The Ladsen Billings article and Connell article both portray similar views, stating that there is an obvious gap between poor people (typically African American) and middle/ high socioeconomic families (typically white). I defiantly agree that there are differences between the education within these groups. The reasons as to why there are these differences and how to close the gap are what differs between these two authors. However, I think the bigger issue is ultimately closing the gap, and providing equal education for every child.
I agree with Ladsen-Billings analogy of the education gap being more like a education deficit to an extent. However I think that if teachers work with their students parents, there would no longer be a deficit. I think that if parents and teachers are on the same level and everyone is working together, students will not fall behind. This gives students the proper education at school, and parents the knowledge of how to help their children at home. If students parents are not willing to work with you or with their child at home, I think working with the child one-on-one and giving them strategies to work by themselves at home can definitely help. While Ladsen-Billings does not blame this gap solely on income levels, and says that minorities fall short even when compared to counterparts that make the same amount of money, I feel as if the economic differences account for the majority of the differences between African American and white families. The other differences she accounts for, historical, moral, and sociopolitical, make a lot of sense in the scheme of things. However, I feel as if the sociopolitical gap may have been closed a little bit with the election of President Obama. His election became a huge stepping stone for African Americans. I, also, think that the historical gap will close as time goes on. America has been working to make everyone equal for quite sometime and the generations that were apart of segregation are starting to die. For example, my mom grew up in a household where her dad (my grandfather) would not allow her to watch TV shows where there were people on the shows. This is not something I am proud of by any means, but it just shows that generations not too long ago had racist views. My grandfather is no longer this type of person, and as we evolve people are becoming more open minded. With this open mindedness, I think this historical side of Ladsen-Billings article will fade.
The main thing that stood out to me in the Connell article was the discussion of power. I never realized how much power teachers and schools have, and how that may be viewed negatively by those who may feel as if teachers and school are superior to them. Again, I think teachers need to try their hardest to work with parents and become their equal. I believe this is the best way for teachers to level out the playing field. However, if it is not done correctly it could make it worse. Another part of the power discussion that really stood out to me was the power struggle between males and teachers. I have seen this first hand in my class that I am intern-shipping in. One particular student, a boy, was in a constant power struggle with my mentor teacher. It got to the point to where he was sent to solutions, a six month program where the student is by himself instead of in the classroom. This type of "punishment" hurts the child more, and basically gives him the message to just drop out of school. Maybe coming up with another way to discipline students rather than giving them the message to "just drop out" would be better. I never really thought about the type of message these types of punishments sent to children but after reading Connell's article, it makes a lot of sense. The last thing that I really liked from Connell's article is the discussion of multicultural teaching. We had a discussion over the power of multicultural teaching in one of my other classes, and I think it could be extremely effective in classrooms of poverty. They have different realities than middle class suburb families and should be taught differently. Teaching things that relate to them and interest them will obviously be much more effective than teaching them things that are unrelated to their lives. Overall, this gap between these different groups of people is an injustice and needs to be addressed.
