In order to compare several different views of culture and schooling, I reflected on my own experiences with school as a student and as a teacher, the views of school portrayed in the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, and Richard Rodriguez’s school experience in his 1982 biography Hunger of Memory. I connected with the film because of my inner-city teaching experience in Chicago Public Schools. With a range of culture and schooling both experienced and researched, I was able to think through what culture and schooling really mean to me.
The movie Stand and Deliver is based on the true story of Jaime Escalante, who teaches math to inner-city Mexican-American students at James A. Garfield High School in Los Angeles. Despite their rough home lives and attending an under-performing school, Mr. Escalante helped to transform the stereotype of where his students would end up. Each one of them gained college credits through his course in A.P. Calculus, something they would not have attempted if it weren’t for him coming to the school. The film shows really great aspects of real-life teaching, but also many aspects that I do not feel are typical of teachers and/or schools.
One of the most amazing parts of teaching is witnessing the growth in your students. Many people see this as only academic growth, but I love to see the growth behaviorally and socially, as well. Mr. Escalante gets to experience this joy as his students grow in nearly every way. Because of his ability to instill hard work and determination into his students, they learned a tremendous amount and were able to pass the A.P. test. This is the real meaning of teaching and the drive that keeps teachers coming back for more. It’s so great to see how much young children can learn despite challenges they face. I live for the “ah-ha” moments where a child learns something new. Since the movie only shows the success story, it’s necessary to also think about all of the other students at inner-city schools around the nation who don’t share the same success. Some schools don’t get to celebrate growth like Jaime did because of triumphant challenges that the students face at home.
A part of teaching that is accurate in the film and in real life is the rough home lives that students face. The rough home lives that the students had to deal with from caring for family members young and old all the way to gang-related activity are true to many inner-city students. These children often deal with abuse, neglect, relationship trouble, drugs, and a complete lack of consistency and still come to school wanting to learn. When I first encountered students who had such hardship in their lives, I was in shock. As a brand new teacher fresh out of college, I felt so prepared for my students. When I met them, I had no idea how difficult some of their lives at home really were. I grew up in a small town where I had miniscule worries compared to what my students faced. I feel entirely grateful for my upbringing, but at times find it hard to relate to my students because of my privileged life. Even the aspect of doing homework is so different. As a child, I completed my homework with few distractions. For the students in Stand and Deliver, homework is the least of their worries with raising younger siblings, working to provide for the family, and caring for ill family members. Jane Roland Martin mentioned in her book The Schoolhome that some teachers expressed that they didn’t sign up to “deal with kids like this”. These teachers are referring to children with difficult home lives. Children come to school with a wide variety of issues that teachers have to learn to sympathize with, as Mr. Escalante showed in the movie.
Another aspect of teaching that is accurately portrayed in the movie are the meaningful connections Mr. Escalante makes with his students. Although the movie makes it seem like the relationships built up very quickly, in real teaching it takes time to truly get to know your students and build relationships with them. You must connect with them personally and create a learning environment that is relatable to them. The students were rude and tested him at first. My students my first year did the same to me. I was told by another teacher at the school that they try to test every new teacher. One of his very challenging students walks out of the classroom and expresses a “don’t care” attitude early in the movie. Due to his growing relationship with Mr. Escalante, he eventually seeks help and wants to work hard. Jaime Escalante strives to make connections to his students, so he uses math scenarios that relate to their home lives to get them to learn math. In my years of teaching, I’ve witnessed firsthand that teaching involves respecting your students and building trust. Without this, you can’t build positive relationships. My first year teaching, I had a student who was very difficult to reach. It took a long time for him to respect me and want to learn from me. Once I figured out his interests, I was able to connect his learning to them so that he saw it was meaningful. What I have learned is that teacher and student relationships are not always naturally formed and a lot of work must be put into creating them.
The title Stand and Deliver bothers me a bit because it does not match my style of teaching. I am not the only one in my classroom who teaches. My students teach one another as they work together. Within education, there is a push for students to be communicating and learning from one another. The communication amongst children is invaluable because they can learn so much about the cultures, beliefs, and values that other children home. It’s amazing to listen to children speak their minds. I believe it’s best practice to promote student to student engagement because the teacher is not the only person in the room who holds valuable information to be learned. I am not the type of teacher who stands and delivers information to students.
The film depicts teaching as a solo profession where you work by yourself to educate students. Undeniably you are more than likely in a classroom by yourself all day with students, but there is so much teacher collaboration that goes on behind the scenes. I’ve experienced a great deal of collaboration with the teachers at my former school in Chicago Public Schools. We worked together in every aspect to make sure what we were teaching was best practice for our students. The culture of teaching is to help one another. If teachers don’t work together, then how can we expect our students to do the same? I believe that many first year teachers get burned out on teaching because they are doing too much of the work themselves. Teaching is a profession that can be so isolating, yet remarkably connected at the same time.
The movie does not show teachers who work together, rather one teacher who is the hero for his students. The rest of the faculty don’t seem invested in the education of the students, which I don’t find realistic. The other staff members don’t believe in the students and even the principal thinks they have no self-confidence. My own schooling helped form for me a picture of what an ideal school looks like. My elementary, middle, and high schools were all places where the school culture was overwhelmingly positive. Everyone seemed to work together and understood that the ultimate goal was learning. The environment was always calm and inviting. Some schools that I have been in lack the positivity of learning and lack the structure to ensure success. These are both aspects of culture in my opinion. If you want to create an environment where students learn, give them the tools and the school culture to do so.
Some families and cultures see education as a means to escape the life you’re in. They value education as the ticket out so you don’t end up on the streets. This mentality is conflicted by the families who don’t appear to value their child’s education. For me, going to college was desirable and expected. I always planned to go to college and there was never a question that I wouldn’t go. In Stand and Deliver, one mother of Mr. Escalante’s student said to her daughter, “boys don’t like it if you’re too smart.” This statement is a true thought process for some women. I think that’s why it was so hard for me to grasp during my first years of teaching when I encountered families that did not feel the same about education as my own parents did. Richard Rodriguez experienced this at home where his own family didn’t value education like he did. It put a strain on his relationship with his parents because they didn’t understand his view. He selected the culture that he wanted to be a part of and his family was torn apart because of Richard conforming to the American way.
In our growing population, a main concern for many families is the language barrier from school to home. I think people sometimes forget that your native language makes up part of your culture. Richard Rodriguez experienced this when he was forced to conform to the school culture and speak English. His teachers even told his parents that he should be speaking English at home rather than Spanish. Language is such a huge part of culture, that it shocked me that the teachers said no more Spanish at home. This makes me think about how we expect other cultures to assimilate to the American way of life. How can we dictate how a family is supposed to raise their child?
In a classroom of 20 to 30 students, you have 20 to 30 cultures represented. This is why there can’t possibly be assimilation to one culture. Although students may look the same racially, they do not necessarily share the same beliefs and values. I think too many people in our society forget this as we sometimes assume that if you look a certain way then you probably act a certain way, as well. Children in our classrooms belong to many groups that all have different cultural experiences, such as families, religious organizations, clubs, neighborhoods, etc. It’s inaccurate to assume that all of our students share the same culture. Teaching is such a difficult profession because while you’re trying to create a classroom culture each year, you’re also embracing the home cultures of so many students.
Throughout my reflection, I have thought a lot about stereotyping of cultures in relation to their academic abilities at school. All cultures experience prejudice in some ways. I’m wondering if we have more judgment here in the United States compared to other countries and if this is because we have so many different cultures living in the same places. The students at Garfield High School in Los Angeles in Stand and Deliver faced extreme stereotyping. They were told by members of the Educational Testing Service that they cheated on their A.P. Calculus exam because they all passed the tests, which was unheard of at their traditionally low-performing school. Because of the students’ race and socio-economic status, it was assumed that they shouldn’t have all passed the exam. These students nearly had the hope of going to college taken from them because of racial biases. Luckily the students had their teacher to stand up for them in a desperate time of change. Richard Rodriguez faced stereotypes as a young child entering school speaking Spanish, where at first they thought he wasn’t capable because of his language barrier and eventually he broke the stereotype by becoming highly educated. Where I taught in Chicago, the thought was that if school didn’t change them, they had no hope of gaining a better life and at the very least weren’t going to go to college. Most people that weren’t from the area assumed that they were very low-performing students academically. Stereotyping is inevitable, but what concerns me most is that it’s a natural way of thinking until the stereotype is broken. To me, it reminds me of our United States judicial system where one is innocent until proven guilty. Many people have biases toward other cultures until proven wrong. I think that we are all predetermined to think in certain ways because of how we grew up in our culture, but those views can change drastically when we are educated about others. Mary Dilg (2004) describes the cultural pulls of students in a very diverse school in Chicago. The students are conflicted based on the racist comments that they hear at home and the cultural acceptance they see at school. It’s a fine line that teachers walk to not overstep what a parent believes for their child, but to at the same time teach them other ways of approaching people who are different. As a teacher, I want what’s best for my students just like their parents do, but sometimes these viewpoints are not the same. I’ve learned that each family is different and requires a different relationship. My beliefs may conflict with a family’s beliefs and at the end of the day it is their child, so I must approach cautiously on difficult topics.
I believe that us teachers are doing our students a disservice if we aren’t embracing their cultures and constantly teaching them about other cultures. I truly believe that culture is reflected in everything we do. The reason we act a certain way or think a certain way is because of our cultural beliefs. In our ever-changing United States population that is becoming more and more diverse, we must talk about the topics of culture, race, and identity with our students starting at a very young age. Young children are so quick to notice and point out differences in people, that it is our job as educators to help them see the similarities within the human race. I firmly believe that the family is the first educator for a young child. What a child learns at home in the first years of life impacts their views on culture. As a kindergarten teacher, I feel that I am often times the first school experience that a child has, so I can help form their view on school and how culture plays a role in school. This may be the first time that a child has been a part of a culture outside their own family culture. School has its’ own culture and it’s up to the teachers, students, and staff to make it a positive one to be a part of. From my experience, “culture” is usually touched on in school and students will read books about many cultures, but they don’t truly experience it. In Chicago, the school was made up of 99% African American students. At my school, it seemed that we only “celebrated” the culture during Black History Month each year. I’m not saying that we need more celebrations in schools, just that there should be more opportunity for students to learn about themselves and others. All in all, we need a better connection between our school lives and home lives.
After thinking about culture and how it ties in with school, I’ve thought about how prejudices play a role in student’s experiences at school. I’ve thought of some ways that I can be more proactive about the culture of my students and attempt to change stereotypical views. One of the easiest ways that I can incorporate culture in the classroom is through inviting families into the room. This will be a way for all students to learn about one another and their families. My hope is that it will break some of the stereotypes that children and parents may have about other cultures and help create an overall positive environment. Rather than only mentioning history or culture on various holidays, I will strive to build a solid foundation of what culture really is for my kindergarten students. I will help them to bring their home culture into school and take their school culture home.
A personal goal for myself is to learn more about others. Currently, I have just moved to a new city, have a new job, and am learning a new way of life. I have the perfect opportunity to step outside my comfort zone and get to know others who are similar in ways and dissimilar in others to myself. I’m truly excited to learn about the school culture and the culture of the staff members. I have a new outlook where I want to get to know so many others at school. Starting fresh, I have a chance to be open-minded to all ideas, beliefs, and values that others share. At my former school, I had a routine of working with the same teachers who I had a lot in common with. This was a blessing and a curse because I got to know those teachers really well, but there are other teachers who I did not learn much about. I believe that I worked so closely with those teachers because I was used to being around others like me. I grew up in a neighborhood and attended school where nearly 100% of the students looked and sounded like I did. I want my own children someday to experience varying cultural views, opposite of my upbringing. The reason I want this for them is so they can learn to appreciate others for who they really are and learn to work with others who may have different ways of thinking. In our culturally-expanding country, it’s important that children learn at a young age to collaborate with a wide range of people. Reflecting on my own experiences and setting new goals for myself will only help me to be a better educator for my young students, a better parent for my future children, and a better person as I continuously grow.
References
Dilg, M. (2004). From home to school to home again. Schools: Studies in education. 1(1). 140-164. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/589200
Martin, J. R. (1992). The schoolhome: Rethinking schools for changing families . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Menéndez, R. (Director). (1988). Stand and deliver [Film]. USA: American Playhouse.
Rodriguez, R. (1982). Hunger of memory: The education of Richard Rodriguez. Boston: Bantam Books.
katelynmccormick 