Introduction:
When teaching any grade, it is imperative to know the students you are teaching and where they came from. What I enjoy most about teaching is finding out what motivates my students to learn; I find that once a student is motivated to learn, there is no stopping them. When teaching literacy to Spanish-speaking students, motivation plays a key factor to their academic success. As literacy specialists, we need to understand how important a student’s motivation can affect his or her learning capabilities.
Historical Overview:
Before the famous Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, Mexican American children were educated in schools and classrooms that were separate from classrooms that consisted of white children. By having separate classes, educational leaders believed that Mexican American students would have an increased in self-esteem compared to if they were mainstreamed in with the white students. Also, the Mexican American students would feel less pressure while going to school and would not have to be protected from taunts (Rodriguez,1999). The children participated in classes such as vocational training (cooking, hygiene, and mechanics), art instruction, Americanization classes, and English language instruction (Rodriguez,1999). They were given these classes because of the belief that Mexicans did not have the mental capacity for higher order thinking and that Mexicans were naturally artistic people (Rodriguez,1999).
Although there were great changes for minorities in 1954, there were still major issues within the school districts. Students that were being accepted into the once “all white” schools were feeling as if they were being pushed out. School officials recognized this as a problem but blamed ...
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Rodriguez, A.P. (1999). Latino Education, Latino Movement. Educational Theory, 49(3), 381-400. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.1999.00381.x
Waxman, H.C., Huang, S.L., & Padron, Y.N (1997). Motivation and learning environment differences between resilient and nonresilient Latino middle school students. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 19(2) 137-155. Retrieved from: http://buffalostate.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/link/0/eLvHCXMwTZ1BCoNADEWD9ASCrnuBATWZGWZdKj1APUASk2Xvv2wUob1ANj883l99gHtFauhtRqlkkslLkyXCZvfqfG6Q_YYm_mi-9tDZZ4Btfb4fr3SNASSNVoLJNBDhZhK-IlwljhrT4SN5V1Xi450U91PJc7FpYQ8OFXTlzE3nEW5RqO0Lr64nsg
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
In Dalton Conley’s memoir “Honky”, written in 2000, Conley talks about his experience of switching schools to a primarily white elementary school. He discusses the major differences between his prior, very diverse school and his new, primarily caucasian school. He focuses on the main topics of race and class, and how they enhanced the differences between these two schools.
Another school in the same district is located “in a former roller-skating rink” with a “lack of windows” an a scarcity of textbooks and counselors. The ratio of children to counselors is 930 to one. For 1,300 children, of which “90 percent [are] black and Hispanic” and “10 percent are Asian, white, or Middle Eastern”, the school only has 26 computers. Another school in the district, its principal relates, “‘was built to hold one thousand students’” but has “‘1,550.’” This school is also shockingly nonwhite where “’29 percent '” of students are “‘black [and] 70 percent [are]
The Ocean Hill Brownsville school controversy was a case study of race relations during the 1960’s. This predominantly black area wished to have jurisdiction over their schools’ operations and curricula. In 1967, the superintendent of schools granted Ocean Hill Brownsville “community control” of their district. The Board of Education’s action was part of a new decentralization policy that wanted to disperse New York City’s political powers locally. Once in place, the Unit Administrator, Rhody McCoy, fired several teachers inciting one of the most profound racial standoffs in the city’s history. The evolution of the national civil rights movement parallels the changing attitudes of blacks involved in Ocean Hill Brownsville. In addition, evidence of differing theories concerning assimilation to the American ethnicity is portrayed through the actions of the participants.
movement of African American students into predominantly white neighborhood schools and the mixing of two separate but legally equal peoples.
Brown v. Board of Education, which was the 1954 Supreme Court decision ordering America’s public schools to be desegregated, has become one of the most time-honored decisions in American constitutional law, and in American history as a whole. Brown has redefined the meaning of equality of opportunity, it established a principle that all children have a constitutional right to attend school without discrimination. With time, the principles of equality that were established, because of the Brown trial, extended beyond desegregation to disability, sexuality, bilingual education, gender, the children of undocumented immigrants, and related issues of civil equality.
In Topeka, Kansas, the school for African-American children appeared to be equal to that of the white school. However, the school was overcr...
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.
In the early 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement brought many accusations and complaints towards the Chicago Board of Education. Due to this pressure, the Board allowed three major studies of the Chicago public schools which clearly denoted the segregation problems of the school system, over a decade after the Supreme Court’s decision of the famous Brown v Board of Education case. The Hauser Report and the Havighurst Report, both published in 1964, described the “gross racial imbalance” in Chicago public schools, where “Negro schools” tended to be more overcrowded and experience more drop-outs and lower average scores than predominantly white schools (Coons 85). In 1967 the recently appointed Superintendent of the Chicago schools, James Redmond, created a committee that published the other major report on the public schools of Chicago in 1967, entitled Increasing Desegregation of Faculties, Students, and Vocational Education Programs. This report focused on the teaching climate of Chicago schools, the boundaries of schools districts, vocational education programs, and public understanding of current issues, “aimed at reversing a pervasive social condition that has become deeply rooted in our society” (Chicago Board 2).
The 1960’s were an era in the United States where new ideas were developing, and most specifically ideas pertaining to the civil rights movement and its expansion. Protests, parades, and riots were occurring in an attempt to spread freedom for all people, and as some of these events became relevant in the news, the tensions of the country rose. Violence was occurring in many parts of the countries due to the ideas of those who were not receiving the freedom that they believed were entitled to them. African-Americans found themselves lacking rights in a world where they were just the same as everyone else minus their skin color. One specific city that was affected by these ideas was Rochester, NY. Rochester is a city with rich history, and has been noted to be one of the first cities that “boomed” as it was created. However, the summer of 1964 presented a new problem. A hot summer and racial tensions began a three day riot in which the city was changed. The riots had a lot of effects on the city, by affecting the businesses, the people surrounding, and the views people had on one another. One area that was specifically affected negatively was the area schools in the city. They were already bad to begin with, with less than average grades, bad dropout rates, and lower budgets than non-city schools. They were constantly set at a lower standard, and the riots certainly did not help that issue. The riots caused an un-noted split between the city and outside of the city due to the negative opinions that came from the riots occurring. Due to the race riots that occurred in Rochester in the summer of ’64, there has become an even more considerable split in education between inner and out-of-city schools, causing the downgrade and ster...
Valenzuela utilizes various compilations of research to construct her exceptional argument regarding the issue of subtractive schooling with regards to 2nd generational immigrant students. She thoroughly analyzes and assesses the multitude of differences between 1st generation and 2nd generation students and their affinity for education. She divides the topic into 3 categories and asserts how each one adds to the issue of inadequate education for Mexican/Mexican-American students in the US public school system. Her research is conducted at Seguin (pseudonym) High School in Houston, Texas. She examines the effects of substandard education in regards to the students and their academic performance. She uses quantitative and qualitative research
Brown v. Board of the Education in 1954 was a landmark decision in the education arena. The decision maintained that schools that separated students by the color of their skin could no longer be maintained. The court saw this as necessary, since in their mind schools for black students would always be inferior. This inferiority would not be caused by lack of resources, although that usually was a contributing factor to the poor quality of the school, physically and performance-wise. As the Supreme Court saw it, s...
In the essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal” by Jonathan Kozol, the situation of racial segregation is refurbished with the author’s beliefs that minorities (i.e. African Americans or Hispanics) are being placed in poor conditions while the Caucasian majority is obtaining mi32 the funding. Given this, the author speaks out on a personal viewpoint, coupled with self-gathered statistics, to present a heartfelt argument that statistics give credibility to. Jonathan Kozol is asking for a change in this harmful isolation of students, which would incorporate more funding towards these underdeveloped schools. This calling is directed towards his audience of individuals who are interested in the topic of public education (seeing that this selection is from one of his many novels that focus on education) as well as an understanding of the “Brown v. Board of Education” (1954) case, which ties in to many aspects of the author’s essay. With the application of exemplum, statistics, and emotional appeals, Jonathan Kozol presents a well developed argument.
United States school systems have has a history of segregation. This segregation began with the passing of Jim Crow laws in the south in the late 1800’s. The influence of this practice was at first the slave culture of the southern states, and later was manifest as residential segregation and school choice programs. There were also many Supreme Court rulings which failed to overturn implement segregation which allowed for the practice to continue to flourish. Although we have seen social improvements in our society in the past 50 years we can still see that many citizens of the United States are still placed at a disadvantage due to their class and race. In this paper we will examine the history of segregation practices and
Turner, J., & Paris, S. G. (1995). How literacy tasks influence children�s motivation for literacy. The Reading Teacher, 48(8), 662‑673. Available October 17, 2002, from Professional Database Collection database: http://search.epnet.com/