I was half-listening to the radio last week when I heard an interviewer ask a question that made me pause in my work to listen. “So”, the interviewer warmly asked, “You knew even as a small child that you wanted to be a concert cellist?” “Oh yes”, the woman answered. “Since I was eight.”
Class Reproduction by Four Year Olds
Friday, April 20th, 2012I watched how class played out in a preschool classroom, creating disadvantages for the already disadvantaged and privileges for those born into privilege.
Hiding the lunch ticket
Monday, January 16th, 2012I was an outsider at my junior high school. Why was I ashamed of my family’s poverty?
Remember When It Was Poster Board?: Computer Technologies and School Disadvantage
Thursday, August 11th, 2011Remember when it was the poster board? I do. I remember my elementary school classmates—Russell, Missy, Jake—who could never afford it, who would raise their hands meekly, eyes downcast, when the teacher asked, “Who needs help getting poster board?” I pitied them and wondered what else they couldn’t afford: a pack of National Football League pencils, a Hong Kong Phooey notebook, one of those four-color ball-point pens, a mega-box of 64 Crayola crayons with the cool little sharpener built into the back. The teacher would summon them to the back of the classroom, hand each of them a white piece of poster board that she had pulled out from behind a cabinet or bookcase or portable coat closet. The teacher must be rich, I reasoned, stocked up, as she was, with so much expendable poster board. The summoned students would walk slowly back to their desks, poster board in hand, careful to avoid eye contact. Poor kids, I thought. Poor, poor kids. Pity, I know now, is the worst form of disgust.
A 4th of July Declaration of Dependence
Monday, July 11th, 2011It’s no small irony that on the 4th of July weekend our nation’s largest union surrendered a chunk of its independence. At their annual meeting in Chicago, the National Education Association’s Representative Assembly voted to support the use of student standardized test results in the evaluation of teachers. That vote alters the union’s previous opposition to such a policy and ties the NEA even closer to the Obama administration’s educational agenda.
Moving the Bar
Monday, June 27th, 2011At first glance, I thought that it was just another article about disappointing test scores.
From a Teenage Class Action Fan
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011My name is Liora and I’m fourteen years old. I’ve attended public schools my whole life except for the last year and half when I went to a private school. At this school, the classes were small and there was support and help anywhere and anyhow we needed. Not the case in public school. This was a sad piece of class difference that I noticed on the first day.
Learning about Class in Private School?
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011Like parents everywhere, we wanted to give our teenage daughter advantages we never had. High on our list was to provide her a much clearer class-consciousness than what we got as kids.
Class in the Classroom
Tuesday, December 28th, 2010There is a loud silence about social class in U.S. public schools. The silence was deafening on the first day of the course I recently taught — a course in which teachers look closely at how education in the United States is deeply entangled with social class.
Visioning Our Way to Justice
Monday, December 13th, 2010I grew up in poverty, the daughter of a tenant farmer. I thought people were privileged if they lived in a house, had running water or even an outhouse. My family of five lived in a ten-by-forty foot trailer.
Defending my vibrant neighborhood
Thursday, November 18th, 2010Recently four people were killed about ten houses away from where I grew up in Mattapan, a neighborhood of Boston. The neighborhood was maligned by the media coverage which plastered the headlines “Massacre in Mattapan” in large print across the 6:00 news every night. That image of Mattapan was permanently emblazoned across the minds of the nation.
The Bus Stops Here
Thursday, November 18th, 2010I have two little boys; they are very bright, good boys. They have never had a babysitter and maybe I have been a little over protective. But their innocence is refreshing. They do not understand that when a bigot sees that our car is dated, and that our address is in the flats, and they are snubbed for a play date, that it is not about them. It’s about the crappy soul of that person.
A Wealth of Whammies for Youth in Poverty
Friday, November 12th, 2010It is unjust enough that scores of young people in the United States are denied basic human rights; that even in a country which paints itself as a global model of human rights, kids go without food, safe and affordable housing, equitable schooling opportunities, and healthcare. Heck, in a country with the level of resources the U.S. has, the very existence of homelessness, hunger, and poverty in the face of growing corporate profits is inexcusable. In this way, the U.S. is the very definition of systemic classism: a country in which poverty rates, income inequality, and corporate profits often grow simultaneously.
The Politics of “Waiting for Superman”
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010I fidgeted throughout the film Waiting for Superman, through the bells and whistles, the graphs, the close-ups of the five cute kids and their caring single moms, grandmas and parents, having read enough reviews, and having listened to enough critiques to know that I wasn’t going to like the film. And I didn’t, but what disturbed me the most wasn’t Davis Guggenheim, the film maker, playing fast and loose with data and attacking teachers and their unions every chance he had. As is turned out, for me, the most painful moments of the film were the charter school admissions scenes at the end.
Beware of Cabinet Officers Bearing “Gifts”
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010“We already have the privatization of the military…; we’ve seen the privatization of the prison system. Well, the next step is the privatization of public schools.” That prediction by Jonathan Kozol four years ago has come closer to reality with the enactment of President Obama’s Race to the Top educational goals.
