richard Hoggarts called, ‘The Scholarship Boy’. At this point in his life he sees that he is not alone with his life struggles. This was figuratively like lifting weights off of Mr. Rodriguez’s shoulders, you can see how while telling this part of the story stress is taken off of him. It is interesting to see that during the entire narrative Mr. Rodriguez seems unappreciative and ungrateful for the life his parents had given him. He is obviously resentful to the idea that his parents didn’t appreciate or value the idea of education, or at the very least learning the primary language of a country they moved to. Nothing in the story states that they were ignorant parents and didn’t know how to do simple math, the struggle that kept his parents from being able to give Mr. Rodriguez the attention and affection but most of all
In the 1997 article, “Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle over Educational Goals” by David Labaree, Labaree describes three goals that have been at the core of educational conflicts over the years. The first goal mentioned is democratic equality, which is meant to create good citizens and enable educational access to all. The second goal is social efficiency, which creates workers and is viewed by taxpayers and employers as a goal to prepare students for market roles. Lastly is the third goal of social mobility, where individual success for attractive market roles is the main purpose. This primary goal of education has been ever fluctuating. The argument of this essay is that social mobility has now triumphed over democratic equality and social efficiency as the primary goal of education due to parents. This view of social mobility by parents is negative to due its numerous consequences, significantly the growing disparity between the wealthy and the underprivileged, and additionally, the health of children, their behavior, and the degree to which they learn educational material are all affected.
As I come home one afternoon from school, I see my mother with her brows pressed firmly against each other. I cautiously approach her because I assume she’s upset. The closer I get, the easier I can analyze her face; she abruptly hands me a letter and commands me to read it for her. I read thoroughly and begin to translate the information from english to spanish. The letter came from the IRS; informing her about a balance due next week. She, with a softer look thanked me. Her frustrated attitude quickly disappeared. But, I ask myself today, what if I wasn’t there? What if my mother would 've just put the letter aside due to her incapacity to understand, consequently missing the due date? The author of “Illiterate America”, Jonathan Kozol expresses his concern on the issue of illiteracy in America. Although his book was published in 1985, illiteracy and the examples Kozol provided in his writing remains relevant to the world we live in today. Kozol’s purpose in writing this book was to bring awareness and expose the flaws America purposely overlooks. In efforts to bring his readers out of their “comfort zones”, Kozol successfully uses the strategies of allusion, analogy, and anecdote.
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.
For middle and lower class citizens educations seems like the primary way to succeed in life. Personally believe that my last statement is true. Richard Rodriguez also believed that and wrote about his experience with education. In his essay “The Achievement of Desire” he discusses things such as;How his parents are Mexican immigrants, barely speak English, and had little to no education. His essay hit home for me because I have experienced similar things in my life but not exactly the same. He also talks about how he felt that the only way of leaving behind the image of being uneducated and at the bottom of the ladder is to educate himself. So that’s what he did. Unfortunately during his educational years he forgot where he came from and abandoned his family and culture. He also discusses Hoggart’s essay “the use of Literacy” and his educational figure who is snobby know as the “scholarship boy”. Even though Rodriguez agreed and seen himself as this “scholarship boy” he knew that he wasn’t a perfect example of it. “The scholarship boy’s parents are poor and are uneducated as are my own”(341) he says but there is a difference him and the perfect scholarship boy. He noticed that he had pushed away his family but the scholarship boy is too blind to see that and only wants to succeed in life. You see myself in Rodriguez but I hope to stop the dissociation from my family and culture before it’s too late.
Education has been the subject of some of the most heated discussions in American history. It is a key point in political platforms. It has been subject to countless attempts at reform, most recently No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Ardent supporters of institutional schools say that schools provide access to quality education that will allow the youth of our country to gain necessary skills to succeed in life. Critics take a far more cynical view. The book Rereading America poses the question, “Does education empower us? Or does it stifle personal growth by squeezing us into prefabricated cultural molds?” The authors of this question miss a key distinction between education and schooling that leaves the answer far from clear-cut. While education empowers, the one-size-fits-all compulsory delivery system is stifling personal growth by squeezing us into prefabricated cultural molds.
The period that Karla is living is a time where education is stressed highly among society, but her parent do not see it “Yet with ill-designed educational policies, these same institutions can reproduce social inequality across immigrant generations, perpetuating stark social stratification and societal inequities” (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; MacLeod, 1995). Even though her parents do not see it, she wants to obtain an education to help escalate her family into a better environment. Important timing issues for Karla are that she is in the era of change and opportunities for minorities.” One of the most vivid portraits of late-nineteenth-century America is that of people in search of more abundant life” (Elder, 1994, p.102). According to American Council on Education from 1987 the enrollment rate of female Hispanics was only 16.6 percent and in 2007 it has grown to 32.7 almost doubling in a decade (Ryu, 2009). So she is a living in time where she can succeed in education if she wishes
As of 2010, 70 million children remain uneducated in our modern world. In the 1900’s, conditions were worse, and often times kids were forced to quit school early to work and provide for their family. Women also have it harder as they faced gender inequality throughout their lives. On average, mothers spend more than twice the amount of hours taking care of their children than the father. In the realistic fiction novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, education and gender inequality were obstacles that hinder the Nolan family from achieving the American Dream.
“Education leads to a brighter future.” Quite a clichéd phrase, actually. So popular, that people tend to forget the true significance of it. It is known that Latin America faces numerous problems that makes looking into the future a discouraging view; but we fail to realize the lack of education may be the root of these issues, including violence, unemployment and poverty. Even though education is widely available in Latin America, people are not yet engrained with the idea that education can be a facilitator for a superior life. Economic issues that stem from unemployment and poverty have led to the notion that education is wasted time that could be better spent
While it is not until his final chapter “Young People: Improving the Odds” that we read Edelman’s thoughts on American education at length, I argue that the theme of education is one that motivates Edelman’s writing.
Imagine flipping hamburgers at your favorite fast food restaurant for a living. Without an education this is a real possibility. With the high demand for jobs and great expenses for survival, a person must have a chance at a good education. A common question is, does education differ around the world? The answer is “yes!” The Mexican educational system has struggled for many years with giving children a good education. The attitude toward education is, “ Those born to be poor needed no schooling for it was thought they would be better farmers if they didn’t know to much.” Although in recent years the influence of humanism has changed the focus of education. Curriculums were broadened to include history,
From an anthropological standpoint, houses and spaces in which we lead our everyday lives have become symbolic of our personal preferences and identities. Essentially, how we decorate our homes or how we design our blueprints can express a fair amount about who we are, either as individuals or groups; even something as simple as a white picket fence or an outside porch can speak volumes about the proclivities of a culture or family. Housing spaces can also mark spatial divisions in society, showing different levels of rank, status, or value among people, just by the mere size of a building. These same principles can be used relative to my dream home, using rooms, decorations, and design layout as an expression of who I am as a person and my personal preferences.