Educating Children
Educating children in the 1900s and 1950s was difficult, and it is still difficult today. With rising levels of immigration and a wider economic class divide, the United States education system needed to adapt to the ever-increasing challenges. The education system needed to work in a way to educate all children, ensuring that every child had access to develop their knowledge and skills regardless of their background, social class, gender, or disability. When it comes to understanding how to educate all children equally, several factors should have been considered. In any case, acceptability and flexibility are characteristics that every school should possess in order to ensure that all children are educated equally and effectively. It is critical to establish seamless partnerships among families, community members, teachers, and policymakers in order to create a flexible learning environment that meets the needs of every child. Those children who come from different cultural backgrounds as well as different economic backgrounds face some of the major challenges.
Foreign vs. American Born
Cultural differences are important in education, so creating an inclusive environment for children to learn is critical to ensuring that each child receives a proper education. For foreign born children “school was the place where the American dream was nurtured and the future itself took shape.” Coming from a cultural background where a child's parents may not have had any form of education, or the child came to the United States at an older age, all play a role in the level of education with which they are introduced into school; and that doesn't even consider language barriers, which also play a role in the child's education. Furthermore, the American education system is one that even Americans struggle to comprehend, let alone an immigrant family. As a result, foreign-born children are less likely to be educated or understand the educational system at the same introductory level as their American-born counterparts. A good understanding of children's needs can help teachers in these environments personalize learning based on each child's abilities, needs, styles, purposes, and preferences.
Economic Class: Rich vs. Poor
Socioeconomic status encompasses not just income but also educational attainment, financial security, and subjective perceptions of social status and social class (Aikens & Barbarin, 2008). In the 1900s and 1950s immigrant families frequently faced neighborhood segregation as they adjust to a new way of life in a new country; and this often-pushed children into lower-quality, segregated schools. Research has shown that lack of school funding is a factor that impacts the learning outcomes of students (Muijs, Harris, Chapman, Stoll, & Russ, 2009). Funding inequities are happening in context of increased poverty in schools; and for children in these communities the status of these schools influences the quality of an education they receive.
The School System
All students are entitled to high expectations and challenging curriculums that lead to the same broad educational outcomes regardless of their race, class, culture, ability, gender, or language. The school system should be set up in such a way that it benefits every single student considering their unique learning ways and abilities. Students should not have to be separated to create some sort of mechanism for social engineering. For students to not be pushed back within the public school system schools need to be organized in a way that is adaptable for the students. To combat this there should be a focus on improving teaching and learning, creating an information-rich environment, building a learning community, training teachers for continuous professional development, having a greater involvement of parents, and, of course, having an increased funding and resources in all schools.
References
Aikens, N. L., & Barbarin, O. (2008). Socioeconomic differences in reading trajectories: The contribution of family, neighborhood, and school contexts. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 235-251. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.100.2.235
Muijs, D., Harris, A., Chapman, C., Stoll, L., & Russ, J. (2009). Improving schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas: A review of research evidence. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 15, 149-175.
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