Breaking New Ground
By Jill Jenkins
The new
Common Core Curriculum is designed to make each student college or career
ready, but why are so few students from lower social-economic groups whether
they live in an inner city or a rural environments choosing to go to college
and completing a four year program? Is
it because of academic deficiencies or
is the problem more complex? To most of
us choosing to pursue a college education is easy, but for the student whose
family has never experienced a college education, it is much more complicated. Students in lower social economic groups have a
bigger fish to fry than just being academically prepared. Why is pursuing a college education so
difficult for them? First, human beings
are herding animals living in families first and communities. Students who venture beyond their families’ experience
are like explorers in a world. It is
both exciting and terrifying because they feel they are leaving the world of
their parents and friends to explore an alien world. Second, they do not share the same values and
culture of most of the people in college so they become “a stranger in a
strange land.” Third, if they are not only
social-economically deprived, but also of a different ethnic minority, they
will look and speak differently from most of the natives of this new land and
that can alienate them even further. The
journey into this strange world could lift them and their decedents to new
heights. This is journey worth taking.
Most of
us belong first to a family who in essence is our tribe. From our family we learn our values, our
expectations and goals. If the parents of children have had a negative
experience in school or have no experience with school, they may be reluctant
to instill a desire to continue down that road for their children. In many lower-social economic groups, children
are expected to graduate from high school get a job, get married and produce
children. That was the pathway my
parents mapped out for me. Four of their
five children chose to take that path. I choose to go to college. My father scoffed at the idea saying I’d be
pregnant before I finished. College is
only for men, not women. My mother
seemed disappointed that she wanted more grandchildren and she felt that it
would change me and I would not fit into the family. She also expressed to me
that she didn’t think I was smart enough to succeed and she worried that
failure would be devastating. She was
right about educations changing me. It did.
I remember visiting them some years later and realizing that I felt like
Buddy in Eugenia Collier’s story, “Sweet Potato Pie.” I could appreciate “the potato pie,” but I
didn’t really feel like a member of that community. A friend once told me that a person can’t live
successfully in two worlds and he was right.
Eventually I lost my membership in my original tribe which is a
difficult loss. My mother was wrong about being smart enough to succeed. I really resented her lack of confidence in
my ability, but later when I was a parent I understood her fear. She wanted to protect me from failure, but no
one can protect a child from everything.
To succeed means taking risks.
When my own daughter moved to New York to pursue her Master’s Degree in
journalism and later her career in journalism, I felt that fear, but I realized
it is a fear any mother has in watching her child grow up and soar away. I had to let her go to achieve her dreams. My mother had to let me go too.
It is a
difficult transition when the student from a lower social economic group goes
to college. The first year is going to
be lonely which is why so many choose to end their academic career there. These students don’t share the same values
and culture of many of the students from higher social economic groups and
don’t have the resources to join many of the social activities. One of the reasons that I sent my daughter to
private and parochial schools was that by interacting with friends whose families
expected their children to continue their education and have high goals, she had
a better chance of developing their values and expectation during her post-high
school education. Thus, she would have
an easier transition than I did. As
another one of my friends once said, “If you want to help these kids get out of
the ghetto, you need to take them out of the ghetto, so they know that there is
another world out there.” As a single
mother earning a teaching salary, I wanted my daughter to see how the other
world lived.
Ethnic
minority students from lower social economic groups have even a larger hurdle
to overcome. I never really thought
about how difficult their transition was until I was teaching in an inner-city
school. The school was made up of about 70% ethnic minorities and 30% Caucasian,
but the honors classes and the extra-curriculum activities were about 90% Caucasian
and Asian and about 10% Hispanic and Blacks. As a school, we decided to make an
effort to individually invite students from these non-represented groups to
join activities. I was the drama teacher
and because of the personal invitation I improved the percentage of non-white
students in the plays. As a result, the
NAACP invited me to a meeting to help with an activity they were presenting at
the Arts Festival. Even though I knew
many members at the meeting, being the only Caucasian person there was a little
uncomfortable. I was angry with myself
for feeling uncomfortable, but it made me realize that if a liberal minded
adult felt uncomfortable, how does an adolescent with poor self-images feel
being the only Black of Hispanic student auditioning for a part in a play? To solve this problem I began inviting
students in pairs to audition for the play.
Everyone feels better with a friend there. What I learned from this experience is many
of these students were working to help their families financially or caring for
children while both their parents worked two jobs or in the case of
single-parent families they were both working and helping care for younger
siblings. To help them participate in
extra-curricular activities I changed the rehearsal schedule to meet more of
their needs. In another school where I
taught, the school had a similar problem. The school had a disproportional number of
Caucasian and Asian students enrolled in honors classes, but few minority students enrolled in them even
though the school was comprised of more than 90% ethnic minorities. To remedy
this situation, the school identified students from these non-represented
populations who were bright, but not pursuing honors and A.P. classes and gave
them a study skills class which later became an A.V.I.D. class to support
them. As the teacher, I needed to
supply all of the emotional support and study skills techniques to help them
become successful. All of these efforts
were successful.
As
teachers we need to recognize the problems students face who are the first
person in their family to attend college.
My salvation was good teachers and counselors in my high school. My debate teacher, Ellen Wixom, taught me how
to organize an argument and the debate program gave me confidence that I could
be successful. Gary Walton’s drama
classes and his ability to give me clear, positive feedback reinforced that
confidence. Maurine Haltiner’s A.P.
English class forced me to read more difficult pieces of literature and analyze
them. Mr. Dee Anderson, my school
counselor, helped me complete financial aid forms and college applications. When I got to college, Mr. Jay W. Lees, my
mentor and favorite college professor, told me his life story about how he grew
up in my old neighborhood and became friends with my uncle. He took me under his wing and even let me
share dinner with his wonderful family.
Educators were my salvation.
Leading
a student from the safety of their childhood home to pursue the higher
expectations of academia is not only the job of dedicated educator, but that
educator may be the only person in that student’s life who can lead him. His parents may come from a foreign country
and are still learning the language; his parents may have had a negative
experience in education and do not support it; his parents may be high school
drop outs who work two minimum wage jobs to put food on the table; or his
parents may not feel a good education is a valuable commodity. These are not the parents who will attend a
meeting about how to prepare their child for college. The educators must provide information about
the application process, the financial aid process, a quality education, and
serve as the child’s personal cheerleader as he travels this new roadway. Dedicated educators are the ones who can help
a child make that transition into a successful academic career. Breaking new ground is never easy, but the
benefits outweigh the sacrifices.
