I hope everyone had a fantastic week and restful holiday
weekend! I can’t believe we only have 3 more weeks at our sites!
I enjoyed hearing everyone’s opinions during last week’s
education-themed meeting. I think we can all agree that receiving a robust primary and secondary education is crucial to performing well in college and securing a
steady, well-paying job. This is especially true for children from low
socioeconomic backgrounds who must overcome obstacles of prejudice and cyclical
poverty. I found the correlation between education and other factors (such
as rates of incarceration) alarming and
eye-opening. I think charter schools such as Freedom Prep are striving to
overcome the education gap by offering an alternative solution to failing public
schools (side-note: I read an article the other day stating that the rhetoric “failing
school” stigmatizes the children who attend that school and demonizes the
teachers, just food for thought).
I was talking about our charter school visit with one of my
friends, and she brought up an interesting point. Charter schools offer a way
for children to escape their impoverished situations, rough neighborhoods, and
broken homes. Many offer excellent STEM
programs and encourage their students to pursue high-tech jobs with
multinational corporations, far away from their childhood homes. But from her
perspective, this may belittle the community as a whole. Guiding children along
a path to attain high-earning, prestigious careers is a noble goal no doubt. But
it creates a mentality that a child must abandon his/her community if s/he wants to achieve a "better" life. The neighborhood is portrayed as an undesirable and hopeless place. There is
relatively no discussion of kids returning to the community to enhance it from
within. I get the sense that charter schools are incredibly liberating, but they also create long-term detachment from the neighborhood. Perhaps charter schools do emphasize sustainable community development - I need to research and discuss this topic more deeply.
I also wonder how many Freedom Prep teachers live within the
surrounding community. I think this relates to our service work – many of us
cannot directly identify with the populations we are serving. While we can
empathize with their situations, we have probably not experienced their hardships
first hand. I wonder if a problem arises when white, upper-middle class, college
educated folks come into a low SES, African American community and propose to
build a charter school. Lars said Freedom Prep receives a lot of parental
support. But I wonder if there is backlash from the neighborhood, viewing the
charter school as a patronizing or unwelcome solution.
Charter schools are a relatively recent phenomenon; the first
was instituted in the early 90s. I wonder if any research has been conducted to
see if charter schools do indeed improve the educational outcomes and career
prospects of its students. Or if anyone has analyzed the long-term impact of
charter schools on the surrounding communities. What about charter schools in Memphis
specifically?
I don’t want to keep rambling, so I’ll leave you with a few
pictures from the Botanic Garden’s International Mud Day Celebration. It was a blast! I hope
everyone has a great week!
I think you raise a good point about the teachers' background and the general attitude of charter schools. The PD office been able to offset the "leave the neighborhood if you want to succeed" mentality by primarily hiring attorneys and social workers that are from the area. One YA in particular is incredibly involved in the community since she has lived there her whole life, and she knows many of our families from church or her time at various service organizations. She is able to connect with the kids on a much more personal level, and they trust her almost immediately. She's very good at reading the kids and understanding the mentality of the neighborhood/family environment and she "meets them at their level" (which means she could be the sweetest, most snuggly grandmotherly type, a stern disciplinarian, or a powerful yet casual yeller - its really crazy how many different people she can be in a span of an hour).
ReplyDeleteOur office's main training manual says that the ideal attorney/advocate will match the client in race and gender. Most of the attorneys are women, but like I said the majority are black and very familiar with the area. Unfortunately it is very hard for me to relate to any of our clients, and I feel like they are judging me during the interview, especially after I'm introduced as an intern from Rhodes College. I'm a complete outsider, with a different race, gender, SES, and hometown, and being able to fully understand the community would take much longer than just this summer. If I do decide to pursue a career as a PD, I would most likely return to Texas and work within a primarily white neighborhood (keep in mind that all PD clients are indigent and unable to pay for a private attorney, so are assigned to us). I could at least overcome the race issue and somewhat deal with the community familiarity problem, and I think that would go a long way in helping me gain the trust and respect of my clients.
Catherine, I really enjoyed reading about you and your friend's reflections about charter schools. I think that she had a really good point about the belittling of the neighborhood, and it's definitely a delicate balance that the idea of the Charter schools plays with in the sense of wanting to empower the kids that they educate without creating the detachment that you mentioned. I also thought that it was interesting to read about Megan's experience in the PD's office, and how she feels often written off as an outsider once she is introduced as an intern from Rhodes College. I wonder if the teachers at Charter Schools feel like there is a large gap to bridge in that manner, and if tensions ever arise because of the discrepancy in the teacher's and student's upbringing. It's all something that does not seem to have a right answer, which is frustrating, but I definitely think it's a crucial situation to acknowledge and be aware of, so that we can all be aware of the nuances of the situations in which we find ourselves among those who are different from us, but with whom we must work. Also, that last picture is the cutest i've seen in about a month. Thanks for sharing!!!
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