Thoughtless and Racist
By Guest Contributor quadmoniker, originally published at PostBourgie
I’m going to be vague on location here to avoid giving away too much, but I had a friend who just had to interview a group of homeowners in a portion of the northeast that’s very wealthy and smugly liberal. The group was concerned about a mixed-income housing unit going through the zoning approval process. These folks were going to get some new neighbors, and they didn’t like it. They actually feared it, and said so on the record.
Officially, the group was upset about increasing traffic, and that the plan called for some units’ backyards to face the street, forcing them to look at backyard things like playsets and grills. Zoning officials addressed those concerns, but residents were still not happy. When a group of a dozen neighbors called my friend over to their swanky townhouse complex, which is on the border between well-off and less well-off sections of the city, some unofficial objections leaked out through the aggressive use of pronouns.
I mean, why do they all have to live in this side of the city. Right?
Last week, this same town filled all three available board of education spots with candidates who came out against “heterogeneous classrooms,” which are experimental classes in some local middle schools that do away with the former method of grouping kids by ability. Ability is assessed at way too tender an age, and in suburban schools the achievement gap by and large splits black and Latino students from their white peers. The idea used to be that kids learned best in similarly abled groups, but it turns out that idea hurts lower-achieving students and does little if anything to help higher-achieving ones. This parental fear that lower-achieving kids are somehow going to infect the higher-scoring ones with their stupidity has no merit. I can’t say for certain that heterogeneous classrooms were the deciding factors in the elections, but it was a big issue during the campaign and those who supported them lost.
I don’t see the harm in calling “ability grouping” what it really is: segregation. And I see no harm in calling the condo-folks’ efforts what they really are: unofficial redlining. They believe lower-income residents, largely black and Latino, will lower their property values, blight their neighborhoods because they don’t make home improvements and use their pools without permission (kids knock on their doors in the summer to ask to use their pools, and are turned away.) But what really worries the residents is that people who don’t look like them will be so woven into their lives that they see their backyard playsets every day, that they can’t tell one yard from the next.
The people in the townhouses trying to guard their suburban idyll will tell you it has nothing to do with race, and I think they actually believe it. They were all white, young professionals who aren’t among the wealthiest in the city. This area went heavily for Obama last year, and in general aggressively pursues affordable housing projects like this one. It’s a city outwardly concerned with equality and opportunity for all but at the same time people gripe about the taxes and policies used to provide services for them.
Both these instances made me think about the controversy after a New Mexican hotel owner asked his workers to Anglicize their names. For some, it was a shock to call this racist. I learned about it when I saw a CNN banner that read “Racist, or Thoughtless?”
As if people can’t be thoughtlessly racist. In fact, people are more often thoughtlessly racist than they are aggressively so.
Which is why I was the only person on Jimmy Carter’s side when he called out the obvious racism against Obama. I know the argument against his having said it; that it’s not helpful, only puts people on the defensive and shuts down conversation. But I have a certain affinity for a fellow white Southerner who sees racism from a different angle, when it’s spoken in closed company by people who assume you agree with them. That’s what upset my friend the most; the homeowners spoke to her as if she knew what they were trying to say. They call it dog-whistling for a reason: It’s under the surface until you call it up and address it, and white Americans just don’t have these conversations that often, if ever.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist wrote:
Yep… I’m very liberal, but even liberals can be major douche-bags.
I’d rather have a conservative racist person say it openly to my face that they don’t want any black people in our neighborhood, than have a closet racist liberal beat around the bush about being against having a “heterogenous” environment. Ugh.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 12:14 pm ¶
gideon wrote:
Briefly on heterogeneous classes:
At my highschool, they were instituted to serve the students with midrange academic ability. More homogeneous classes tended to be able to focus better on those with high or low academic ability.
Heterogeneity also served to integrate the school ethnically and racially. However, the school implemented the new policy without the proper training or staffing of teachers (which would have cost a very substantial amount). This resulted in poor academic standards at my school for a fairly long time, and third and fourth year classes continued to feel segregated, as students were given the choice to take AP and honors classes or to stay in regular classes (I took an AP class with no black students in a school whose student body was ~%40 black).
Whether or not to have heterogeneous classes is an important debate to have, and the right answer probably shifts from one community to the next – I’m just saying I think the debate is a very complex one.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 12:43 pm ¶
deathblossom wrote:
Wow, never heard the phrase “heterogeneous classrooms”, had to do some quick googling on the subject. Not entirely certain how I feel about it – I agree that they can be segregationalist as I felt the ability-grouped classes I was in were heavily skewed in the favor of white students and this created some personal problems for me. Further, because we were granted the most experienced teachers and the upbringings of the people in them was more homogenous, it was only natural that we would continue to achieve more while largely refraining from the behavioral and disruptive problems that made up the other classrooms. On the other hand…I would not have given up being in them for anybody. I’d spent time in undifferentiated classrooms and in short – they were a displeasure, through and through. However, since most people will be the ones in these classes, it would be more beneficial to find ways to fix the problem rather than simply giving up and saving a precious few.
In that sense, I can see why a comparison between these classrooms and their desire to keep their neighborhood free of difference is apt, but, I believe in the case of the neighborhoods, the case is more clearcut. People tend to be very aware of when they don’t want to live around minority ethnicities, even if they refuse to admit that’s the real reason, and it shows in the way they were using coded-language around a person they felt would share their concerns. So I don’t buy that they actually believe they’re not racist and they don’t recognize the racist nature of their behavior. They do. Unlike more blatant and proud racists, they actually are intensely ashamed they harbor these feelings and spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to convince themselves that their prejudices against other races and classes is not the basis of their discomfort, when it truly is, or in other cases, trying to appeal to other whites to make them not feel like monsters for feeling this way by having them admit that they feel this way, too.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 1:45 pm ¶
JL wrote:
In defense of ability grouping, it REALLY sucks to be the kid who is stuck in a class way below their ability level, bored to death, learning nothing academic, and often severely bullied. These days I understand some of the surrounding issues better, but when I was a kid in grade school I was a vociferous proponent of ability grouping, and I’m still reluctant to favor scrapping it unless people offer something in its place.
Now, there are a lot of problems with the way ability grouping is usually implemented, especially insufficient entry points (some kids bloom later than others, or need time to make up for socioeconomic disadvantage) and entry methods (why should a standardized test be the only measure of ability?) into high-ability groups, or high-ability kids getting a disproportionate share of the resources.
But doing away with any sort of program to make school not a hellhole waste of time for very bright kids, is a sure-fire way to create legions of bitter, resentful, Ayn Rand devotees.
The backyard thing just seems bizarre to me. Who cares if you can see playsets and grills? Seems like it would make for a happier-looking neighborhood!
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 2:00 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:
This happens a lot in Seattle. Matter of fact, I thought this happened in Seattle.
I’m a PoC and I’m on the fence with this one. I am only because I have seen the after effects of something like this happening–the mixed or lower income housing–moving into what is considered or perceived to be a “nice area,” whatever that means.
My mom used to live in Renton, WA. Skyway to be specific. My mother is very discerning and I am sure that when she first landed there it seemed affordable and nice. It was for a time. She was friends with this nice couple who were the managers at the complex. It was a nice complex indeed. Not great, but not bad. Nice.
In any case, the managers griped to her that they had to welcome section 8 residents and honestly all hell broke loose in the apartments. My mom ran further south to Kent where it was nicer and we are starting to see–with the recent shootings right where she lives–that as more apartments and areas welcome lower income residents that unfortunately the crime rates go up.
This is why the city of Covington, which kind of blends with Kent kind of (WA is weird that way) was all up in arms about having any kind of apartment complex built there, especially near the Wal-Mart (which some argue itself brings crime and the like).
My quality of life, personally, was affected while living in these areas….terribly. And I was able to breathe and get myself together once we got the hell out of there.
I refuse to go back, and while some areas are gentrified, there’s no way in hell it’s gotten any better.
I don’t question some of the biases the people mentioned in the post may have, but I don’t know if I find their worries to be baseless.
I think a way for us to find solutions is to put everything on the table, even the things that are uncomfortable and “ugly”, and make everyone accountable for their thoughts and actions. This way we can move forward. We cannot ignore, and I’m not saying the author did, the reality of what happens in certian housing areas among the residents.
Then again, I don’t believe in being “politically correct.” I believe in being sensible and honest.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 2:01 pm ¶
yolanda wrote:
something i’ve learned is that white liberals are some of the biggest racists you will ever come across. ever.
i went to an elementary school doing 6th grade that did “ability grouping.” i found it strange that all of the white kids were in that “smart class”, the middle class (the one i was in) filled with black kids and a sprinkling of whites, and the “average” class was all black. i had higher test scores than 1/2 of the kids in the above average class, but after considering me they decided it best i stay in the middle class. since graduating high school quite of the (white) kids in the above average class dropped out of high school, didn’t go onto college, or are raising kids, while many of the black students from the other two classes are attending college.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 3:36 pm ¶
Erika wrote:
IA with Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist. I’ve heard some supposed Liberals say the dumbest, most racist shit without realizing it. It even extends to mainstream liberal media and mainstream feminism, gay rights, and anarchist circles, which tend to be predominantly white.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 4:06 pm ¶
jen* wrote:
You weren’t the only one to be on Jimmy Carter’s side. But I understand the feeling. I was the only one [that I know] in my town, when he said that.
I get a fair amount of thoughtless racism every other day – of course, to call people on it would be being “oversensitive” or too “PC”.
I agree though – I think a lot of people think they’re acting completely without any racial bias. Folks don’t believe race has anything to do with their decisions – they just always seem to turn out one way….
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 4:23 pm ¶
JA wrote:
It’s the same here in Canada. Racism definitely isn’t something they teach you in school, at least not beyond the elementary “let’s celebrate diversity with a cultural day!” stuff. I think most of the time white people have no idea they are being racist, because we are brought up to think racism refers only to super-obvious acts like calling someone the N-word. People have no clue what systematic racism is unless they have taken a college course on such things.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 5:23 pm ¶
Montclair Mommy wrote:
Ugh. As a white liberal I can acknowledge that we are sometimes the worst culprits when it comes to racism. Many of us seem to think you get a pass for having black friends and voting for Obama. Doesn’t mean you don’t need to confront the inner racist that makes you “afraid for your children” at the thought of having a mixed income development in your neighborhood. Pretty much everyone with half a brain knows that when you say “bad neighborhood/school” you mean “black/brown neighborhood/school.” I mean, you’re not fooling anyone. Then again, maybe you are fooling yourself into thinking you have a legitimate concern there.
On the other hand, I will be the first to admit that if they do ability grouping at my son’s school I will LIVE at the principal’s office until they put him in the right class. That’s what parents of white kids often do to get their less than average kid in the above average class and I’ll be d*mned if my little boy gets segregated into the average class like many other children of color. I will home-school him before I let any school make him feel “less than”. If that makes me a hypocrite…I can live with that. THen again, if he’s in the “above average” classroom its no longer “heterogeneous”–at least racially.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 5:39 pm ¶
usha wrote:
Ability tracking is problematic and complex. There are plenty of real, compelling, and needing-to-be-addressed reasons why some children fall behind, or even ’start out behind’ the statistical mean of children their age.
But, I was someone who took ‘advanced’ classes in the subjects that I found interesting, and in the subjects that bored me, I petitioned to drop to the ‘average’ ones. Why? Because in the ‘average’ ones, I could maintain an acceptable grade without doing anything, paying attention in class, or showing up regularly (if I could get away with it). My own immature and short-sighted choice, obviously, but I can’t imagine how boring, horrible, and without any actual ‘learning’ my school career would have been if I had been required to take all classes at that middle level.
The ‘playsets and barbeques’ issue sounds more class based than racial to me. I grew up in some very nice places, and the general received assumption is that less nice places have yards full of stuff: the aforementioned, trampolines, plastic toys, bikes, cars, et c., that are visible to the street and the neighbors, rather than nothing but landscaping as a view with everything put away.
A couple of towns where I have lived have even made strict laws about what is allowed to be visible and how it has to look (eg: one place mandated ‘colonial’ style architecture on any structure visible from the road, and another that all houses within a certain distance from the town center were required to be white).
Certainly there are plenty of points to be made about whether this is a valid use of town resources, or even if laws like this are desirable, but they don’t seem especially racially motivated.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 6:19 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:
Is ability grouping the same as having AP or IB? I know IB is wrapped up in funding issues but I think it’s actually beneficial to have that option. But then again, I’m from Canada, and my school was an anomaly. I was in IB History, ‘regular’ biology and remedial (low achieving) math and this kind of mixup was common. IB for some was about competition for grades etc but for my peers and I it was just about enjoying the subject. People still skipped and got stoned before class but we all loved class discussions and research etc.
Segregating kids based on grades however totally frustrates me. Kids do get better grades with better teachers, and if better teachers only teach the upper tiers then the kids at the bottom never learn what nerds them out and inspires them. And every kid, even ‘lower-achieving’ kids or whatever you want to call marginalized pupils, will find a skill/subject that will nerd them out and make them passionate if we invest in that.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 7:05 pm ¶
Jess wrote:
I’d have called ‘em out on which town you were in. Really.
Anyhow, ability grouping — I ran into it when I was in school and as I remember the big problem was a class bias as much as a racial one, because typically only middle-class parents had the time to mess around with a bureaucracy that didn’t care. That stuff takes time out of your day, and it requires a certain knowledge of the system (this is one case where I think the human capital factor is important — it’s a lot harder to fight the bureaucrats if you have never navigated such systems before and don’t know anyone who has).
As to the housing issue and racism of white liberals I think there’s a lot of stuff going on there. Some of it is unexamined attitudes. Some of it is not recognizing where disparities that are real exist. And some of it is worries about the neighborhood. If we agree, for instance, that neighborhoods that are less white get less in terms of investment (like infrastructure and police protection) and that makes it harder to keep them decent places to live, and we all know that, then there are two ways to respond.
The good way is to make sure that all neighborhoods get that stuff. The bad way is to say you want your neighborhood to stay white.
It’s like when black parents demanded that they get access to “white” schools in several school districts around the country. That was sort of the converse (or perhaps inverse) issue.
It wasn’t because they loved being around white people (at least that isn’t the impression I got) it’s because they know that whiter schools get more resources and better ones. It isn’t fair, and it isn’t right, but it is reality. I don’t blame them for it. But it sucks to be having to choose like that.
With that kind of stuff happening the default response is the bad one I mentioned above, because the good one requires a lot more work and most folks aren’t that politically involved.
On top of that, fighting for better schools for everyone (or better neighborhoods) is a long and frustrating process. Your kids might be out of school by the time you see results. In the meantime maybe your local public school will have problems. A lot of parents I know — of whatever color — don’t want to take that bet. So the racist patterns get reinforced.
My own parents made that kind of decision. The local school was a disaster. So my parents moved to the next town over. During my junior year the high school in our former town had to close early because they could not pay the light bills. It has improved a lot since then. But it wouldn’t have done me any good as a student. (I knew the school was in bad shape but I wanted to go because my friends were there).
I’m not defending the behavior of the people in the neighborhood the OP mentioned, just saying that it’ s an indicator of how patterns of racial disparity can be self-reinforcing — and why those folks might understand that it is about race but still behave the way they do. You might not like the way the system is set up, but if you see no prospect of change in the time frame you need you are going to try and find a way to game it for yourself (or your kids). And nobody likes to admit they are doing that.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 7:16 pm ¶
Martha wrote:
I hate ability grouping.
I’m reading “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell and he gives a pretty damning, (if brief) explanation of how ability grouping works to reinforce differences in supposed ability.
I was a “smart kid” in school, and the more I think about it, the more I realise that my grades in school were less about my ability and more about how I was individually prepared for priviledge and opportunity.
True story!
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 7:37 pm ¶
AnonymousArab wrote:
At first, looking at this in the feedreader I thought this “thoughtless racism” had something to do with the photo. I nearly broke my brain trying to angle how that could be construed as racist!
To the matter at hand:
It’s bizarre how quick people are to assume low-income people and people of color are unwilling to maintain, or are incapable of maintaining, their property. Worse still, they’re applying the broken windows theory in reverse. Moving lower-income people out of neighborhoods where dereliction and depreciation are common will not move these properties with them. That’s not how it works.
Meanwhile, I have to admit I dislike the suburban lifestyle. It’s not very environmentally sustainable, HUAs tend to oppress owners, and frankly this obsession with home value has become a cover for all sorts of nonsense.
I will say that sadly, introducing people of color to neighborhoods probably does lower property values, if only because prospective buyers are frequently just as racist as the homeowners. (Not that this excuses exclusion of POC, obviously)
Also, if I had kids knocking at my door asking if I had a pool I be like,
“Holy shit! I got a pool!”
[/unicorn chaser]
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 7:59 pm ¶
BSK wrote:
I see a similar situation arise in the school I work at. I teach pre-school in a progressive independent school in a super liberal East Coast city. The issues don’t break down along race lines, but still break down around an “us” and “them” dynamic. While not specifically an inclusion (special needs) school, our school deliberately stays away from being a “cookie cutter” school, accepting a narrow spectrum of students who we expect to fit the mold. Parents CLAIM to seek us out for this. But what happens when there is a higher-needs child in their child’s class, that might take away from little Johnny or Jenny getting exactly what he/she wants at all times? Bounce the other kid!
Now, there is certainly a concern if a classroom is so overrun with high-needs kids that other kids needs are being met. But what message is being sent to children when anyone who is difficult or different is simply jettisoned?
To the larger point about ability-grouping, which the author correctly notes is essentially impossible to do with middle-school aged children (beyond the equity issues associated with it), all dutifully trained teachers should have the necessary and theoretical knowledge to differentiate within the classroom for all typically-abled students (special needs children, at both the upper and lower limits, generally require more differentiation). Furthermore, if one prescribes to the constructivist theory of education (as I do and most prominent educational theorists due), children learn best when learning from one another. This is best achieved through heterogenous groupings, even to the extent of offering opportunities for mixed-age cohorts, so that students have opportunities to learn from their peers, and to experience being both a mentor and a mentee.
But what do I do? I only have a BA and MA in teaching. Let’s let racist parents and politicized administrators decide who should be in what class!
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 9:16 pm ¶
islandgirl550 wrote:
5th – 9th grades I was ability grouped into the low level classes. They assumed that since I was poor in math that I would also perform horribly in latin and french. Those classes made me feel dumb, stupid, and incapable of learning. But in 10th grade when I left private school and went to public school I was placed in AP courses. I didn’t realize that I was capable of learning until I left that private school.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 9:53 pm ¶
Melanie wrote:
You could have been talking about Portland.
Ugh, youngish white liberal do-gooders. They are by and far the worst at being ignorant when it comes to race. The things they say when they assume you are one of them.
And I couldn’t have adored Jimmy Carter more than when he said that. You certainly weren’t alone.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 10:02 pm ¶
Ergo wrote:
On ability grouping:
I went to a public high school in the South that practiced this in a very conspicuous way. It was possible for me to simultaneously enjoy being in a class that taught to my ability level/didn’t kill me with boredom AND recognize that not only were the groups strongly aligned with race/class, but that the teachers who taught the lower sections were often new or inexperienced, didn’t stay at the school for very long, etc. Additionally, once someone was in the lower track, it was very hard for them to move up.
This needs to change, but that’s no reason to do away with ability grouping. The problem is the biased way it’s often practiced. As long as the kids in *all* levels are receiving the attention, knowledge, and high-quality teaching that they are equipped for and everyone’s REALLY in the level they need to be in (that means no below-average white kids with pushy complaining parents in the upper courses as well as no unfairly stereotyped black/Latin@ kids pushed into the lower courses), ability grouping is a fair and meritocratic solution that doesn’t unfairly hinder the most talented kids based on the lowest common denominator. If only groups could actually be separated based on intelligence and hard work and ability instead of arbitrary things like race or money. Sigh.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 10:05 pm ¶
little mixed girl wrote:
I read this thinking that they were talking about Ann Arbor.
The same type of stuff goes on there, too.
There’s talk of building low-income housing, rich people poo-poo the idea, they talk about their property values and crime and such (without, of course, mentioning race), and eventually the project is put off to the side.
My family has lived in section 8 housing since…hmm….1990?
Sure there are a lot of annoying things; people that let their kids run around unsupervised, issues with the management, etc.
But for the most part, the neighborhood is clean, the people are polite and there is little to no crime.
What annoys me about these types of people (the ones who are more attached to their property values than someone getting affordable housing), is that whole n.i.m.b.y attitude.
They have no problems donating food during Christmas or raising money for children in some far-away country.
But when those poor people or those far-flung foreign children come into town, suddenly that hospitality disappears.
I remember my mom showing me an article some years ago where some parents in A2 were getting their panties in a bunch because a number of the kids in their kid’s kindergarten class were non-English speaking Chinese kids. They feared that their kid’s English ability would also be effected. *rolleyes*
oh, and being poor doesn’t automatically mean that you don’t care about keeping your house nice or that you are prone to violence.
but for some people, it’s like…”i have no money, so why should i care?”
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 10:05 pm ¶
pilot wrote:
I had a really funny coversation with my grandfather a while back. My white side of the family is mostly conservative, and had been complaining about the new housing development in their neighborhood for a while. So, when my grandfather said,
“Yep, they’re starting to put that low income housing in the neighborhood. I’ve seen a lot of Mexican families moving in.”
I braced myself. Then he said,
“Pretty soon all those kids are going to start going to school.”
I clenched my teeth. And then he said,
“It’s great cause pretty soon they can all grow up and become politicians and teachers.”
He then went on to tell me about how he’d been spending time welcoming the new families to the neighborhood.
I think of him whenever people try to say that racism is part of the past. He’s proof that it’s not.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 10:23 pm ¶
regi wrote:
I was tracked in the upper level classes, while my brother was in the lowest level. Our expereinces were so different. All of my teachers had at least a master’s degree. I had some amazing teachers who really gave me a love of learning. My brother on the other hand was told by his 9th grade math teacher that he should just do everyone a favor and drop out already. In all of high school, he was never asked to write much more than a paragraph. It’s sad.
I actually enjoyed several of my ‘regular’ ed classes in elementary school. I do not think there was a real need for the magnet classes at that age. They should have given all of the students the type enrichment time that the special kids got. Why do you have to have a high test score to write poems and make skits and books? Unfortunately, not many of the white students at my elementary school would have been there without the magnet programs. Very confusing.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 10:47 pm ¶
msfour wrote:
What is going on with that fish’s tail in that picture? It is crazy!
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 11:04 pm ¶
Seattle Slim wrote:
@Little Mixed Girl,
It’s not just white folks worried about who moves into their neighborhoods, believe that. Middle class minorities are very weary as well.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 11:17 pm ¶
mieko wrote:
I’m definitely conflicted when it comes to ability grouping. On the one hand, I really hated being the “smart kid” in a general-ed class because I stood out for teasing and requests to help others cheat. If I raised my hand to answer a question I would feel conspicuous, and so became a much quieter and closed off person because of it.
On the other hand, because I was IN the regular class it was difficult for me to get out of that class- my math teacher didn’t want to promote someone to the higher class who hadn’t learned the material yet, and the only reason I was able to switch was because I HAD learned the material! ( In the school I transferred from, I was in an accelerated class (I was not let into any x classes at the new school for reasons I suspect to be related to race)).
Also, when I switched into that advanced class I also felt out of place because of my appearance- I was one of (if not the only) POC in these classes.
Perhaps, if classes were integrated it would change the culture of homogeneity and conformity (of learning and race) into a diverse, motivated learning experience for ALL parties involved.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 11:22 pm ¶
Jen wrote:
Having covered two local council areas in Sydney, the debate about the need for an affordable/low-cost housing and public housing (ie, for those one welfare) mix in all suburbs is an interesting one. Previously I covered the main inner-city council, an area in which public housing sits alongside terrace houses that can go for a million dollars. Now I cover a neighbouring council, which covers one of the wealthiest areas in the city (and probably the country – it includes the most expensive street in Australia, which consists of massive, habour-frontage mansions owned by people like Rupert Murdoch’s son). But even that council recognises that there needs to be affordable housing, and that public (ie, government supported) housing is needed. It’s an interesting mix, and you hear relatively few complaints about it. I think there’s a general understanding that to shunt the poor off to the far western suburbs of town will only result in removing the inhabitants from the rest of society. I think it’s fantastic that there’s housing available to the poor in our inner city. Famously, there is public housing in the Rocks in Sydney – and anyone who’s ever looked at a photo of the Sydney Harbour Bridge has seen it. It is listed as being public housing in perpetuity, as in, it will always be there and no one can sell it.
Currently, City of Sydney council has a massive redevelopment planned for another site in an inner suburb, in a-grade prime real estate (which they own; it was a depot until last year), which will be a combination of public housing, affordable housing for essential service workers (police, ambulance drivers and paramedics, nurses, teachers) and then private housing where the rent will help support the other services. There’s been relatively little backlash over it; I think in this case it helps that real estate in the inner city of Sydney is so expensive anyway that a bit of public housing next to it isn’t going to damage your value much.
This isn’t to ignore some of the wider problems with public housing here, which mainly revolve around provision (there just aren’t enough flats available) and quality (some of the towers are very old and based on that 1960s Corbusier model, which is a disaster psychologically) but I’m glad that it’s not something that we just pack off to the fringes of town, and I’m glad that the announcement of a new development is relatively fuss-free.
Posted 10 Dec 2009 at 11:50 pm ¶
ashlynn wrote:
I teach in NYC right now at an A school, but about 75% of the children I’ve met so far are definitely in need of extra help. There’s an afterschool program for them, and most attend it, but I find that the lack of ability grouping there hurts more than helps. There’s one 4th grade class with some bright kids, but there’s a couple of children that read and write at a Pre-K level. How is a teacher supposed to aid these children with the serious time and effort they will need, and still continue to encourage the other students? I am often frustrated by the end of my day in that I have to deal with a minority of kids who I am not prepared to help, and in turn end up abandoning the kids who want to reap the benefits and learn.
When you have a kid who needs extra attention, behavioral issues usually come with the package. You don’t get kids who are quietly in need of assistance; you get kids who are behind and know that they are, and compensate by being as emotionally and behaviorally difficult as possible. As a teacher, especially with younger children, all it takes is one disruptive child per class to derail an entire lesson or day. This is why I am for homogeneous classrooms.
Granted, many children who need help benefit from bouncing off of more advanced kids. But that potential needs to be assessed and determined by several teachers and administrators- which equals time that many schools don’t have. So you end up placing kids where they won’t benefit at all. In a classroom that learns at a slower pace, the teachers should have a decent amount of experience, or at least be well trained, and yes- well compensated. Teachers who instruct children with greater needs tend to be not only teachers, but guidance counselors, mentors, disciplinarians, and even parents rolled into one; there efforts aren’t rewarded as such.
As for the race angle, I’m going to throw my guess into the mix: PARK SLOPE! *crosses fingers* At least give us a hint! Anyways, when I attended school in the area, we were constantly bombarded by white residents who did not want our minority-filled, part detention center, scaffolding-ruining atmosphere, scanning school disrupting their organic stroller heaven. For us, the official complaint was that we took up space (please. just ruminate on that) and disrupted the neighborhood businesses (by buying their products with our dirty ethnic money). Truth of the matter is, they didn’t like having to share their space(save for babysitters, of course), entitlement, and privilege with anyone else but people they deemed acceptable- people who were overwhelmingly white.
Lastly, yes- in areas with white people and PoC, educationally, you will find more minorities in the lower learning classes than whites. But that is not segregation. If schools were taking gifted minority students and forcing them to take remedial classes, THAT would be segregation. What we’re missing here is that the quality of higher and lower learning classes SHOULD BE THE SAME, AND IS OFTEN NOT. If lover learning classes received the same attention, skill, encouragement, RESPECT and resources as higher learning classes, then no one would be complaining- in fact, at some point we might even be able to do away with many of those classes at some point. But until then, we work to make the playing field even.
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 1:46 am ¶
luckyfatima wrote:
This article and the comments also reminded me of my thoughts as I searched through a very popular moving/relocation forum. Now that is a place to find very openly white supremacist and racist comments under the guise of “best schools” and “low crime” and so forth. Online when researching moving and relocating in the USA, I also found that school districts and individual schools have racial statistics provided for them right next to “how many students get free lunch” as well as standardized test performance and state ranking and all, and that is poignant because somehow racial make up of a school is a factor in what makes it a “good school.” The foums also had some very very telling threads like entitled “Where do all the white people shop” and also threads in which a PoC would ask “I want to move to X and I am (insert race/ethnicity) do you think people there would be racist” and then long threads of responses of (presumably) whites saying “No, no one sees color any more” “I have three black friends” and blah blah. I was sad to see several threads in which white commenters condemned teaching (white) children Spanish at public school from my native state. Looking into moving/relocating and “good neighborhood” vs. “low income housing” issues is like stumbling into this really microcosm of stark White Supremacy…it is really scary.
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 7:10 am ¶
Emilee wrote:
On the subject of ability grouping (and I’m only speaking from my own experience): I was put into the “needs more help category” when I was a child because I have dyscalculia – though this wasn’t diagnosed until high school. It was as though I was marked as “slow” for life. Where I did well (English, Spanish, History) it wasn’t noticed and I was stuck in the lower level classes even though I was bored out of my mind. When we moved (from one facet of suburbia to another), I tested into all the advanced humanities classes. When I went to college, I met a young woman who had gone to middle school with me. One of the first things she wanted to do was reminisce about the advanced program (it had a specific name). When I said I wasn’t in it, in fact was in (specific name for “other” program) she was shocked. Shocked both that I came to an Ivy League school and could seemingly spell my own name.
And the kids in the advanced program got to do many things we didn’t – museums, science fairs, even camping. My step-sister was in all the advanced classes and it was really demoralizing that she got to do all lots of interesting activities because she was smart and I didn’t because I dumb (how I saw it then, anyway). I was also stigmatized at school. And she stayed in those classes, even when she was having problems with drugs, attendance and other behavioral issues. (I adore her, just so you know). And she’s white. Also just so you know. In fact, I can’t remember a single POC in the advanced program at my school. I emailed her last night about this, and she can’t remember any non-white kids either. My class was largely Latino/a.
Finally coming to my point – the problem is a lack of flexibility in schools and a willingness to label kids far too early. I was dumb. And that was it. She was smart. And that was it. What plays into that labeling? Race, class, gender, behavior… Do I want smart children to be bored? No. Am I more concerned with encouraging the “dumb” ones? Yes, I am. But only because I am so bitter about my experiences. If I was a bored “smart” kid, I would probably feel differently.
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 9:26 am ¶
ACW wrote:
As a military brat, I attended – on average – two different schools per year. I was tracked as ‘gifted’ or ‘AP’ all along. Even as a young child, I noticed the lack of diversity in my classes.
I remember asking my mom, “Sure, this school is 75% white, but you’re telling me *none* of the Black kids are gifted?!” She shifted uncomfortably and came up with some excuse about ‘their’ parents just not knowing how to advocate for ‘their’ kids.
I like the system put in place for my kids: they are tracked as AIG and attend language arts and math according to their ability, but our school system requires that they spend at least 50% of their school hours in heterogeneous groupings, so science and social studies are spent with other groups, as well as lunch, recess, and daily ’specials’ like PE, art, and music – where actual social interaction occurs. Plus, our schools are great about qualifying a large portion of *all* students as AIG. But, you know, living in a city with 60% of its population POC… it encourages heterogeneity.
That said… in looking at the assessment formula for the gifted program here, a borderline child could be missing out if *both* (a) the teacher doesn’t recommend placement and (b) the parent doesn’t recommend placement.
I strongly feel that parents who have, themselves, been tracked as gifted know how to recognize ability in their kids and navigate the system. If my classmates from years ago were gifted but not identified, is it possible they would look at their kids and not push for testing?
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 9:45 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
@luckyfatima: Are you talking about city-data.com? That place is a trip!
People really let down their guard on that site, and are totally honest there, for good and for bad (mostly for bad).
It happens a lot in Atlanta discussions that the wires cross. A lot of white people moving to Atlanta are asking variations on “what’s the shortest commute from a neighborhood I can move to without black people.” (Average estimated answer: 1.5 hours). The problem, of course, is that since so many people who live in Atlanta are black, the white relocaters end up asking the question of black posters, who’ve evolved a variety of strategies for dealing with the question. Meanwhile, the black people moving to Atlanta are trying to ask “what neighborhood can I move to that’s middle-class but not full of whacko racists”.
Then you have the wildly inaccurate warnings about which neighborhoods are dangerous. I remember one warning about downtown Stone Mountain… “don’t even stop there FOR GAS, or you’ll get carjacked.” Anyone who knows downtown Stone Mountain will find that really funny.
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 10:04 am ¶
2552 wrote:
As a young, white liberal who voted for Obama, I wonder if some white liberals are afraid to confront their “inner racist” because of the (quite justified) fear that conservatives would jump at the chance to wrongly call liberals “the real racists”?
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 10:40 am ¶
amy wrote:
Park Slope?
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 11:18 am ¶
~M wrote:
You had me until you said, “Which is why I was the only person on Jimmy Carter’s side when he called out the obvious racism against Obama. ”
Was that in a context that I missed or that got deleted from your post? ‘Cause my white-ethnic mother and I (also white-ethnic) were sitting in her townhouse watching Carter when he said it and we agreed that he hit the nail on the head.
Otherwise a great post and I agree strongly that, “people are more often thoughtlessly racist than they are aggressively so.”
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 11:50 am ¶
jen* wrote:
seriously, atlasien? like – in the Stone Mountain village? that IS hilarious. I gotta go check that site out. LOL.
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 11:59 am ¶
AndreaJ wrote:
Ashlynn is right on! I believe the area to be Park Slope as well, the epicenter of Obama Liberals. Park Slope is an area where the majority of the residents were people that grew up in the suburbs, listen to rap music, believed that there was social injustice in this world and called themselves open-minded people. These same people grew up moved to NYC and once confronted with the realities of these social injustices created a haven that reminds them of their suburban youth to escape the “ poor minorities” of NYC. Their world is the only world that matters. NYC is what they want it to be and they don’t care about the real residents of the city. Obama liberals are conservatives in sheep’s clothing.
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 12:03 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
@jen: yep, Stone Mountain village, the one full of dangerous knick-knack shops.
It’’s one of those quirks of history that Stone Mountain features the largest monument glorifying the Confederacy, plus the 20th century KKK was founded at Stone Mountain and used to burn their crosses on the top of Stone Mountain… and 100 years later, it’s so multiracial (in a rather unexciting, suburban way) that white racists are terrified of going there.
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 12:33 pm ¶
luckyfatima wrote:
@atlasien: yes city-data was the forums I was thinking of. I stumbled across this thread about a Muslim woman asking about the Dallas Metroplex area: http://www.city-data.com/forum/dallas/336315-muslim-moving-texas.html
And also other sites about real estate and school districts.
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 1:15 pm ¶
Terrie wrote:
I think the problem with talking about ability grouping is that there are two different issues being talked about. There’s your range of high and low achieving kids with, at most, below or above average, but still basically average, intellegence. And then there’s special needs kids, which ever end they fall on. I was one of those highly gifted kids in a heterogenous classroom of average kids of varying abilities. The best analogy I can come up with is taking an average child and holding them back for three years because to do otherwise would make the other kids “feel bad.” I’m all for mixing up average kids with different achievement levels, but kids with signifigant intellectual gifts or disabilities are not benefited by pretending they’re average.
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 1:16 pm ¶
Monica wrote:
Pilot – I don’t understand your story – is there some hidden coding in your grandfather’s suggesting these kids will only become politicians and teachers? Sorry, I feel dumb! Can someone explain?
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 1:45 pm ¶
blackstocking wrote:
Sounds like Shaker Heights, Ohio which went for Obama (he spoke at our high school this summer). The “good” white liberal party-line ends at the school door.
Our district is majority black now, but the city is not. I have to listen to some white parents lament the achievement gap (my public persona is non-angry Negro) all the time. They act as though the black kids “inferiority” is an infectious disease. They will only let their kids be friends w/ black kids like mine (i.e. seemingly non-violent and speak clear and proper English).
The so-called liberals will not acknowledge that we have approx. 20-30% students that are poor. They like to pretend that we are all the same despite tremendous income disparities that mean some kids get free lunches and others get to go to Europe all summer for soccer clinics.
Lastly, the white liberal parents who can’t afford or don’t believe in private school play the game of having their geniuses labeled learning disabled yet simutaneously gifted. I know, I know, this is actually possible- but come on. They just don’t want their precious white kids in the “regular classes” w/ the black kids. CP (college prep) classes are referred to as “colored people classes.” The white kids are all in honors, advanced, ap, etc. I’ll take the blatant racist over the well-meaning liberal kind any day of the year.
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 2:00 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:
I’m thinking Park Slope too. The hypocrisy in that area is un-fucking-real.
I agree with Ashlynn. There are times where ability grouping is needed (especially when dealing with Special Ed classes). It’s unfair to place a very bright child in a classroom where they are bored to tears and aren’t challenged. What I would like to see is more funding for lower tracked programs, and qualified teachers given to those children so they can be the best they can possibly be, improve, and move on. In the right environment these kids can blossom. In the wrong one, they won’t.
Too often, kids who are slow-tracked are placed in classrooms with:
- inexperienced teachers
- teachers who are only teaching for the check
- teachers who care so much they go into their own wallets/spend extra time/go the extra mile to fight for “their” kids, only to get the smackdown time and time again from school administrators that don’t care and parents that use the school as a babysitting service and refuse to come to meetings and blame the teacher for all of their child’s faults (These teachers usually get burnt out and either transfer to another school, or turn into the teachers who only teach for the check).
- placed with children with severe behavioral/emotional issues (end result being NO one learns anything because the teachers are too busy breaking up fights/putting out fires/calming everyone down to actually teach)
Posted 11 Dec 2009 at 4:54 pm ¶
shah8 wrote:
1) Judging from my own experience in Cobb Co, ability tracking is mostly a tactic for segregation, rather than assist the very bright. It is very difficult to enter in any of those AP classes from normal classes unless the teacher likes you. I wound up not being allowed into a couple of AP classes my senior year–but I prepared for, and took the exam anyways. Got a perfect score, and I always had wondered since whether that opened that snotty teacher’s eyes and gave some other poor guy/girl a chance. I faced some pretty considerable barriers at that high school at times.
2) Ability tracking doesn’t serve the gifted. They typically serve the entitled and the aggressive. The gifted doesn’t need larger dumps of data. They need better, and more flexible, teaching. Being gifted doesn’t mean you have fewer flaws. It just means you’re smart, which sez a lot less than what the non-gifted think it means. That means that issues with our learning are typically more difficult to unravel, with many of the same issues as the kids in the “special” classes. The lowdown is that there are many “talented” people like me and Emilee who had *real* learning issues. (I didn’t have dyscalcula but I had a rather serious Inattention ADD, and needed lots of help to be that kind of “better than other student” student when it came to anything detail oriented, like math. So, what really happens is that ability grouping sucks up good teachers from most of the student body (my high school was pretty deep in quality, though–most of them weren’t bad).
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 12:38 am ¶
ashlynn wrote:
@AndreaJ: That description is on point. Can I quote you on that the next time some clueless person asks me with surprise: “Wait…what’s wrong with Park Slope (me foaming at the mouth doesn’t seem to get it done anymore)?”
@blackstocking: damn. That Hold Steady lyrics: “We used to shake it up in Shaker Heights!” is so catchy- now I will forever look at it and THS in a sad light*. :-\
*well not really, since i’m already aware that THS are pretty much the epitome of white hipster/scenester privilegedom.
@Kaonashi: Thanks. Again, going to HS in Park Slope, about 90% of our teachers were Teaching Fellows, who would come in all wide eyed, be horrified, and basically stick it out and try to finish their Master’s program ASAP(NYC Teaching Fellows pays for its participants’ grad schooling). The turnover rate was astounding.
All the categories you described exist in my school…and as a teacher now, I am sadly, currently in that last one. I came in today- literally walked in- to see one of my students getting slammed into the wall by some other kid. I had to hold my student back like I was on the freaking block. This constitutes my whole day. End Rant.
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 5:25 am ¶
pm wrote:
I live in a council block. My neighbours (and me, for that matter) are far from well off. Most of them would be on the lower(ish) end of the working class, most council tenants, quite a few on benefits. The council proposed to build, right next door, a short-stay hostel for ‘hard to house families’. Cue outrage from all my neighbours about the noise and anti-social behaviour that would probably result from people _even worse off than them_ moving in next door.
Race had nothing to do with it, mind, both groups would be mostly white with some POC. I kept an embarrassed silence, being a lower-middle class liberal, but I think my neighbours had a bit of a point – why is it always the moderately badly off who have to share with the very poorest,. who tend to have a high proportion of people with behavioural problems?
Why is it lower-middle class/upper-working class kids who have to share inner-city classrooms with large numbers of the most disruptive and troubled in the name of ‘mixed ability classes’ while the upper middle class, liberal and conservative alike, send their kids to exclusive private schools or suburban grammar schools? Liberals like our Harriet Harman who support comprehensive education, but only for other, less well-off, people’s children, not their own, really get on my nerves. I support comprehensive schools but I prefer the out-right elitists to the liberal hypocrites.
Personally my dream is for the very poorest, most troubled, and most anti-social people, to be housed right next door to the richest, most comfortable, and (also, in their very different ‘investment banker’ kind of way) equally anti-social people, instead of the rest of us being a buffer zone between them. House the poorest with the rich and ‘bus’ the most disruptive and challenging pupils from the most disadvantaged familes to the poshest private schools. Lord knows, they have the resources to help them.
Kaonashi
“placed with children with severe behavioral/emotional issues (end result being NO one learns anything because the teachers are too busy breaking up fights/putting out fires/calming everyone down to actually teach)”
The problem is when too many such children are concentrated in a few under-resourced schools. If they were shared around more evenly it wouldn’t be such a problem.
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 8:07 am ¶
Rainy wrote:
When I was in high school, I had problems with math. I had some bad teachers and some good ones. I got A’s and B’s when the teachers were good and D’s and F’s when the teachers were bad. I got A’s and B’s in every other class. We had to pass a proficiency test in order to get our diploma. My school took the time to put kids in classes so that they could get extra help with math or science. I was able to pass the Math section of the test in 11th grade but it took a lot of work. With all the budget cuts, I doubt the kids these days have that kind of help.
A friend of mine who teaches in Japan said that some prefectures separate the kids by their grades. They also have separate schools for kids with behavioral and emotional problems. Not every prefecture does that, though.
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 12:12 pm ¶
Asianlawyer wrote:
Tracking is definitely necessary in academics. In fact I’d like to see the old vocational educational track brought back for high school students who do not have the ability and/or interest for the college prep/academic track. Furthermore, forcing bright kids into classrooms with average or below average ones does have a negative effect on their developing potential as well as there commitment to education. That being said, I also agree that there needs to be more mobility between tracks and kids need to be constantly evaluated so that everyone can work to their potential. Furthermore, the American public and our governments need to devote a much greater amount of financial resources to education, on all levels.
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 1:54 pm ¶
Asianlawyer wrote:
Oh and PS I am guessing your friend is located in some town in Westchester County. Park Slope already has many low and middle income residents.
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 1:55 pm ¶
Bagelsan wrote:
Pilot – I don’t understand your story – is there some hidden coding in your grandfather’s suggesting these kids will only become politicians and teachers? Sorry, I feel dumb! Can someone explain?
I think that the grandfather’s first two lines were starting to sound like a racist tirade (they’ll use up all our resources! They’ll mix in with all the little white kids!) but he ended up saying something really positive and hopeful instead (they’ll all be awesome assets to the community!) which made the last sentence a happy surprise, and evidence that not all old white people are racist assholes. So, no, not hidden coding, I think, just a nice twist on the usual “my white grandfather once said…” stories. ^^
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 5:48 pm ¶
Bagelsan wrote:
The best analogy I can come up with is taking an average child and holding them back for three years because to do otherwise would make the other kids “feel bad.”
I think there’s also the idea that, hey, gifted kids are smart so they’ll work it out themselves and learn despite it all. (Which is bull, obviously; mostly they just become depressed to the point of suicidal, or check out entirely from whole education process.)
Assuming that little kids will be “fine” being bored out of their minds and shamed by their peers (and/or teachers) for being ahead of everyone else in the class is very damaging. Obviously the “gifted” programs, etc, need a lot of work to make them more fair and flexible but I think they can be literal lifesavers for the kids that really need them.
Posted 12 Dec 2009 at 5:54 pm ¶
CParis wrote:
<em?ACW wrote: As a military brat, I attended – on average – two different schools per year. I was tracked as ‘gifted’ or ‘AP’ all along. Even as a young child, I noticed the lack of diversity in my classes.
I was a military brat back in the late ’70s and attended DOD schools overseas. In the primary grades we had tracking only in math and reading classes. The mix of students in the highest achieving classes was pretty diverse (racially, social class) and students were moved up or down every term, if warranted.
Posted 13 Dec 2009 at 2:48 pm ¶
pilot wrote:
Monica, were you confused by my comment about racism as a thing of the past? I think I should have written that a little clearer.. I should really drink coffee before I make my morning posts
I feel like a lot of people accept racism in older generations because its was just “part of the culture.” I’ve also heard a lot of people say things like, ‘When that generation finally dies off…’ Or respond to racism by saying, “Oh, he’s just a stubborn old man.” That’s what I mean by people thinking racism is a thing of the past. Time and historical “progression” have nothing to do with it- there were a lot of anti-racists in the past (like my grandfather), just as there are a lot of modern racists around today (like the whole white liberal racism thing).
I guess though, I should also say that my grandfather was Italian American, and experienced a lot of prejudice in his youth, so I think his experience had a lot to do with his activism.
Posted 13 Dec 2009 at 9:40 pm ¶
Jessica wrote:
Hi, I read occasionally and wanted to comment as one of the labeled ’smart kids.’ I was labeled early and was in every gifted/talented program they had. And I am now completely against such programs. The little bit of extra I got was not worth telling my siblings that they were ‘dumb kids’ because they weren’t put in these programs (a couple of slight learning disabilities that in no way affected their ability to think creatively).
I was never once ‘held back’ by going over something again. I often needed the extra practice as much as the ‘average kids,’ and those other kids would have benefited from the cool math games and extra fun learning projects I got to do as well. I’ve never understood the idea that only the ’smart kids’ deserve to think learning is fun and everyone else should hate school and slog through rote memorization.
Plus, my test for deciding if I qualified for the program asked a lot of knowledge questions- reflecting more that my mother went to college and could stay at home with me when I was young more than any of my own abilities.
I’m leery of schools that track some kids for college and others for vocational schools because, amazingly, these schools tend to find that white kids from well-off families have what it takes to go to college and that poor kids and POC just don’t and should go to a vocational school. I like it in theory (since it gives more options), but in practice, it just lets teachers and administrators sort along their own biases. And gifted programs do the same.
Posted 13 Dec 2009 at 9:54 pm ¶
Camille McNally wrote:
Wow. I’m so glad that someone else agreed with Jimmy Carter. Thank God, I thought I was going crazy.
Posted 13 Dec 2009 at 11:47 pm ¶
Irina wrote:
I agree with the points about housing, but I did need to chime in on the issue of educational grouping. I think Terrie and Bagelsan really hit it on the head when they referred to gifted kids being on the spectrum of special needs students. (Disclosure: I went to grade school in Canada; I missed the regular gifted test because I didn’t speak English, but a teacher had me do it later; the test was a problem-solving, not knowledge-based, test; and all my classes were racially mixed in a way that reflected the populations of the areas I lived in: caucasian, including immigrants, south asian, and east asian. So I had a pretty good version of this kind of program.)
One of my high school teachers put it best when he said that it’s hard to argue for special funds or programs for gifted students. Everybody assumes that giving them special treatment is like giving money to rich people — they already have enough, don’t they? What few realise is that putting gifted kids in regular classes means that some won’t excel quite as much, but that many will be utter failures as a result. I was well on that track before a teacher interpreted my unwillingness to do any schoolwork correctly, and had me take the test I’d previously missed.
I’m glad that some people streamed as gifted feel they would have done fine in a mixed class. I happen to know it was a lifesaver for me and for many of my colleagues. Being in a classroom where we weren’t ostracized for putting up our hand to answer a question not only meant that we could improve academically, but, the real point, we could also learn basic social skills in a less judgmental environment. I’ve met people who should have been in gifted programs but weren’t, and who had to spend years learning how to behave like normal people.
The social aspect is often neglected, and it isn’t really addressed by cute educational theories that have children “teaching” each other. The only thing the child being bullied by other students learns in that classroom is how to defend him or herself. That usually means pretending to be stupid (the girls often react this way) or deciding to be the smarter-than-thou pariah. Or withdrawing from school altogether.
I’ll add that children who can grasp concepts easily are often not very good teachers to those who can’t. They don’t have the training in teaching methods, and are simply impatient with the kid who doesn’t “get it.” Please don’t get me started on prominent educational theories, and the havoc they’ve wreaked on pedagogy in North America. There have been many good ideas, but there have also been disastrous ones, and I’m unlikely automatically to hold something in esteem simply because it comes from an Ed. school.
I agree that it’s a tragedy when children with learning disabilities, or children with average potential, are held back. I hold it as a tragedy when any human being is not helped to develop their full potential. But why is it not also a tragedy when kids with high academic potential are held back? Why do they have to be punished for the fact that they do not fit into a normal system, and do not learn or develop well in it? Why does a school have to be a procrustean bed, cutting or stretching each child to a single average? Is it not also a loss to society when a child who could have become a doctor or an engineer or an historian drops out or doesn’t develop the social skills necessary to survive? Would it make it any easier for so-called egalitarian people to swallow this idea if I pointed out that the gifted child might be a minority, or an immigrant, or potentially the first kid in the family to go to college?
I think the solution is to fine-tune the testing, and to encourage good-quality educators to teach at every level. *And* to encourage all educators to recognize the signs that a child has been incorrectly streamed.
Posted 14 Dec 2009 at 2:55 am ¶
Wyatt wrote:
As an educator, I must speak up for the truly gifted students. Gifted students get bored easily, and in most instances, there aren’t any pull out programs for them. And so, I am comfortable if gifted students are pulled from the classroom because they are being under nourished in the general classroom. And with working with gifted students, I know they will shut down or ignore any student they feel is inferior, so having them in a group may not be an asset to a struggling learner anyway. Yet, this is only my experience with gifted learners. On a larger note, it is really strange how some “richer” people think “poorer” people will destroy their way of life. My mother always says rich people need poorer people to keep them rich, and I often wonder why they run from the mouths that feed them, sometimes.
Posted 14 Dec 2009 at 10:30 am ¶
gatamala wrote:
pm:
Thanks for sharing that perspective. I don’t really understand the MP set up, does Harman represent your district? At any rate, my high school was the confluence of (generally) 2 middle schools. One was more evenly-divided with regards to race and more equal regarding class. Mine was heavily white and most black children (save a few of us) were bussed in from the poorest parts of town. The guiding factor in bussing was race. As the less white high schools had working class black kids, the schools did not need to bus kids in. The only way to attract white kids to the majority black highschool was to make it magnet. The result was the schools with the most racial tension were those with the greatest disparity in race. The majority of the challenging/disruptive/unsocialized students were black children
who came from broken homes on the margins of the city. Those were populations that were typically isolated from one another. The classes (save P.E.) were separated by tracking. All of this is to say that it is likely that our 50/50 schools would serve as buffers but for the desire to maintain minimum percentages in other schools. The reason the wealthier residents haven’t put a stop to it is because the $$$ keeps flowing outward to the county via white flight.
@Irina~
I hear you. It is my opinion that certain liberals who have pet theories don’t really believe them. In their racism, they will be more than willing to “experiment” with minorities. However, their kids will be exposed to the tried and true. I don’t think many people have come to terms what many, many teaching environments are like. My mother had students get in her face and had conferences with parents that necessitated security’s presence.
Folks have not really come to terms with violence against those who want to learn (think picking on the “nerd” x 10). In my jr. high mixed classes, I got all sorts of grief from a certain ilk for raising my hand. It didn’t bother me much as I had a goal in mind. Plus, the critical classes were tracked. The kids who lived on the other side of town had those that were disruptive and those that were quiet. One day, a quiet girl who lived amongst these kids told me, “I wish I made grades like yours.” Then and there, I realized that some people need to be taken out of certain environments if they are to thrive. With all of the social pressure of her neighbors/pers this classmate could not take class seriously or her ass would get kicked on the regular.
Posted 14 Dec 2009 at 11:40 am ¶
shah8 wrote:
/me snorts…
“gifted” is just such a completely toxic term.
1) People tend to neglect gifted education because of the fact that it’s pretty darn true that it doesn’t serve majority gifted people.
2) Most gifted programs serve well prepared students, not gifted people per se.
3) As a result, most honors level and gifted programs don’t tend to feature anything more than good teaching, fun projects, and ego stroking that would be good for *all* students. Faster progression and higher workload simply select for the more organized and resourced students–who wind up being trained seals (not that there’s anything really wrong with that beyond we have too many of those already) and not insightful and dynamic contributors to society.
4) But seriously, being gifted, for all that it signals an internal wealth, is a kind of learning disability–especially in the typical US school mentality and methodology. Humans are social creatures. Being seriously smarter than other people is something you have to *cope* with socially and intellectually all your life unless you can insulate yourself with people of like ability–which is a privilege. Yes, gifted kids need “harder” curriculum. But more work and more indepth work isn’t really the “harder” gifted kids need. They need more *sophisticated* work and many need intensive remedial help on all kinds of topics. They don’t need “better” teachers. They need “specialized” teachers. Probably more than anything, “gifted” courses have to be insulated from the pressures of parents who want their “special” kids to have all the best.
5) There are just not all that many truly gifted children. Being liberal, and including kids that had problems being gifted and unrecognized, there were probably no more than 5 such students in each grade in the high school I was at. So max, probably 20 students at one of the best public high schools in the Atlanta area. The real issue is money. If we treated gifted education like disability education, like we should, those twenty kids would eat up *huge* amounts of dollars.
6) The big problem is that our public school system is degrading seriously–with dysfunctional principals, not enough quality teachers, and a darkening social climate that is punishing kids of all kinds before they even enter the classroom.
Posted 14 Dec 2009 at 2:08 pm ¶
Irina wrote:
@Wyatt, gatamala, shah8: Thank you for your comments. I felt that I was going out a limb to some extent arguing that gifted kids are on the special needs spectrum, as I really only have my own experience and observations for that.
@gatamala: Thank you, also, for pointing out that the ostracism of academically gifted kids can involve violence. I grew up in a Canadian public school shangri-la of sorts. I was clearly too sheltered even to make my own point with the full force possible!
@shah8: Your point that giftedness is not synonymous with better preparation or readiness to do harder work is a necessary one, because it allows us to bring the discussion back to race and class. I actually also get annoyed when I hear about parents who aggressively insist that their kids must be in the “top” class, not just because of the ensuing racial or class segregation, but because gifted programs should really be treated as special ed. In my eyes, that’s morally equivalent to rich parents who get their child diagnosed with a learning disability only so as to get extra time on the SAT.
Posted 14 Dec 2009 at 3:28 pm ¶
pilot wrote:
I have to say in terms of “gifted,” I’ve had many gifted friends who were put in remedial classes because their learning styles didn’t quite fit the class, or they went to a poor school, or they didn’t do well on standardized tests.
I grew up in a military household and we changed schools every three to four years (not so bad compared to most). My brother and I were constantly being moved from ‘gifted’ to ‘remedial’ classes. I don’t think this had a lot to do with our abilities, as we were not at the schools long enough for teachers to evaluate our performance (we were placed in classes pretty soon after first arriving at the school). My cousin, also military, changed schools every year or so, and went through the whole system with average to below average grades until he was diagnosed with severe dyslexia at age 17. He was never put in any special class. In my experience, I don’t think most public schools are really equipped to gauge either ‘giftedness’ or ‘disability.’
I have to agree strongly with shah8. Gifted does mean preparedness. Gifted classes are classes that would well serve more than just the small population of students they do. I also think that such programs tend to prefer some gifts over others (which is another area where class and race come in). I mean, why are students who speak English as a second language treated as ‘remedial’ in some schools? Shouldn’t bilingualism be fostered? Isn’t that a gift?
Posted 14 Dec 2009 at 8:37 pm ¶
Irina wrote:
@pilot: shah8 was saying that gifted programs tend to serve students who are prepared, but that’s not necessarily what gifted students are. She or he is referring to a misidentification of gifted students, not to the way it should be.
Speaking as someone who once was in ESL classes, I don’t see the problem with considering it remedial. You’re only bilingual once you speak two languages fluently, and at that point you don’t need to be in an ESL class…. at least if one of those languages is English. (I was bilingual when I began ESL, but neither of the languages were official languages in Canada, so no game.) But yes, if a student can read, write, and speak English fluently, and therefore have access to all the power associated with English in North America, I can’t imagine why they should be considered remedial.
Posted 15 Dec 2009 at 12:28 am ¶
NancyP wrote:
In an ideal world, children would be identified as gifted/creative/independent learners, average (needing a structured curriculum but not a lot of individual attention), or remedial (needing significant amount of individual attention) in several major subjects. The child who has talent at maths but is below average in language could get the instruction appropriate for him/her, not some generic “child”. In theory, children would be able to move between different levels in a given subject, and the great majority of children would be in at least two tracks, and also participate in non-tracked activities, thereby having some social mixing.
The only official tracking done in my time was at the high school level, where students faced a choice of college prep versus co-op vocational education. I had some of the common difficulties faced by some “gifted” students : (undiagnosed) ADHD (?) resulting in physical restlessness when the class is taught repetitive drills on material I knew, being put in the coat closet all day for fidgeting or getting out of my seat to look out the window (first grade), being ridiculed or bullied for being different, with resulting social withdrawal. This is a fine way of creating a child who is a chronic disciplinary problem. The simple and inexpensive answer was to allow me to work on something else (read a library book, write something) once I showed that I had mastered the topic at hand.
I don’t think that schools or parents necessarily have a good grasp of an individual child’s possible gifts/talents, learning style, and needs.
Posted 16 Dec 2009 at 1:01 am ¶
Jess wrote:
Something that I thought of after reading the stuff on remedial/special ed…
A good friend of mine teaches ESL. He mentioned that even in a relatively decent public school system (Rochester, NY) that isn’t perfect but does okay, the biggest issue he has with ESL kids is continuity.
That is, there are a lot of kids whose parents shuttle them between, say, Puerto Rico and Rochester every few months (for a whole stack of reasons) and so it’s near impossible to give those kids the relevant skills because it just plain takes longer than one half a school year to do it.
The other issue with ESL is how they do it in the US. First, it’s all over the place. What is “ESL” in Oklahoma differs radically from what you get in New York. (See the continuity issue above — if your kids have to move a lot, good luck getting a decent shake from the schools).
Second, what Irina brought up is pat of that. One of the interesting things about language learning is that keeping the skills going in the first language helps to get good skills in L2 (and eventually reach true bilingualism or multi-lingualism).
To clarify: a person who is highly literate in Spanish, for example, at whatever age (say 10 years) will have a lot easier time learning English. The same applies to any language. ESL, done right, would encourage high levels of literacy in L1 as well as English. Unfortunately we don’t do that here in the US at all, really.
European kids (or those educated in that tradition) get a very different deal. Not only is language learning started a lot earlier than has been the norm here, they learn to read and write in multiple tongues (and are, to be fair, often exposed to them daily).
The thing is, in many other countries the idea that a kid would be bilingual is taken as a normal part of life. We’re pretty late to that game in the US. (A load of classism is to my mind one big reason).
If we approached language learning in that fashion, I bet most of those Spanish speaking kids wouldn’t be in remedial classes anymore.
I’d posit as well that any kid who is literate in at least one other language at grade level will perform at grade level in English faster than a kid who is not in that situation. So fix the first part, and you go a long way towards fixing the second. But schools in the US aren’t equipped for that.
Posted 16 Dec 2009 at 12:16 pm ¶