"Addiction" to Illegal Immigrants

Happy Monday, everyone! I came across this article while surfing on cnn.com today. I thought it was interesting in light of the exercise we did on immigration/immigrant students. See everyone Thursday, have a good week!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/31/navarrette.opinion/index.html

A new rise in violence -- what can be done?

This school year, 20 Chicago Public School students have been killed -- 18 by guns. Last year, more than 30 CPS students were killed, 24 by guns. This story from msnbc provides some of the details but not a lot of additional context. One important point that it does note, however, is that none of the students have been killed at school. Indeed, schools are still seen by many students as a safe space.

Still, the number of school-aged children being killed is alarming. As much as I want us to see beyond the stereotypes of urban schools and neighborhoods (and I hope you feel we've tried to do that), I think it's important not to ignore realities like this one. But I wonder what "outsiders" will think when they read this msnbc story. Will they be saddened? Angered? Or will they simply shake their heads and think, "Yeah, that's how those kids are?"

I think we need to move past our initial reactions to really think about what some of the root causes of youth violence might be. Why are so many kids in Chicago being killed? Where is the violence concentrated, and what does that say about other social conditions that may give rise to it? Can anything at all be done about it? Can schools and teacher play a role? If you were a teacher in Chicago, would you try to address this issue with your students, or is it too risky?

Chicago Public BOARDING Schools

I read this article over Spring Break and was going to post it earlier, but I totally forgot until now. Anway, I thought this was pretty interesting. Although there aren't too many details about the boarding schools, they explain some of the options such as how they will be run... through districts or outside angencies. I was wondering what everyone thought about the article - the idea of boarding schools in the city of Chicago. What do you think parents will say or think about it? What will urban students think about it?

I hope this link works... If not, you can Google 'Chicago Tribune', then search Chicago Public Schools, and the date was March 14.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-boarding-schools_14mar14,0,2694026.story

"Demography is Not Destiny"

Once I would have agreed with the heading of this post. I admit it was a much more optimistic and happy part of my life. However, that was before my philosophy became engrossed with the belief that there is no positive value. Linguistically, "No Positive Value" according to Saussure (an early 20th century Swiss philosopher) refers to the way that culture structures meaning through language. It states that there is no natural essence to any object. There is nothing about a chair that makes it a chair. Nothing about a person that makes it a person. An object is labeled and used in the way associated with "chair" because that is how our society constructs it. This is proven because if there were an essence or undeniable truth to any object languages would be easily translated back and forth. Because this is not possible, defining of objects must be a social action.

This makes any label for any object completely irrelevant. A frog is only a frog because we call it "frog". A bottle is only a bottle because we label it "bottle" and use it as a container for liquids. A person is only a person because that is how we conceive of people.

This means that any object not being referred to is, in essence, a blank slate. It is nothing until it is referred to and constructed in the social mind. If this extension is made to people, then people are also nothing until they are subjected to the rules, ideologies and beliefs of society. Though this flies in the face of Christian sensibilities, it is a philosophical restructuring of the self not as an individual, but as a sum of different societal parts put together in a distinct way.

The evidence of this is in our concept of individuality. In my younger and more impressionable years I considered myself quite the non-conformist. The perpetual joke was that I was not conforming just like all my friends. the truth in this is that my non-conformism was truly only a choice of ways in which I could conform. I was really only conforming in a different way that was still allowed by society. I was deviating from the norm, but ONLY as far as i was allowed by the culture at large. I contest that all individuality is in some way either a construction of different societal regulations, or a deviation from societal norms within the prescribed alloted boundaries (though...there are instances where societal norms can be and are broken, but the repercussions of these actions are huge: ostracizing, condemnation, damnation, prison).

So if people are only summation and constructions of the concepts and ideas that society puts into them, they can only possibly structure reality in ways that society has allowed them. For example, I cannot see the world through the eyes of a 8th century Chinese Emperor because my world has been defined, structured and explained in a completely different way. I contest that this happens in ways that are just as drastic as in our American society.

Here then, is the problem with arguing that "Demography is Not Destiny." As people we are only what we know, we cannot possibly be more than what we know. We can learn and know more, but we cannot escape what it is that we know. And the lessons that we learn early/first are the most impossible to destruct. We are bound to understand and see the world as we are taught both implicitly and explicitly.

Here is the primary argument I wish to present. I believe that lessons that teach impoverished children to balance check books are valuable; however, I feel that they (and lessons of this nature along with the vast majority of lessons serving impoverished children) are perpetuating the problem. This extends not only to lessons in school, but also to lessons in life outside of school. Though the intent is to help them succeed in life, is this truly the outcome? Or is it more that they are succeeding in poverty. The lesson that should be being taught is how to escape poverty, NOT HOW TO THRIVE IN IT. (I apologize for yelling...I am a passionate man). Our school systems, for the vast majority of students, FORCE children into whatever social position they came from (or lower, as is the case with many students from middle-class backgrounds). This only proves to me that Demography is Destiny.

Our school system, as it exists right now, accepts that "Demography Is Destiny." We perpetuate the roles of the under-class in educating the poor children of the world. We are teaching them to be successful poor people.

If we truly lived in a world where "Demography is Not Destiny" then every single child in every single school would have the same opportunities to succeed AND fail. To reach the highest or the lowest rung of society. If this was true there would and could be no true perpetuating upper class. There will and always will be a class system in America; right now, however, we live in a caste system.

Now for my concession. I believe that individuals can escape this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad cycle. I truly do. This is not why I teach, but for many it is why they teach. I think it is an honorable and noble reason and I deeply love and respect anyone who teaches and follows the "Demography is Not Destiny" credo. It is a difficult role to fill, and I admire and cherish all who fill it.

I teach for massive educational reform. I teach to help children and for my love of children, but I also teach for myself. I teach so that I can move up the ladder. I teach so that I can get into the masters and doctoral programs that I want. I wish to attack the system. I wish to work with others to re-build an educational system that actually does follow the "Demography is Not Destiny" credo. To analytically destruct the system and rebuild it is the only way to achieve a system in which students are all treated as they deserve to be treated. That all students in America are inherently the same. We live in a caste system, the education system perpetuates it. I will fight against a caste system for my entire life, and I will begin working one child at a time in a classroom.

I just acknowledge that that can only go so far. I don't want to stop at one child at a time.
Right now believing that "Demography is Not Destiny" only acknowledges single extraordinary children.

It is a fallacy to define a system by an outlier.

Being poor

One of the suggestions from the Stop/Start/Continue activity was that I start posting a few discussion questions about the small-group reading before class each week. So here are a few, drawn from this weeks' facilitators' questions, about the excerpts from David Shipler's book, The Working Poor:

· In the beginning of the article, on pages 5 and 6, Shipler introduces the concept of the American myth, which places the blame of poverty on the poor, and the American Anti-myth, which states that the poor are victims of uncontrollable circumstances. Which myth plays a greater role in causing poverty or is poverty caused by a combination of both?

· What is the responsibility of the government toward people living in poverty?

· "If it weren’t for the poor, who would flip the burgers?" How do you feel about that statement and what does it have to do with educating children in poor communities?

· On page 44, the last page of the article, Christie attributes her poverty to laziness. What does this say about America’s view of poverty? How does this impact the way poor people view themselves and their chances of getting out of poverty?

Welcome Back

I hope you all had the kind of Spring Break you needed, whether that means good/restful/adventurous/
exciting/fun/rejuvenating or whatever other adjective fits best for you.

I've read over the feedback on the course you gave me two weeks ago (the Stop/Start/Continue activity), and we'll talk more about your suggestions and comments in class this Thursday. In the meantime, let's cut the Patricia Williams reading (CKCS Ch. 30) from this week, so you'll just be responsible for reading Sue Books (CKCS Ch. 20) and David Shipler (at the back of the course pack). Several people were frustrated that I've been assigning three readings per week but we only usually discuss one or two in class. While I can think of many reasons why it would be important to read them anyway, I do understand it's frustrating to be asked to read something and then to feel like it isn't being "covered" (at least in a direct or explicit way) in class. So I'm going to try to cut back a bit on the readings when I can.

Several people also seemed unhappy with the blog, and I guess that's something we'll have to talk about further this week as well. I still think it provides an alternative mode for people to join the conversation, so I'm not inclined to nix it altogether, but we can talk about ways to make it better.

One thing we didn't have time to talk about last class during our discussion of immigration and immigrant students were the stories of the various immigrant students you read -- Miguel from Pedro Noguera's piece, Juan and Lourdes from my book, Holler If You Hear Me, and Nelda from Angela Valenzuela's article. What did you learn from these students' stories? What can/should schools do in order to serve immigrant students better? How can urban teachers and schools move from a "subtractive" model of schooling to an "additive" one when it comes to teaching immigrant students? Or is Americanization (at the expense of losing parts of one's own culture) not such a bad thing after all?

Last but not least, if you don't understand the reference implied by the picture accompanying this post, it's only one more piece of evidence confirming what we've pretty much already established: I'm old.

Just wanted to let you guys know about a conference this week. Not particularly related to this class, more on a global scale, but important nonetheless.

It's this Wednesday and there are speakers all day.

Here's the link with a breakdown of the speakers - conference

White Flight

When we were talking about white flight it reminded me of my family and my old house in Chicago. Until I was 7 years old we lived on 61st and Kedzie in Chicago, which at that time was a predominantly white neighborhood. We rode our bikes... or our power wheels (HaHa - I'm sure most of you remember those!) EVERYWHERE , we had friends in almost every house on our block, I walked to school with my best friend, we knew all the familes who lived on our block and even had 4th of July parties, birthday parties, and cookouts with them. We honestly had a lot of fun, and even today my parents tell us stories about the good times they had there with everyone. The reason we moved out was because there was a stabbing on the corner of our block, graffiti was constantly written on our garage door, and the BIGGEST reason was because the private schools were closing and the ones that stayed open had a lot of crime. My parents were worried about us playing in the yard, infact they stopped letting us ride our bikes down the street. My White friends started moving away, and new families who were African American and Latino were moving in. A few years later we found out that 3 Latino families were living in our old house. When my sister and I drove by our old house just a year ago, there was only ONE White lady who was still living on that block.

After 20 years, a move toward justice

A couple weeks ago we read a piece by Bakari Kitwana ("Race War") in which he laid out some of the ways African American males have been adversely impacted by what he sees as a biased criminal justice system. One example he cited was the vast discrepancy in the sentencing of people for crimes related to crack cocaine (who received severe, multi-year sentences) vs. those whose crimes were related to powder cocaine (and other drugs). This has been going on since "mandatory minimum" laws for certain drugs went into effect in 1988.

Well, 20 years later, things are finally changing. As reported by Associated Press today, new sentencing guidelines which take effect this week may make disproportionate crack-related sentences a thing of the past. And many of those currently in prison for crack-related crimes could have their sentences reduced.

Why do I bring this up now? Because the intersections with race and racism are hard to miss. As the article explains: "Previously, a person with one gram of crack would receive the same sentence as someone with 100 grams of the powdered form of cocaine. The disparity has been decried as racially discriminatory, since four of every five crack defendants in the U.S. are black, while most powdered-cocaine convictions involve whites."

Part of me wants to take a moment to appreciate the new changes and this move toward justice. But I can't help thinking about all the men and women over the past 20 years whose lives have been ensnarled by sentencing guidelines that seem anything but just.

Click here to read the article.