Letter to Friends
This post is a little untraditional: it's a copy of an e-mail I sent to my old Education professors to give them an update on how things have been going and my observations. Feel free to give it a read!:
I promised you an e-mail about my current teacher observations and my continuous and epic struggle of liberal arts grad verses stuck in the rural south teacher mentalities.
First of all, a couple of interesting developments as far as the hiring practices of our school. I know I spoke to you about this over the phone, but I'll revisit the demographics and conditions of the Lakeside School District here in Lake Village, Arkansas:
Lakeside was originally a segregated school while the black students were sent to Central High school and elementary on the north end of town. Lakeside was right on the lake, hence its name, in an imposing and beautiful two story brick building. Despite Brown V. Board in 1954, Lakeside was not integrated until 1972 (or 73...not completely sure).
The actual steps of integration and what precisely took place are vague from what I've learned so far, but essentially the wealthy white parents in the lower Delta area (including schools across the river) withdrew their children en-masse and enrolled them in brand new private schools popping up throughout the area with names like "Pillow Academy," "Lee Academy," "Washington School," and, my favorite just outside of Jackson Mississippi, "Rebul Academy." Educators also left, and it's in the departure that my theories come into play:
First of all you had a largely disenfranchised and under-funded staff and school district becoming incorporated with a more well funded and more well educated (in the sense of college requirements, educational backgrounds, etc) being forced to work side by side with each other. I'm assuming there was animosity as the popular science teacher at the all white school was forced to teach classes he or she didn't want so the black teacher with less experience could teach that class. As that teacher left others followed, etc, leading parents to lose faith in the whole system. Apparently there was a sidewalk outside of the high school along the lake where only upper classmen could walk, and a few fights broke out when black students, newly integrated, tried to use the sidewalk as well. The prom king and queen were both black and white, everything was split down the middle. It would be interesting (and maybe I'll pursue this) to look at the rules that were imposed in the newly integrated Lakeside School District in terms of social norms, school rules, and hiring policies.
Second was the actual execution. A few people I've spoken with say that integration happened "too fast" despite there being a 20 year gap between the court's decision and the actual act of integration. Yet this argument has merit. The schools were placed together suddenly with all grades, and I doubt the schools had the resources or manpower to deal with the inevitable clash of two different cultures and social classes coming together after being told for years that they were meant to be apart.
The resulting "white flight" from Lakeside started in a large deluge, though the school was around 50/50 black and white through the 70s, 80s, and early 90s. Most of the whites in the school are lower class in terms of income. As of the late 90s and just last year our percentage of black to white students has become increasingly inbalanced: our school is largely black now, with about a 10% Mexican population and probably 5% white students. I always joke that our football team is a reversal of the movie "Varsity Blues" because we have a white wide receiver on an all black team.
Lakeside now is in a different location than it was when the school was integrated. A new high school was built outside of town in the late 80s, and a modern elementary and middle school followed in the early 90s. Our students are bussed in from about a 30 mile radius of the school, and there are three other towns aside from Lake Village that attend our school. The latest town that was shut down was Eudora, Lakeside's biggest rival. The town is about the size of Lake Village and the state forced our schools to join together. This has resulted in a merging of two staffs and the process actually went pretty smoothly. The students at Eudora had alot less in terms of classroom discipline, so they were forced to adjust to a more structured environment, but have actually been doing rather well. Both the Upper Elementary and Middle School met their AYP for No Child Left Behind (but just barely), despite the task of acculturating a brand new set of students into an existing environment.
Most of the teaching staff at Lakeside are either young and fresh teach for America teachers or teachers seeking an early job to pay off loans. Most of the younger talent will stick around for 2 to 3 years and then move on. The rest of the staff consists of retirees from Mississippi who come across the river to Arkansas to teach for another 5 years and get a double retirement check towards the end. It's quite a juxtaposition: novice teachers full of ideals and ideas and veteran teachers with years of wisdom who are somewhat set in their ways. Rarely do I see veteran teachers at athletic events or festivals put on by our students, but also rarely do I see their kids acting inapporpriately or out of control.
So I'm part of the former group: a young, idealistic teacher from Washington State in the middle of South-eastern Arkansas. I'm the minority in my classroom. I come from a lower middle class background, where when I wanted to earn something I had the means to get a job and earn it. I was instilled with the ideals and motivation that in order to advance in life I needed to work hard, save up, and the rewards would come in the end (the classic American "pull yourselves up by the bootstraps" mentality). My students have it differently. Take, for example, one of my female students who had a baby when she was just 14, a freshman in high school. She's spent most of her life moving around with her mother around southeast Arkansas. The baby's husband is currently in jail, and has missed the child's first steps, and first words. I look into this student's eyes and realize there is a maturity there that goes beyond my own: I'm not a parent, I could never know that feeling, and yet here she is in my classroom yelling out and talking back. The places my kids come from are impossible for me to understand sometimes. My kids don't see the rewards or work. They have parents who have worked hard, or who never worked but just "got by." Realize that the standards for "getting by" down here are pretty dismal. Beat up trailer houses, old shot-gun shacks with an air-conditioner unit towards the back on streets named "Confederate" and "Lee." For the lower classes, if mom or dad has a job it's at the local fast food restaurant (there are 7 in a town of 2800...granted..we're on a major highway) or working for the school in some capacity. The town's biggest employers are the school district, the local hospital, and the cat fish farms. Some parents still hold on to vistages of the old share-cropping systems, renting land from wealthy white "farmers" who actually own around 10 acres and lease the rest of the land to black tenant, apparently charging a high premium for land use. (This hasn't been looked into, but I've heard it mentioned). Again, my students do not see the value or benefits of working hard to get ahead. Instead they see the handouts given to get by.
And this is where the disconnect of a typical "American Style" education falls on deaf ears for our kids. Come to school. Work hard and you'll go to college and advance. Yet the schools they're sent to are still inferior to their white counterparts, who do pay a premium for "better' schools while they get stuck with inexperienced or uninspired teachers in under resourced communities. While suburban schools back in Washington have all sorts of opportunities for their students our school struggles.
What has been working with this demographic have been charter schools. New Orleans is a great proving ground for the current model, although some schools have already shown positive results. The KIPP school in Helena is a great example: students and parents sign a contract to agree to commit to extra school days and longer school days. The teachers are unified in their mission and work those extra hours. Learning is rigorously tracked and adjusted and the school's discipline and pride policies are huge. Classroom and school culture is everything: and it works. The students see the results of hard work leading to success. http://www.deltacollegeprep.org/
Well, this turned out to be a disjointed e-mail. I figured I'd give you some area context. As far as how I'm personally doing: I feel alot better than last year. This year I've already had two performances with my choirs, one at a local plantation that is now a historic site: http://lakeport.astate.edu/ ,and one at the local state park. My students perform and listen to me and I've learned to listen to them while keeping a firm grasp on classroom management. I haven't found the magic boundary between "firm" and "too firm" yet, but otherwise I feel good. Teach for America keeps me on my toes as far as new ways to challenge my students and new ways to think about the results I've been getting (for example, I have the tracking data to show that, based on my quiz, only 50% of my students can label beats on a series of rhythms: how do I fix that. Etc). Last year my daily struggles were getting my kids to listen and to plan out a lesson. This year my struggle is to keep myself planning and keep my kids learning: the management is there. It's a big difference.
I'll leave you with that. Hope all is well in the Whitman Bubble. Write back and let me know what you think, and feel free to share this information with your Education classes.
I promised you an e-mail about my current teacher observations and my continuous and epic struggle of liberal arts grad verses stuck in the rural south teacher mentalities.
First of all, a couple of interesting developments as far as the hiring practices of our school. I know I spoke to you about this over the phone, but I'll revisit the demographics and conditions of the Lakeside School District here in Lake Village, Arkansas:
Lakeside was originally a segregated school while the black students were sent to Central High school and elementary on the north end of town. Lakeside was right on the lake, hence its name, in an imposing and beautiful two story brick building. Despite Brown V. Board in 1954, Lakeside was not integrated until 1972 (or 73...not completely sure).
The actual steps of integration and what precisely took place are vague from what I've learned so far, but essentially the wealthy white parents in the lower Delta area (including schools across the river) withdrew their children en-masse and enrolled them in brand new private schools popping up throughout the area with names like "Pillow Academy," "Lee Academy," "Washington School," and, my favorite just outside of Jackson Mississippi, "Rebul Academy." Educators also left, and it's in the departure that my theories come into play:
First of all you had a largely disenfranchised and under-funded staff and school district becoming incorporated with a more well funded and more well educated (in the sense of college requirements, educational backgrounds, etc) being forced to work side by side with each other. I'm assuming there was animosity as the popular science teacher at the all white school was forced to teach classes he or she didn't want so the black teacher with less experience could teach that class. As that teacher left others followed, etc, leading parents to lose faith in the whole system. Apparently there was a sidewalk outside of the high school along the lake where only upper classmen could walk, and a few fights broke out when black students, newly integrated, tried to use the sidewalk as well. The prom king and queen were both black and white, everything was split down the middle. It would be interesting (and maybe I'll pursue this) to look at the rules that were imposed in the newly integrated Lakeside School District in terms of social norms, school rules, and hiring policies.
Second was the actual execution. A few people I've spoken with say that integration happened "too fast" despite there being a 20 year gap between the court's decision and the actual act of integration. Yet this argument has merit. The schools were placed together suddenly with all grades, and I doubt the schools had the resources or manpower to deal with the inevitable clash of two different cultures and social classes coming together after being told for years that they were meant to be apart.
The resulting "white flight" from Lakeside started in a large deluge, though the school was around 50/50 black and white through the 70s, 80s, and early 90s. Most of the whites in the school are lower class in terms of income. As of the late 90s and just last year our percentage of black to white students has become increasingly inbalanced: our school is largely black now, with about a 10% Mexican population and probably 5% white students. I always joke that our football team is a reversal of the movie "Varsity Blues" because we have a white wide receiver on an all black team.
Lakeside now is in a different location than it was when the school was integrated. A new high school was built outside of town in the late 80s, and a modern elementary and middle school followed in the early 90s. Our students are bussed in from about a 30 mile radius of the school, and there are three other towns aside from Lake Village that attend our school. The latest town that was shut down was Eudora, Lakeside's biggest rival. The town is about the size of Lake Village and the state forced our schools to join together. This has resulted in a merging of two staffs and the process actually went pretty smoothly. The students at Eudora had alot less in terms of classroom discipline, so they were forced to adjust to a more structured environment, but have actually been doing rather well. Both the Upper Elementary and Middle School met their AYP for No Child Left Behind (but just barely), despite the task of acculturating a brand new set of students into an existing environment.
Most of the teaching staff at Lakeside are either young and fresh teach for America teachers or teachers seeking an early job to pay off loans. Most of the younger talent will stick around for 2 to 3 years and then move on. The rest of the staff consists of retirees from Mississippi who come across the river to Arkansas to teach for another 5 years and get a double retirement check towards the end. It's quite a juxtaposition: novice teachers full of ideals and ideas and veteran teachers with years of wisdom who are somewhat set in their ways. Rarely do I see veteran teachers at athletic events or festivals put on by our students, but also rarely do I see their kids acting inapporpriately or out of control.
So I'm part of the former group: a young, idealistic teacher from Washington State in the middle of South-eastern Arkansas. I'm the minority in my classroom. I come from a lower middle class background, where when I wanted to earn something I had the means to get a job and earn it. I was instilled with the ideals and motivation that in order to advance in life I needed to work hard, save up, and the rewards would come in the end (the classic American "pull yourselves up by the bootstraps" mentality). My students have it differently. Take, for example, one of my female students who had a baby when she was just 14, a freshman in high school. She's spent most of her life moving around with her mother around southeast Arkansas. The baby's husband is currently in jail, and has missed the child's first steps, and first words. I look into this student's eyes and realize there is a maturity there that goes beyond my own: I'm not a parent, I could never know that feeling, and yet here she is in my classroom yelling out and talking back. The places my kids come from are impossible for me to understand sometimes. My kids don't see the rewards or work. They have parents who have worked hard, or who never worked but just "got by." Realize that the standards for "getting by" down here are pretty dismal. Beat up trailer houses, old shot-gun shacks with an air-conditioner unit towards the back on streets named "Confederate" and "Lee." For the lower classes, if mom or dad has a job it's at the local fast food restaurant (there are 7 in a town of 2800...granted..we're on a major highway) or working for the school in some capacity. The town's biggest employers are the school district, the local hospital, and the cat fish farms. Some parents still hold on to vistages of the old share-cropping systems, renting land from wealthy white "farmers" who actually own around 10 acres and lease the rest of the land to black tenant, apparently charging a high premium for land use. (This hasn't been looked into, but I've heard it mentioned). Again, my students do not see the value or benefits of working hard to get ahead. Instead they see the handouts given to get by.
And this is where the disconnect of a typical "American Style" education falls on deaf ears for our kids. Come to school. Work hard and you'll go to college and advance. Yet the schools they're sent to are still inferior to their white counterparts, who do pay a premium for "better' schools while they get stuck with inexperienced or uninspired teachers in under resourced communities. While suburban schools back in Washington have all sorts of opportunities for their students our school struggles.
What has been working with this demographic have been charter schools. New Orleans is a great proving ground for the current model, although some schools have already shown positive results. The KIPP school in Helena is a great example: students and parents sign a contract to agree to commit to extra school days and longer school days. The teachers are unified in their mission and work those extra hours. Learning is rigorously tracked and adjusted and the school's discipline and pride policies are huge. Classroom and school culture is everything: and it works. The students see the results of hard work leading to success. http://www.deltacollegeprep
Well, this turned out to be a disjointed e-mail. I figured I'd give you some area context. As far as how I'm personally doing: I feel alot better than last year. This year I've already had two performances with my choirs, one at a local plantation that is now a historic site: http://lakeport.astate.edu/ ,and one at the local state park. My students perform and listen to me and I've learned to listen to them while keeping a firm grasp on classroom management. I haven't found the magic boundary between "firm" and "too firm" yet, but otherwise I feel good. Teach for America keeps me on my toes as far as new ways to challenge my students and new ways to think about the results I've been getting (for example, I have the tracking data to show that, based on my quiz, only 50% of my students can label beats on a series of rhythms: how do I fix that. Etc). Last year my daily struggles were getting my kids to listen and to plan out a lesson. This year my struggle is to keep myself planning and keep my kids learning: the management is there. It's a big difference.
I'll leave you with that. Hope all is well in the Whitman Bubble. Write back and let me know what you think, and feel free to share this information with your Education classes.
posted by Nate at
1:58 PM
3 Comments
