Stereotypes of Black Males-critical response to The Packing of Black Males in Special Education

Nastasha Pollard
Critical Response:
After reading the article, “The Packing of Black Males in Special Education,” I couldn’t agree more that there is an enormous amount of stereotypes placed on black males in our society. The black male is looked at as the “criminal” or the “aggressor” or the “ one who is misbehaving” or the “one to fear” or the “uneducated.” Their white counterparts subject black males to these judgmental, false, stereotypes everyday. Yolanda gave some perfect examples of specific cases where black males have been labeled the criminal. Since we do live in a society where a lot of white people believe these stereotypes and notions of black males, when a finger is pointed at them as committing the crime these males are immediately taken as guilty or questioned. There are smaller incidents where black males have to deal with these stereotypes everyday. My father is living proof of that. If he is in a super market walking past a white female she grabs her purse. If he is just walking around a store, sometimes he is followed as if he will steal something. He has been automatically assumed that he needs financial assistance. At work his input might be overlooked in comparison to his white colleagues. These are just a few examples to show what he encounters.
The absence of black males in education is a systemic issue that I feel is caused by these stereotypes. Within my school experience, the black male has automatically been assumed to misbehave. This is not something they don’t notice either. Less is expected of them when it comes to achieving academically. They also recognize this lack of motivation and belief in them by their teachers. Black males are given less attention in the classroom by their white teachers, but if they don’t participate they are looked at as unintelligent. I also feel this lack of attention from their white teachers is a factor that causes them to act out. When different factors like these affect black male’s performance or behavior in the classroom, they are looked as “at risk” and thrown into special education because their white teachers don’t want to deal with them.
Black males should not have to deal with these stereotypes. They should not have to consciously work to combat stereotypes about that: that they are angry, aggressive, or threatening. They try to survive in a society where bias views surround them still years after segregation and extreme racism. Statistics show black males struggle to make three-fourths of what whites make. One in three blacks will spend time in jail during their life, and some are innocent. For black males if they don’t watch their actions they could easily lose their jobs, end up in jail, or dead just because of the color of their skin. No one understands the experience that the black male endures, especially when these stereotypes are not true and don’t apply to every male wit black skin.

Tips to the Admission Test....to Kindergarten

Article -http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/nyregion/21testprep.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=education&adxnnlx=1258828538-55bGIOAGefQrEjbRtKVpZQ

This article in the New York Times basically writes about the epidemic of parents dishing out money for their children-four and five year olds- to be placed in costly tutoring programs to ensure better performance on aptitude tests. With high scores on these tests, the preschoolers will be able to be placed in Gifted programs at numerous public schools. This whole fad has arose due to the fact that parents can no longer afford to send their children to private schools, where of course they assume the education is on a whole different level than that of public schools. The only problem with this whole situation is that these tests are made to measure future performance and natural thinking abilities. Tutoring to score higher does not prove that these students will succeed in future schooling; it only proves that they can score well on the test at hand.

After reading this article, I was apt to question the parent’s faith in their own children. Why do parents feel as though they need to push all this extra help on their kids, as if they know for sure that they won’t succeed at all without it? When exactly did regular classrooms become this source of mediocrity and unproductiveness, and gifted classrooms became the only place that a child can “really learn”? Also, we are talking about kindergarten and preschool classes right now. We aren’t speaking about AP level high school courses. Kindergarten and preschool classes teach basics that most parents can teach without assistance. The idea that parents feel that their child needs to be in these programs, even if it means paying a few thousand dollars on prep courses, is rather ridiculous. It’s frustrating also because the parents are not understanding the purpose of these tests in the first place. They aren’t seeing that these tests aren’t supposed to be studied for. These tests are made to measure aptitude, not knowledge. Are parents in denial about this and just following a fad, or do they really believe that this is going to make a significant difference in how their child’s educational life is going to play out?

The article also brings about the idea that continuing the amount of test prep that society takes part in is going to make it the norm. That happening would allow for a big problem to arise. Natural ability of a student would be extremely questionable. If students are all placed in a gifted classroom, teachers would be unable to initially see their level of ability. Because of extensive tutoring, they would probably all seem to come in at the same level. As the year goes on though, the differences in learning abilities will start to play out. Gifted programs are essentially accelerated curriculums. If students with extensive tutoring are placed in the class, there is a chance that they will not be able to naturally keep up with other students are automatically were deemed gifted. This can be a problem for a teacher because he or she is going to have to re-evaluate their teaching methods and figure out where and how much scaffolding is going to be needed for each individual student. Essentially, the entire ideology that these parents insist are true, can’t really be understood. It’s added pressure on very young children and also teacher’s of these students.

Related Articles-

School for the Gifted, and Only the Gifted
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/education/19gifted.html

US. Math Tests Find Scant Gain Across New York
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/education/15scores.html

Smart Child Left Behind
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/opinion/28petrilli.html

Embedded Video (Youtube request no embedding URL for this video)-video of gifted preschool in WA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe8D_Y4cY00

The College Dropout Boom: Students Under Too Much Pressure?

“Stress” is a term that has come to be commonplace in the world of education. From early morning classes; to afternoons filled with extracurricular activities; to endless nights crammed with projects, assignments and studying, stress in students, even at high levels, seems inevitable. However, students who cannot combat this inevitability and treat it properly are very likely to crumble under the pressure. In fact, the “educational burnout” boom indicates that college dropout rates are now at a staggering 50%, with 33% of students withdrawing after their first year. A 2009 poll revealed that more than 85% of current college students feel some sort of stress on a daily basis, stress was a factor in about three quarters of college dropouts’ decisions to leave school. Unfortunately for them, six out of every ten dropouts admitted that they never considered talking to a counselor to help them deal with stress and other emotional issues. There are healthy ways for college students to deal with their stress, if they are willing to explore some options and take some simple advice.

First of all, it is important to acknowledge that there is such a thing as healthy stress, also known as creative tension. Anyone who can say that they “work better under pressure” or “come through in the clutch” has experienced this healthy level of pressure. For many students, it provides the perfect amount of motivation necessary to accomplish a task. Creative tension gives students the ability to stretch beyond their normal levels of thought processing and garner the ideas and knowledge required for certain tasks that they may otherwise be too lazy or disinterested to pursue fully. However, without the proper authority over stress, what seemed like a manageable level could aggrandize into a degree far more severe.

Unhealthy stress is what many of the students in the college dropout boom are experiencing. It comes as no surprise that expectations on today’s students to succeed are remarkably high. When students let their stress get the better of them, it often turns into a downward spiral that is next to impossible to conquer. Unhealthy levels of stress typically leads to negative self-talk, during which the student tells him or herself that he or she is simply not good enough, and there is no possible way to accomplish the task at hand. When students feel trapped under this immense pressure, it becomes more likely for them to turn to unsafe, debilitating, and sometimes illegal alternatives to escaping their stress. Cheating is an epidemic among college students desperate for success, as campuscalm.com tells us that about half of today’s college students have admitted to cheating or plagiarizing at least once. Many students turn to drugs or alcohol as a temporary departure from reality, and a release from stress. These irrational and dangerous measures taken by students are simply the result of their desperation for relief. These students need to realize that there are healthy alternatives even when dealing with unhealthy levels of stress.

Fortunately, the pressures that college students face on a daily basis, as well as tendencies for students to resort to negative stress management habits, have not gone unnoticed by the general public. Students who feel bogged down and are seeking refuge from their mounds of schoolwork or demanding schedule have several options. A great place to start exploring these options is the Internet. eCampusTours.com is one site that gives particularly good tips and advice on how to stay on top of a packed schedule and still have a great time in college, worry-free. These tips include organizing, making to-do lists, prioritizing, exercising, maintaining a healthy diet and even saving a block of time everyday for relaxing—because in college, you never can get enough rest.

Perhaps the best way to relieve stress and anxiety is through speech. Sometimes, all it takes to rationally think through and solve a problem is to simply talk about it and manually work it out. Colleges and universities across the country, including the University of Miami, have become wise to this strategy, and have developed counseling centers on campus where students can come at any time to simply have a discussion about the issues that are giving them grief. Counseling centers at schools like the University of Miami has a full staff of trained psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors and social workers. They share a mission to help students succeed both academically and socially in college. In addition, these counselors field questions about further educational and career decisions.

The packing of black males in special education

Yolanda Richard
Professor Diem
Critical opinion
The absence of black males in education
The perfect student is quiet, can sit still for long periods of time, has a long attention span, can work independently, is passive, is a left brain learner, speaks Standard English, lives in a two parent household, and learned reading before second grade. Children who do not fit this mold are usually considered to be a different kind of student; one who needs special attention or immediate correction. Those who “act up” in the classroom or portray behavior that goes against the teacher’s authority are seen as a problem. These children are labeled “at risk” students, sent to the special education program, prescribed some Ritalin, and ripped from their classrooms to be dealt with elsewhere. African American children constitute a mere 17 percent of the school population. Of this 17 percent 80 percent of African American males are disproportionately placed in special education. I believe that this is a huge problem in our educational system today and it is derived from the stereotypes that society has placed on black males.
The educational system seems to be harsher towards African American males than toward their white counterparts. Is this a systemic issue or is it an internal malfunction of black males? The stereotypes we create of different social groups dominate individual thought, group behavior, and cultural practices. The way we treat black males in the classroom and even the job market are highly predicated on the stereotypes and assumptions made of black males in the surrounding society. African American males are stereotyped as being naturally more aggressive than white males. They are more likely to be stereotyped a criminal in comparison to males of other racial groups. In his article, “Kidnap hoax case stereotypes fictional black male villain”, Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III gives several instances of this. He reports, “On October 25, 1994, Susan Smith reported to police that she had been carjacked by a black man who drove away with her sons still in her car. Nine days after her initial report and a nationwide manhunt for the "black man in the knit cap," Smith admitted to letting her car roll into a lake, killing her two sons… On May 26, 2009, Bonnie Sweeten dialed 911, claiming that she had been carjacked, forced into the trunk of a car by two African-American males. She told police the men had driven off with her daughter in the carjacked vehicle. Her frantic calls resulted in Philadelphia police issuing an Amber Alert for the missing mother and girl. Both were later found alive and well at Disney World. Today, Bonnie Sweeten pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of issuing a false police report and identity theft, and was sentenced to at least nine months in prison.”
Leon concludes that Society has created a picture of the “black male villain” which acts to justify discriminatory practices like what we are seeing in our schools. It justifies the disproportional packing of African American males in special education and the subsequent apathy that develops toward the high dropout rate of these students. It seems that when a white child misbehaves he or she gets a slap on the wrist, but when a child of color misbehaves he or she is more likely to be considered “at risk”, placed in special education, suspended or even expelled. There is an expectancy of black male aggression which makes it easier to dump them in special education programs.

http://www.thegrio.com/2009/08/what-do-bonnie-sweeten-ashley.php
http://www.teachersofcolor.com/2009/04/black-boys-and-special-education-change-is-needed/

Cyberbullies hit primary schools

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/cyber.bullying.suicide.2.1318511.html



I never actually looked at cyber-bullying as a serious issue. The internet is the easiest possible medium to convey a message to someone, without actually being face-to-face, so it makes sense for cyber-bullying to be prevalent among children. I guess kids tend to think that since it’s over the internet, there won’t really be any repercussions for their actions, since there’s no actual human contact involved. I’ve never really witnessed any harsh cyber-bullying firsthand, so it always seemed like a fairly insignificant issue to me.

Cyber-bullying wasn’t an insignificant issue for an English youth, Matthew Jones. Matthew was a student who lived his life being bullied, and even on the internet he was vulnerable. Bullies continually egged him on and urged him to commit suicide. Matthew eventually reached his breaking point, and listened to them. He left a suicide note for his parents which read, “…I got the sh** bullied out of me…Life simply isn’t for me. I have found that I have no fight left. So this is me saying goodbye”.

Matthew was a troubled youth, and not all cyber-bullying will result in a suicide, but it opened my eyes to the consequences of it. In a world where nearly all kids have screennames on AIM or MSN, and pages on social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace, it’s pretty easy for cyber-bullying to occur. The internet is such an easy tool to manipulate others because there is a lack of face-to-face contact. A New Jersey student, Ryan Halligan, also took his own life after he experienced severe cyber-bullying. Apparently online, a girl had acted as if she liked him, setting him up to be humiliated. His father now travels to schools, preaching about the horrors of cyber-bullying and the necessity for legislation to prevent any more child suicides.

A study was done in England where 89% of parents thought that cyber-bullying was just as serious as regular bullying. Then why has nothing been done about it? Programs should be established in schools to educate kids on how to avoid being cyber-bullied, and maybe convince some kids who have bullied others over the internet to stop. I know, personally, that if I said something harmful to someone over the internet and found out that there have been suicides over similar situations, it would make me re-think what I was doing. Some legislation has been in the works in Massachusetts, but it’s nothing very groundbreaking. I hope to see some legislation that makes more significant changes to this matter.

http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=99139

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8359780.stm

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/598017/Cyber-bullies-killed-our-son-Matthew-Jones-inspires-click-bullying-into-touch-campaign.html

Unequal school funding in the United States

Seperate and Unequal: A structural analysis of educational inequality in America

When looking at the public education system, there are several negatives to point out. There is the staggering statistics that show students struggling to meet the states standardized test requirements or the jaw dropping dropout rate. Many Americans fail to see that the root of this problem is the lack of funding or better put, lack of equal funding. Although landmark Supreme Court rulings have prohibited segregation in schools, segregation still exists. The segregation prohibited by the Supreme Court is based on race, not by income and this is unfortunate because that is how the public school system is structured now. A reform that is much needed and past due is school funding because the average student receives a below average education that does not prepare them for college and more importantly, the challenges of the real world.

One problem with school funding is the basis of how schools are funded. The majority of funding comes from property taxes, which clearly will be higher in more affluent neighborhoods because the property value is much higher than a lower-income neighborhood. One might think the solution to this problem is to mix up the neighborhoods to have similar property values but this move is complicated. When doing this, you are displacing people who are accustomed to a certain lifestyle based on income, particularly the less-privileged population. They simply may not be able to afford living in a neighborhood where there is a higher property value. Because of the lack of funding problem, schools suffer dearly. Schools aren’t able to have a performing arts department and may lack the proper funding for sports and other traditional extra-curricular activities. In addition, the material taught by disgruntled teachers is not tailored to meet state standards that continue to become harder to achieve although students actual achievements continue to fall. As students achievements fall, these add on to the building pressures they already have living in low-income neighborhoods and dealing with other issues.

Ultimately, the purpose of education is to help students make a better life for themselves, so if we are unable to properly prepare our students to meet educational needs and more importantly life’s needs, then the education system is not working and quite frankly it isn’t. The educational gap between the affluent neighborhoods and the low-income neighborhoods is alarming. Essentially, schools are still segregated because the make-up of the more affluent schools is white students while the make-up of the lower income schools is blacks and Latinos. In order for the United States to tackle this problem, we can’t simply cut funds from one department and move them to education. We must go to the root of the funding problem and fix the residential problem.

RELATED ARTICLES

1) Ensuring Equal Opportunity in Public Education

2)Not Separate but Not Equal: Education in the United States

3) The equality of public school district funding in the United States: a national status report