Oppression In Classroom

In the article “Fremont high school”, Jonathan Kozol describes how the inability to provide the needed funding and address the necessities of minority children is preventing students from functioning properly at school. He talks to Meriya, a student who expresses her disgust on the unequal consideration given to urban and suburban schools. She and her classmates undergo physical and personal embarrassments. Kozol states that the average ninth grade student reads at fourth or fifth grade level while a third read at third grade level or below. Although academic problems are the main factor for low grades, students deal with other factors every day. For example, School bathrooms are unsanitary, air condition does not work, classrooms have limited

Students that live in a poor community often lack a good education because the community does not have the resources to allow the students to continue a good education. Students that are marginalized often lack the opportunity to a higher education because they are constantly being underestimated and not given the resources they need in order to be successful. In the article “Still Separate, Still Unequal; America’s Educational Apartheid” by Jonathan Kozol demonstrated the way schools in InterCitys are being forced to used methods that are nowhere helpful for students to be able to learn. Students are given many instructions to follow, but often lack the actual education they deserve. In addition, in the podcast “The Problem

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

Chapter 2 of Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed discusses a failed teaching method between the student and teacher. It’s a common mistake for teachers to treat the teaching process as a “banking concept”. Freire discusses how this concept takes away creativity from students by forcing them to memorize facts as the teacher “deposits” them into their minds. It’s not expected of the student to comprehend what they’re learning. It’s expected of them to take what the teacher is saying as fact without critically thinking about the meaning behind it. Freire explains,

A school setting provides opportunities where issues of social justice, oppression, and discrimination can be addressed. According to Bemak and Chung (2009), students of color and economically disadvantaged students are likely to have low academic achievement, in comparison to their White middle class counterparts. These disparities in academic

Teacher bias towards impoverished individuals could also factor heavily on the academic performances of a child. Disadvantaged students are seen as being " discriminated against by teachers" (Dotts, 53).

Anyon chose five classrooms from five different schools in New Jersey and studied them for over a year. She spoke to students, principals, teachers, administrators and wrote down her findings, also collecting evidence from the individual curriculums. When Anyon finished her assessment, she came up with the following. The first two schools are what we would call “lower class,” because the parents of these students were below minimum wage earners and laborers. These

Unfortunately, the school's lack of appropriate education results directly from poor government funding. So even with hard work, the lower-class student is still held down by his socio-economic status. Poverty-stricken parents are unable to offer their children the same attention and motivation as parents of a higher-class can, therefore never providing these children with the mindset that they are able to accomplish the American dream. According to Mantsios, 40 million Americans live in poverty, and the mental and physical affects the low standard of living has on them is undeniable (Mantsios 328). Citizens who live in poverty work long hours for little pay, yet return to a household that in no way symbolizes the hard work put forth. Within this environment, very few people have the positive outlook to mentor children successfully.

In a study conducted Rosenthal and Jacobson they examined the exceptions of teachers from their students and self-fulling prophecy. They believe the central problem of so many kids failing school is because of kids with disadvantages. They are lower class children who live in poverty and being taught by middle class teachers. They are the Mexican American, Puerto Ricans and African Americans. These teachers are white females who are middle class and teaching the “disadvantage” which leads to the teacher expectations for them to fail. (Apa)

2. When a student attend an underfunded school, they receive a negative outlook to learning. Students will be exposed to schools that predominantly have white students, schools that have more funding, better facilities, and better teachers. This makes Black and Latinos feel like they are not as important as the white students. This feeling of unimportance displayed in these lower income schools teaches the students that they are not as important because of their race and class.

Delpit rejects the recommendation that poor execution is a characteristic of one's way of life. “It is critical that we figure out the difference between culture and a response to oppression,” she argues that if we as educators credit students negative practices and tendencies then we enable their ways of life to the mental and passionate strain the idea between race and culture. Delpit believes African American students should be held under the same expectations as other students for achievement to occur.

A recent analysis was released based on 13 southern states where suspensions and expulsion rates are overwhelmingly higher for black students than they are of white students. The director of the Council of state Governments Justice Center, a nonprofit policy group, stated that “blacks are more likely to be expelled in situations where teachers or school leaders have discretion on deterring how to resound to behavior, such as when a student is deemed disrespectful or defiant or violates a dress code.” Educators are prepared for educating students but are not prepared to deal with personalities that they don’t understand. “People are doing their jobs or living their lives, and do not understand themselves as agents of oppression.”(Young pg.42) Studies have shown that students who are expelled or suspended are more likely to get into trouble and end up with criminal backgrounds, than students who are not removed from school. (New York Times)

As teachers, we operate in a world of assumptions about the communities that we work in, the students that we serve, and ourselves. Most of us live in a world where the assumptions remain a hidden subtext in our lives, as something that dictates how we interact with others but yet does not actually come to the surface. Because we are not critically aware of these forces, we assume that this is the way that things are supposed to be, never asking if this is working to oppress other people. Unfortunately, because teachers are not critically aware of the damages that these assumptions, in the form of biases and privilege, can cause to students, they allow a cycle of oppression to continue when do not fit into the ‘perfect student’ ideal. When

As someone who has attended public schools in low-income communities, it is now clear that there is an existence of militaristic approaches to the treatment of students. We are taught that we should be quiet at all times, to stand in line with our hands in our backs, speak when spoken to, and many more practices. By the time we would get to middle school, we knew how to behave and treat our teachers as the rulers of the classrooms and they would have no trouble with us because we had been conditioned to act a certain way. Having this approach prevents students from exploring their creativity or their own freedom. We, low-income individuals, do not think that we are being oppressed by individuals who look like us, but we are. The sense of oppression

Everyone knows about the various stereotypes and social stigmas that come with socioeconomic status whether they will choose to admit it or not. Society has come to assume that a child who comes from a family of low socioeconomic status, that they will not do as well as a child who comes from a family of a greater socioeconomic status. Unfortunately these assumptions are so ingrained in our brains that we start to follow the self-fulfilling prophecy. When a child from a noticeably low socioeconomic status walks into a classroom, it is not uncommon for the teacher to automatically assume that the child will not perform well in class, and in turn either grades the child more harshly or does not give the child as much attention as the