Everyone who grew up in America should be culturally literate and given the chance to succeed in this country. That however is not always the case and if you come from an ethnic background the odds are usually stacked against you. Society of this nature is wrong, but this is the sad truth how our culture operates. A person from a lower socioeconomic status is going to have to work harder to overcome obstacles set in place by our society to become culturally literate. This type of segregation is harmful for our progress to become a unified country where everyone truly has an equal chance of succeeding.
In “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class” an autobiographical account of bell hooks experiences at college. She had to overcome the issue of her race and the fact that she came from a lower social economic class. Both of these components made her feel out of place at college and she found it very difficult trying to belong there.
Bell hooks first went to a nearby all girls college that had mostly all white students. She made a friend, but her friend envied the high class girls. Bell hooks desired nothing that they had while her friend did. Most girls tried to blend in by using their beauty or style, but bell hooks being black, got automatically placed as an outcast by her peers.
After her first year, her English professor suggested that she go to Stanford University. Hook’s mother told her that the desire of going to Stanford did not fit within the family’s constricted budget. Attending Stanford would be impossible her mother told her.
Hooks succeeded getting to Stanford, once there she thought she could learn about class because the college was founded to teach of people of equal calss. However it did not turn out that way, hooks had black professors. She found them elitist and who only cared about teaching to other elites. Since hooks came from a poor family and had no class from her background she fell into the shadows.
Bell hooks came to realize that there was no place for low class folks in the academic world. They could join it, but would have to leave their past behind to succeed. The students who did not forget, did not last in college. Hooks made it because she was taught that hard work, honesty and respect for everyone no matter your class was the most important value to have. She graduated with her class intact.
Growing up in central Kansas, I did not experience much cultural diversity. Coming from a white middle class family and going to a small rural school with very few minorities there was little cultural difference in my life. The public education gave me a good education and I was sent on my way to follow my life-long dreams. Never having to overcome the challenge of being different or coming from a poor family, I had it easy. Connecting with others who had a hard life is challenging for me, but I do not see why anybody should receive a different education just based on where they came from or are who they are.
“Preparing Minds for Markets” by Jonathan Kozol writes about the public education systems in urban school in America. Kozol is a Harvard graduate in English literature and a former teacher. He writes about how education has shifted to preparing students to enter the work force right after school. Not all students get the choice to pursue a college education. Schools with a curriculum that is job orientated have a large ethic majority of students. Students who get taught this way, do they end up getting trapped into lower paying jobs?
Job focused education is starting in the kindergarten classroom where the students are asked what kind of a manager’s job they want. Kozol is taken back in the fact that there are not options for choosing a job of a teacher or an engineer’s job. The principal at this school wanted the children to understand that they could become mangers in this country no matter what they have done, as long as they work hard to get to their goals. That meant even if they had a felony they could overcome that obstacle.
The students are sometimes mentioned as products and the work skills they have learned. Kozol wonders if students should be viewed this way and worries that some students would be viewed as a bad investments. The schools in poor neighbor hoods usually settle for a different set of goals than schools have children from middle-class families. These curriculums are sometimes swayed by local corporations to adapt the curriculum to their needs. There are schools with posters from corporations covering the walls.
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