I think that knowing many of the students will not make it to their senior year sets the rest up for failure. If a student knows coming into high school that only a certain percent of their peers will make it to graduation, it does not put a lot of pressure on them to apply themselves because they could just put it in their head that it is a common thing to drop out or fail out of school. As we have learned in many lectures, many Latinos are in impoverished areas with highly populated schools. The teachers are usually under qualified and not a large motivating factor for the students. If the students do not have a teacher that makes them apply themselves and always give 100%, they may fall into the statistics of Latinos without a high school diploma. If schools set aside enough funding for the space needed to have all of their freshman be accommodated their senior year, I think they would motivate students more to pass classes because they would not want this funding to go to waste.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Professor Ortega's Lecture
In Professor Ortega's Lecture on Monday, he explained that schools expect enrollment to drop as students move from freshman up to seniors, so they do not provide the space necessary for classrooms, books, and teachers if all the freshman were to stay in school and graduate. I find this very interesting and horrible at the same time. I feel as though this may play into the decreased motivation that Latinos may have to continue on through school. If a school's administration is expecting numbers to decline, they might tell teachers to only pass a certain number of students each year. I believe combining a child who may already not be passionate about school with teachers that only can pass a percentage of their class through to the next grade could be hugely responsible for the low numbers of Latinos who graduate.
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5 comments:
I really found your comments insightful. I feel as though you touched upon an important issue in your blog when you questioned the effects of school/teacher expectations on their students, particularly Latino students. I agree with you that these expectations could negatively effect student performance particularly if these sentiments become internalized. The problem of schools expecting a certain number of students to never finish their high school careers is horrible and makes me wonder in what ways the system needs to be restructured so all students can achieve.
I completely agree. The faculty and staff are basically saying that they know a significant number of students will never graduate so why should they waste time and resources on them. What student would be motivated by this? If teachers aren't believing in and motivating their students, how can the students be expected to do this on their own?
Teachers need to be inspiring and try to motivate kids to succeed. Their job isn't just to teach the facts, it's to teach kids to love learning. I remember from high school that I always did better in the classes where I liked the teacher, regardless of how difficult it was. Thus, how can kids be expected to succeed at high rates in school if the teachers put off the message that only a few of you will make it to graduation?
I believe that having teachers with negative attitudes toward their students is severely detrimental to an individual's psyche and their motivation to learn. Like Rachel, I think that school system must be re-structured. It is unacceptable that schools are not providing enough resources/materials for their students to further their education. We should not be knocking our students down, because who will be left to think progressively and bring about change in the future? Do we really want the US to become an uneducated country? NO!!!!
I think the comments in this post help open the doors to the larger issue of poverty and education. The lack of funding is a problem facing many inner city schools today. How can a student be motivated when there are so many factors working against them? It is completely unacceptable that schools plan on a large drop out rate and do not even bother to prepare the resources needed for a full class to graduate. I think that if there was more funding for the schools there would be a lower drop out rate. I also think it is important to make sure that students are given individualized attention because if a student feels a connection with a mentor they might be less likely to drop out of school.
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