Count me among the people growing up in a lack of learning ambience. I grew up in Astoria, Queens, an immigrant neighborhood with many first generation Americans.
My father is Brazilian, my mother French so I didn’t fit in with any particular group. Latino’s thought Brazilians spoke some type of “messed up Spanish”. Greeks and Italians kept to their own little clicks, funny thing is all the boys liked me and I grew fond of many of them.
While attending IS 126 I witnessed many horrors along with my best friend (are you out there Tricia?) on both “sides” teachers and students.
I witnessed a boy throw a chair at a teacher and nearly hit her, I saw her throw him out and slam the door causing the AP system to fall on the back of another boy who was disrupting the class. He was hurt but I don’t think anyone ever told… There was so much more, this article has inspired me to document everything my class and I went through there (I’ll do this on my own blog soon).
One thing that French teacher said has always come to mind when I think of parent/student disconnect. On one occassion someone was disrupting the class, she said, “if you act like that what are you going to tell your parents at the dinner table tonight?” Everyone exploded in laughter, even me, did she really think these kids were eating dinner at a table??? Did she think this was the 50′s instead of the 80′s?
Now my own son will start 1st grade this fall and an entire different landscape of education. The school we are zoned for is dominated by a nearby trailer park. Unfortunately, I’ve already experienced some ignorance and observed that MANY of the children are ill prepared to study for various reasons.
My question to you is, what can I do as a parent to help not only my son, but the entire class? I feel I have a responsibility and will try to volunteer when possible but the reality is I have 2 little girls, will one parents involvement with some of the others ensure that they all go off to college together some day? become my sons networking contacts in the future? I have a vested interest in my sons friends and the kids he’s around but feel powerless to help them/him. I’ve already started buying homeschool supples and books in case I need to pull him out quick…
