What I hope to find through this inquiry

I’ve always longed to understand the inequalities occurring in low income schools, especially inner-city schools.  I feel that every time I get stirred up or excited about helping underprivileged kids rise up out of their circumstances, I read something, hear something, or see something that scares and discourages me.  Well-meaning teachers are always stamped with a similar seal of “naïve, ineffective, didn’t last long, couldn’t control the class, faced great resistance from administration, parents and pupils alike.”

 

 

As much as I would like to ignore the situation, change the channel, or deny my desire to help, my conviction keeps surfacing.  I just saw Freedom Writers last Thursday, and it was such an inspirational movie.  You can visit the website of Erin Gruwell and the original Freedom Writers here.  The teacher portrayed was amazing.  She had creative and effective lesson plans.  Her writing assignments were authentic.  She implemented amazing strategies to help her students relate to literature.  She was impossibly “superheroinesque” and impossible to replicate.  I moved on and searched around on the website for Teach For America.  I was amazed and excited, but I just couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that the amazing leaders in Teach For America would also be impossible for me to replicate.  I need to do more searching before I decide that I have no potential to help at risk kids.  My search will provide the content of this blog.

 

 

I’ve been able to find quite a few single articles here and there about the disparities in education.  Some are hopeful, some broadcast panic, and others moan and groan quite a lot.  I haven’t found any authors yet that are committed to regularly commenting about the subject.  That is what has made subscribing to specific blogs, websites or tabloids difficult.  I’m continuing to read my subscriptions to the education sections of The New York Times and The Washington Post.  I’ve added subscriptions to the education sections of NPR and BBC News.  I will also continue to read Andy Carvin’s blog, as he often writes about injustices and the digital divide as well as general tech-in-ed.  More subscriptions to come, I’m sure.  Or just random articles from one-time authors.