Beth Johnson’s “The Professor is a Dropout” recounts the story of Guadalupe Quintanilla, a Mexican-American immigrant who moved to America with her grandparents at the age of 12. There she was enrolled in school where she had to take an IQ test that was entirely in English. Not knowing the language, she did poorly. She was labeled ‘Retarded’ and put into the first grade, forced to learn with children half her age. After a humiliating incident involving her being scolded for speaking in her native language, Lupe dropped out of school and instead helped out her Grandparents around the house, continuing to read and learn in Spanish at home. At 16, she married, and in five years’ time had three children. When her children started school they …show more content…
She knew this couldn’t be true considering they learned fine when taught in Spanish at home. This caused her to confront the school, where she was told they couldn’t learn in English. That pushed her into finding way to learn English for the sake of her children’s futures. Despite being faced with much resistance, Lupe was able to enroll in college courses while also tending to her family at home. Though it originally was difficult, Lupe went on to earn her associates degree at Texas Southmost College, her junior-college and bachelor’s degree in biology at Pan American University, and at the University of Houston she got her master’s degree in Spanish Literature. After graduating, she also became the director of the Mexican-American studies program, and through that she earned her doctoral degree in education. Like Lupe, I also struggled with starting my education, in my case, over anxiety about …show more content…
Being homeschooled my whole life, my schooling was almost completely self-paced and taught, my classmates were my siblings and my teacher was my mother. That was the only teaching environment I knew and was comfortable with. Some of my older siblings went on to attend public school, but if I was ever asked if I wanted to go I always turned it down. Not only did things like waking up early every day and having deadlines for homework sound a bit horrifying to me, but as a shy kid I was uncomfortable with the thought of interacting with other students and teachers. I had similar worries when it came to attending college too. Even when homeschooling allowed me to graduate early, I still held it off as long as I could. I wanted to go to school and didn’t want to take all online classes, but I was afraid of actually going through with it.
Once I took the dive and actually enrolled, I knew I had to start trying to diminish these anxious thoughts instead succumbing to them. What helped calm me was counteracting my thoughts about everything I was worried about with things I was actually excited about. It was a new experience for me, and I genuinely wanted to continue my education further. Even some of the classes I was going to take sounded fun. Thinking of things like that helped me look forward to it instead of dreading
In Subtractive Schooling: US-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring, Angela Valenzuela investigates immigrant and Mexican American experiences in education. Valenzuela mentions differences in high schools between U.S born youth and immigrants such as how immigrants she interviewed seemed to achieve in school as they feel privileged to achieve secondary education. However, she found that her study provided evidence of student failure due to schools subtracting resources from these youths. Both are plagued by stereotypes of lacking intellectual and linguistic traits along with the fear of losing their culture. As a Mexican American with many family members who immigrated to the U.S to pursue a higher education, I have experience with Valenzuela’s
Richard Rodriguez' narrative, “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” and Carmen Tafolla's poem, “In Memory of Richi” have similar themes. In Rodriguez' narrative, he talks about his experience attending an American school. Similarly, Tafolla recites a story about a boy in an American school setting. Each story implies that students of another culture are subject to lose their cultural ties in order to fit in with the American society.
The authors mention Miguel Fernandez, a fresh graduate from a small high school who has had struggles that have affected his opportunities to go off to college. These struggles include financial hardships and also that Miguel “was undocumented and in the country illegally” (Noguera and Kundu par.8). Though Miguel
My object of study is Hispanic women experience inequality in education due to the social constructs of subordination of women and Hispanic culture. Historically women have been conditioned with a patriarchal system, which a woman’s domain should be at home, to be a homemaker. The ideology of inferiority can and will justify the deprivation of natural born rights. During the progressive area and women’s rights movement women wanted to be seen as people, they wanted to have rights to own property, negotiate wages, legal documents, access to birth control, and the right to vote, those women who had the voice to deal with these issues were white upper and middle class women. During this time Hispanic women, amongst other minorities, were fighting battles against racism, segregation, exploitation in the work force, access to a good education, and oppression through Hispanic culture. It is not just a struggle to be Hispanic overcoming the inequalities within the education system but to be a Hispanic women within the education system has greater disadvantages. This case study will investigate what forces contribute to the inequality within the education system for Hispanic women in the United States.
Students were grouped by IQ, those who had an above average or higher were helped to go to college and those who had a low IQ’s were not given the support or the push needed to get them into college. Educators allowed low education standards and refused to see students as equals. The advisors set students sights low for the future by encouraging how service jobs were a practical choice for us Mexicans. Cleaning houses were the normal thing to do for Mexican-American females. Students were tired of the inadequate staff and the staff's lack of concern for their students. The students sent out a survey among the other students to see if they were satisfied with what they were getting from their education. The result was that the schools and instructors were not meeting the needs of the students’ more so of the Chicano students.
Secondary education is a highly debated subject. Many critics of secondary education say that inner-city high schools and students are not receiving the same attention as students from non inner-city high schools. Two of the biggest concerns are the lack of school funding that inner-city high schools are receive and the low success rate in sending inner-city high schools graduates to college. Critics say that while inner-city high schools struggle to pay its teachers and educate its student’s non inner-city high schools don’t have to deal with the lack of school funding. Also students from non inner-city high school are not being given the opportunity to attend colleges once the students graduate. But opponents of these critics blame an entirely different issue; and that is illegal immigrant students over crowding and attending high school at the expense of taxpayers. It cost millions of dollars a year for illegal immigrant students to attend high school and this is the main reason why schools are experiencing budget problems. Teaching illegal immigrant students creates a difficult learning environment and that is why students in inner-city high schools are not moving on to a higher education. This paper will explore the controversy and issues of secondary education; it will expose the hidden truths and prove that illegal immigrants are taking a toll on the education system.
The “Negatively Bias” in chapter two increases immigrant students’ awareness of their negative cognitive problems in school. In some cases, immigrant students are feeling hopeless because the language used in class is not their first language. It is easier to think that their English level must not meet the standard. Haidt mentions that “nothing is miserable unless you think so.” (25) Immigrant students have already tended to put their academic progress as a dead end.
1. According to Pizarro, “Chicanas and Chicanos face the highest dropout rates of any major ethnic group in the United States- as many as half of a given cohort of Chicana and Chicano students does not complete high school- and their relative educational outcomes have been stable or have worsened over time.” (Pizarro, 1).
“During the summer, between my sophomore and junior years in high school, I went, along with some other classmates, to Monterey, Mexico, for an intensive summer- term session in Spanish language and culture at the impressively named Instituto Technologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey- as we all quickly came to call it, Monterrey Tec”(Saks 18). Saks’ parents made sure that all their children would get all the education they need. Having parents that are both college educated, highly influenced the educational path that they took. She was sent to one of the most prestige schools and university. She sought treatment and help from the doctor to help her get through her illness.
She describes it as “subtractive schooling,” a process in which students are left vulnerable to academic failure due to structural forces that impose on their ethnic identities and cultural backgrounds. The author explains that immigrants go through a dis-identification process, which seeks to Americanize them inadvertently forces minority status upon them. The division comes when their own ethnic identity of what it means to be Mexican to them is compromised. A prime example of this the use of linguistics and cultural practices. In the subtractive schooling process, all things Mexican or tied to the students’ identity is purposely diluted as is the use of the Spanish language. The concept of Mexicanidad becomes blurry as many Mexican/Mexican-American’s consider speaking Spanish as synonymous to what being Mexican is. In the subtractive schooling process, students are expected to know and speak English fluency, on the other hand in order to be considered truly Mexican they must also speak Spanish fluently. Many 2nd generational immigrants don’t fair as well as 1st generation because of the lack of bilingualism and biculturalism, skills that make the 1st generation more successful than the
Latino immigrants in the U.S. tend to have the highest dropout rates within the school system. Though, the aggregate statistics goes beyond students’ poor performance, there are many factors that can influence students to make the choice to quit school; for this essay, I will use Critical Race Theory and labeling theory to help me deconstruct the reasons behind this phenomenon, using example 1 of section I.
Statistically speaking, the average family today has two working parents (“Two Working Parent”). This virtually rules out the idea of homeschooling altogether, but can also reduce parental involvement in the public schooled child’s school and personal life. Most parents do not get off work until after the student has already returned from a public school, and has been home alone for hours. A few try to offer their assistance on homework and question the events of the day, however others either do not ask, or simply get little to no information from a student who desires to keep school separate from home. However, trying to separate the home from homeschooling is much more difficult. Although not required, in most cases, one or both parents will be the teacher of a subject. In the past, my mom taught me and my brother our math and science, while our “principle,” more commonly known as dad, would deliver the current events - with his commentary - over dinner that evening. Although family bonding is important, too much time together is potentially poisonous. I would mostly handle my schoolwork alone in my room, so I never felt like I spent too much time with my mom. However, almost all of my non-homeschooled friends have expressed how they would never be able to handle their parents all day, every day. Speaking on behalf of their parents, I am sure that feeling is mutual. When it becomes time to apply for colleges, public school counselors guide the students step by step through the process and have official transcripts to send in. For homeschoolers, however, the process is different and much more complicated. The parents are the counselors, and they write the transcript for their child to send to the colleges. Parents are also in charge of signing up their students for the proper testing and knowing the application process. Overall, family is the power source of a
Homeschooled children’s personal education doesn’t get overlooked. According to “homeschooling vs. public schooling: making the right choice” in the Huffington Post, Marion Lewis states, that public schools focus on teaching the average student; which means any student above or below average doesn’t get what he/she needs. With so many students it’s no wonder many students are getting overlooked. Marion states that class sizes are too big, with class ratios being anywhere from one teacher with twenty students to a whopping thirty students to one teacher. Homeschooling helps fix this problem by having individualized education for each student. With homeschooling, the parent has the opportunity to pick out of the many curriculum options the right one to teach their child the way best suited for them. Marion also mentions how one on one teaching helps the parent (in this case the teacher) find and target the students weaknesses to help focus on fixing those weaknesses.
The biggest negative factor is the little experience with the world outside of the home. Homeschooling can sometimes make it harder to deal with the outside world when one goes off to college. People who are homeschooled do not get to experience the diversity of the world and are thrown into it all at once. (Meyers et al., p. 30-31).
Human beings are basically lethargic by nature. They need some kind of motivation or routine to stay active. This applies in the case of children as well. (Clark, Charles S) A lot of attention and are is required by the children, especially the young children, to make them stick to the active routine. This is especially challenging for the stay at homes. It is difficult beyond their imagination to manage this thing. However, on the other end schools can easily manage this. They have certain time period for each of the subjects. Their timings are defined beforehand so the students know they have to get up at this time and come back at the particular time. This entire pre-defined schedule makes the routine of the children in a flow making their minds active. Homeschooling offers no such extracurricular activities which can beneficial for the socialcharacters of the children. In homeschooling they have the same home routine with the same people and same playing environment. (Hill, Paul T.) However, in comparison schools have so much more to offer. Many public schools offer sports and elective options like art and music – these programs are hardly available to homeschool students. Also, the availability of these programs makes the children develop skills and they become confident enough to embrace anykind of change they are going to adopt in their life. Interacting with different people makes their ability to interact better with the passage of time. Children while studying in the schools get to know what it is actually to be like independent. Homeschooling makes them independent at certain extent. Somehow they are dependent on their parents on many things but in schools they have to manage their classes, their schedule, their lunch routine and their bus route every