Black males most consistently under-performing demographic. What can be done?
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Adam Prime
hates soccer, is Mexican
akira28 said:
Hahaha.... man.
Go substitute teach for a day in a inner-city Title I school. I DARE you to try and "deal with kids" for eight hours. Seriously. Just go volunteer and go in a school and see the way that kids talk to adults, teachers, administrators, campus police officers. To everyone who is upset with education and America: YOU try and MAKE a kid do something.
You'll have kids straight-up in your face, cussing you out, telling you NO they will not listen to you, refuse to move or do anything, etc. It's astonishing. Then try to call the parents (the kids will not have working phone numbers). Then try to file a school report (it will be disregarded because school districts are under pressure to stop writing so many incident reports and handle it "in house").
Every Title I (Critical Needs) school teacher will tell you the same story. There's little they can do. Kids curse out teachers, cut class, and there's little to no consequences for the students.
Flying_Phoenix said:
I never said that. All I'm saying is that there seems to be a reduce emphasis on punishment and more emphasis on not upsetting your kid(s). Kids aren't going to learn without any form of discipline.
Yeah but you said (or at least I read it that way) that only negative things can come from it and I disagree and feel that it depends on numerous factors.
By "one way" I meant unanimous.
I didn't mean it as a way of me saying "there are studies that side another way". I know that most recent popular studies have supported that spanking isn't okay.
Yes I know that and never have I said that the lack of spanking was the reason why they are that way.
To be honest, in comparison to others, you can almost say that I wasn't spanked (my 2 times vs. other's 200+ times lol) but I will say that that those 2 times combined with the other ways that my parents taught me through other forms of punishment and/or just conversations, made me learn a lot of lessons growing up.
I feel that due to numerous factors like parents not being at home due to many working so much, lack of punishment, etc. that a growing rate of kids aren't respecting their parents like they should and/or do bad things since they know that they won't get punished.
This issue...I thought this trend was being improved upon in the recent years. Wasn't there an article stating that there were more black males in college now than there ever was? (before someone points out that that's because of population increase)
To be honest, there are entirely complicated too many factors to take into account when we discuss what can be done to buck this trend, but I do think the heart of the matter is at home and in the education system. A lot of it has to do with self-fulfilling prophecy.
To be honest, there are entirely complicated too many factors to take into account when we discuss what can be done to buck this trend, but I do think the heart of the matter is at home and in the education system. A lot of it has to do with self-fulfilling prophecy.
SSJ1Goku said:
No, but it would be nice for you to get over yourself and acknowledge these negative tropes are not exclusively a black thing or born of black culture. It's borderline racist, and ignores the multitudes of black people who love their culture and still succeed, and the hordes of non-black people who stumble in the same social/economic ways.
MWS Natural
Member
"Blacks have a 375-year history on this continent: 245 involving slavery, 100 involving legalized discrimination, and only 30 involving anything else" (Wilkins, 1995).
A great quote that really puts things into perspective. People are still downplaying the effect of hundreds of years of slavery, dehumanization, rape and the separation of family has had on black people. Black people have only been given (somewhat) equal opportunity in America for a few decades and even still institutionalized racism exists today!
As a people we started the race with a rock tied behind our back and 30 minutes after it's begun and people are wondering why we aren't up with the rest of the pack. Other immigrants did not face the same struggles as black American's have so it's not a fair comparison.
A great quote that really puts things into perspective. People are still downplaying the effect of hundreds of years of slavery, dehumanization, rape and the separation of family has had on black people. Black people have only been given (somewhat) equal opportunity in America for a few decades and even still institutionalized racism exists today!
As a people we started the race with a rock tied behind our back and 30 minutes after it's begun and people are wondering why we aren't up with the rest of the pack. Other immigrants did not face the same struggles as black American's have so it's not a fair comparison.
What do you want? A whole bunch of blind positivity? And what will that do? Will that make more black boys get an education? Will it make black people's unemployment numbers go down? Will it make black women pick better men? What will candying black people's asses do Devolution?Devolution said:
Adam Prime said:
Exactly. Again, it makes the majority of education professionals just give up, because there is nothing they can do without parental support. The parental support doesn't exist because you have unmarried, single black women trying to raise a child or even multiple children. Its almost impossible for me to get a substitute because my kids lose their collective minds when I'm out of the classroom.
I'll let the other races worry about their communities. I will continue to work in mine like I have been for a number of years. If I did not care I would have said fuck the whole thing a long time ago. The first step to fixing a problem is admitting that there is a problem. Blind positivity gets the black community nowhere.royalan said:
Devolution
Member
SSJ1Goku said:
I'd rather you and measley not pretend like any, all and only negative aspects of low income black communities are the entirety of Black Culture. It's bullshit.
Anyway I'm done, it's probably best I don't continually engage you two.
Adam Prime said:
Kids are psychologically testing their limits with the adults, and apparently everyone folds. Then again, they might respect the first person to successfully plant their asses down in check. I remember thinking teachers were so mean, now its the teachers complaining? what the fuck? Construct consequences.
Adam Prime
hates soccer, is Mexican
Measley said:
... erm, well I don't know about that. There are plenty of supportive single moms in our schools who do the best they can. It's everything else. It's hard for single parents to be supportive int he first place. They're working three jobs, they can't attend a parent teacher conference in the middle of the day. Teachers think "Geehz these parents don't care". When that's not the case, they just can't get off work like someone with an office job who makes their own hours.
dinazimmerman
Incurious Bastard
True, blacks are victims of "hundreds of years of slavery, dehumanization, rape, the separation of family, and institutionalized racism." But in the words of Herbert Gintis, only by "banding together in collective struggle can they defeat victimization" since "only the victims have a real interest in ending their own oppression."MWS Natural said:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1XHG3V79JPV65
I already said that is the PERCEPTION! For example, the subject of welfare. You ask the majority of people in the US who is on welfare the most and they will say black people without even thinking. That is false! There are more white people on welfare than black people. But the majority of people don't know that shit. Within the black community there are people who honestly believe that there are more black men in jail than in college. That is false too! But that is the perception.Devolution said:
I know that there are fucked up people in other groups but like Measley already say they are NOT promoted!
Devolution
Member
SSJ1Goku said:
They're not promoted? Please. You know how many bigots and racist white men and women are still in politics? Get some perspective.
Adam Prime said:
We had mandatory volunteer hours at my college. I did my hours at a local grade school.
This blew my mind. Third graders dropping lots of n-bombs, using basically any and all swear words, and was called cracker several times
Teachers pretty much laughed it off...
Not sure about other cities around the country, but after graduating I saw several openings that would pay teachers a premium for working in "rougher" neighborhoods. Hopefully that prevents those schools from being filled with nothing but crap teachers..?
Dreams-Visions
Member
*peers into thread*
*sees SSJ1*
*decides he values lifetime and brain cells and runs*
*sees SSJ1*
*decides he values lifetime and brain cells and runs*
Devolution
Member
Dreams-Visions said:
Bout time to run out with you bruh.
Adam Prime
hates soccer, is Mexican
akira28 said:
Hahaha... man, you think like every adult before they enter a school. Bro, it sounds easy on a message forum.
Tell me, what would your consequences be as a classroom teacher?
Yell at the kids? They'll laugh in your face
Give the kids failing grades? They don't care, they just want to drop out
Detention? The kids won't show up.
Referral? The kids will show up to your class the next day
In school suspension? They love it, they don't have to do any work
Out of school suspension? They love it, they don't have to do any work
Ticket the kids/parents with a citation? They won't pay. And the schools are starting to pull away from giving tickets, they want things to handled "in-house" without the law
... You'll learn real quickly in school that without parental support there is NOTHING you can do to a kid as a teacher in terms of a consequence. In the end it's all about getting kids to buy into a system of respect between teacher and student. I have a lot of success with my students, but there's always about 2% of my students who are just "beyond" any sort of help. They need REAL help. I'm not kidding, some of these kids belong in full time counseling services, hospitals for the shit they go through at home.
royalan said:
Slavery isn't causing this;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcjRSMm-UM8&feature=related
So spare me.
BrLvgThrChmstry
Banned
I'm with Measley. Want to place the blame on everything else but yourselves. Sure, slavery was rough -- I get it, I'm sure we can all agree with that. But times have changed. What now?
GillianSeed79
Member
The stuff I've read in this thread isn't really exclusive to blacks, specifically black men, IMO. I see plenty of white kids who look exactly like the pic in the op.
I'm sure it's been said in this thread 100 times but socio-ecomic status, shitty parents and our country's shitty public education system are the three biggest problems in my eyes.
One common thing I see in my job on a day to day basis is people sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to a crime. Per our state's law, they have to tell the judge what their level of education is. Black, white, brown, male, female - 99.999 percent of the people I've seen sent to prison never made it past the 10th grade and about 1/3 never made it past the 8th grade.
Which begs the question, where were their parents? The problem is their parents are usually the same. It's a self-destructive repeating cycle. Parent dropouts, regardless of race, who shit out their first kid at 15 and have five before hitting 20. Parents who were the kids of similiar parents who are either addicted to drugs or in prison before their kids are even teens. They drop out because their parents are enablers and don't give a shit. With no job prospects, they resort to selling drugs or stealing shit to make ends meet.
Here's a perfect example. At work the other day I overheard this conversation at our local court house while paying a traffic ticket. A father, white mind you, comes in says he's received notice that his daughter is a deliquent truant because his kid has been skipping school. He's told if his kid doesn't show up for school, he's going to jail. Now, you'd think since he's facing jail, he'd be like “Okay, I talked some sense into my child and I'll make sure she goes to school.”
Nope. Apparently, there is a legal form you can file that basically says I have no control over my child and I'm not responsible. Fuck you. The fact that it's so common that recourse even exists makes me sick.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but I see education as one of the keys. Teachers can only do so much, though.
I'm sure it's been said in this thread 100 times but socio-ecomic status, shitty parents and our country's shitty public education system are the three biggest problems in my eyes.
One common thing I see in my job on a day to day basis is people sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to a crime. Per our state's law, they have to tell the judge what their level of education is. Black, white, brown, male, female - 99.999 percent of the people I've seen sent to prison never made it past the 10th grade and about 1/3 never made it past the 8th grade.
Which begs the question, where were their parents? The problem is their parents are usually the same. It's a self-destructive repeating cycle. Parent dropouts, regardless of race, who shit out their first kid at 15 and have five before hitting 20. Parents who were the kids of similiar parents who are either addicted to drugs or in prison before their kids are even teens. They drop out because their parents are enablers and don't give a shit. With no job prospects, they resort to selling drugs or stealing shit to make ends meet.
Here's a perfect example. At work the other day I overheard this conversation at our local court house while paying a traffic ticket. A father, white mind you, comes in says he's received notice that his daughter is a deliquent truant because his kid has been skipping school. He's told if his kid doesn't show up for school, he's going to jail. Now, you'd think since he's facing jail, he'd be like “Okay, I talked some sense into my child and I'll make sure she goes to school.”
Nope. Apparently, there is a legal form you can file that basically says I have no control over my child and I'm not responsible. Fuck you. The fact that it's so common that recourse even exists makes me sick.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but I see education as one of the keys. Teachers can only do so much, though.
MWS Natural
Member
Yes please don't respond intelligently use the "white dismissal card" and plug your hands in your ears.Measley said:
I wasn't too familiar with your posts before this thread but I'll have to remember to throw you into on the ignorant GAF poster list so I can disregard your nonsense in the future.
Measley said:
The assistant principal caused that by saying the kids would be suspended if they are caught on camera. Funny how when you look at the assistant's face he has a chilling expression like he wanted to cause issues. I also have a feeling that he knew the kids would try to destroy the tape if he said what he said.
Devolution
Member
SSJ1Goku said:
Yeah you're a lost cause.
MWS Natural said:
Sorry, I just can't defend that type of behavior anymore and then pin it on slavery. I understand slavery, and its effects. But slavery isn't causing black youth to roam the night beating the shit out of people for no reason. Slavery isn't causing black students to act like animals in the classroom when a substitute teacher is in the room. Slavery isn't causing black women to open their legs for numbskulls who won't be there in nine months.
The problems are getting worse and worse, and all I keep hearing is "Slavery", or "other people do it too!" excuses. Sorry, that's not good enough anymore. The rates of illegitimacy, incarceration, unemployment, and drop outs are INCREASING not decreasing.
Adam Prime
hates soccer, is Mexican
Halvie said:
I wish I could raise your text to a Font size of 100 so everyone could read your post.
... It's the cycle of education in American for an "Under-preforming School" (I work in one now). Here's how it works:
1. School is scoring low on state tests
2. School is labeled "Title I" (or whatever they call it in your state)
3. School is now micro-managed to hell.
4. There are meetings ALL THE TIME, before school, after school, during school
5. There is a TON of work to be done by the teachers on their own time
6. There is a TON of pressure on teachers to raise scores, have lower referrals, have high attendance rates.
7. Teachers become very frustrated with workload, expectations, micromanagement
8. Veteran teachers quit, retire, or transfer to another school... New teachers quit.
9. NEW Teachers are hired because nobody wants to work in this school environment
10. NEW Teachers have zero experience with classroom management
11. NEW Teachers are destroyed by the students, they are unable to teach actual content in their classes because of the constant behavior disruptions
Return to 1. and repeat indefinitely
Your school is constantly staffed with teachers who I wouldn't even call "terrible" or "bad teachers"... they are just not equipped. They have the potential to be good teachers because they know their content and they are passionate about helping students. But they never get more than 3 years of experience under their belt because the cannot survive the environment.
It's fucking rough out there guys. And these are the types of schools most minority children attend. They're just poorly staffed and it's NOT the teacher's fault. Guys, I promise you: a teacher has no incentive to be bad at their job. The job SUCKS when the kids are being disruptive and not learning.
Again, volunteer to go into a middle school and see how it is sometimes.
I think pop culture is both a consequence of and a contributor to the culture it comes out of.
As an extreme example to clarify what I mean, consider Fox News. The channel would not have done nearly so well if the demand wasn't already there for a particularly partisan news channel; at the same time, it's difficult to suggest that the conservative world would be quite as intense as it is now without it.
Similarly -- and to a far lesser extent -- it is certainly true that the culture represented in black music and film is a symptom of the disease, not the cause itself. But it is also difficult to argue that these highly popular mediums don't reinforce the culture already in place, lending it credence, power, and acceptability.
In short: black pop culture is more like a way to reinforce bad trends that already existed in the culture anyway. And even then, it's only one way that these trends are reinforced, not the way.
As an extreme example to clarify what I mean, consider Fox News. The channel would not have done nearly so well if the demand wasn't already there for a particularly partisan news channel; at the same time, it's difficult to suggest that the conservative world would be quite as intense as it is now without it.
Similarly -- and to a far lesser extent -- it is certainly true that the culture represented in black music and film is a symptom of the disease, not the cause itself. But it is also difficult to argue that these highly popular mediums don't reinforce the culture already in place, lending it credence, power, and acceptability.
In short: black pop culture is more like a way to reinforce bad trends that already existed in the culture anyway. And even then, it's only one way that these trends are reinforced, not the way.
Adam Prime said:
Ok, so we know that working to fix the box from inside the box isn't working.
How can consequences be constructed? Well, there's certainly a way. I'm willing to get very creative. I'm not against going at the parents to make sure their engagement or at least they can be the wall that the tennis ball bounces off of. And I think there should be incentives and punishments for parents with kids who present themselves as problem students.
But what I'm seeing here is entire classrooms of kids being seen as problems, when in reality it's only a few instigators that are allowed to run rampant,and there is no control or learning, or even respect for the teachers because frankly do they deserve it? I'm wondering. If I came into a classroom like the ones described here' I'm pretty sure I'd be handing out pink slips like hall passes.
(problems in the community I grew up in were at their worst in the 80s-90s.)
Opiate said:
I'd say this is true for most of American pop culture, which I reject and insult at every opportunity.
I agree. This was actually what I originally came in here to post. I saw some people making the claim that it was the rap music that was the cause of the dysfunctional behavior. That is false and I've said this before. Hip hop culture is nothing more than the promotion and glamourization of the dysfunction culture that was already in place. If the majority of black people live in dysfunction then the promotion would make it seem as if they are in the right. Oppression by majority basically.Opiate said:
This is topic that I talked about with some of the guys I work with. How do we get the majority of black people to function properly when they believe that they are right just because they are the majority? And the answer to that is we can't. They have the numbers and the promotion to back them up. We are the odd ones out.
CrocMother
Banned
Plenty has been said in this thread about African American males, but demographically they aren't unique in this country.
Native American substance abuse levels are higher than those for any other demographic group
Native Americans are victims of rape or sexual assault at more than double the rate of other racial groups.
When compared with other racial and ethnic groups, American Indian/Alaska Native
youth have more serious problems with mental health disorders related to suicide, such
as anxiety, substance abuse, and depressio,
and Native Americans have alarmingly high suicide and homicide rates.
Native American substance abuse levels are higher than those for any other demographic group
Native Americans are victims of rape or sexual assault at more than double the rate of other racial groups.
When compared with other racial and ethnic groups, American Indian/Alaska Native
youth have more serious problems with mental health disorders related to suicide, such
as anxiety, substance abuse, and depressio,
and Native Americans have alarmingly high suicide and homicide rates.
GillianSeed79
Member
I was lucky enough to grow up in a small town where I grew up with a total class size that rarely exceeded 50 kids. That's the entire class, so individual classes were maybe 15 students. Even in grade school we got a shit ton of homework every night - seven classes worth. Highschool was no different. Yet, nobody taught to the test. They just taught. There were expectations that you'd learn enough shit appropriate to your grade level to pass any state test.
I remember hearing news stories growing up questioning whether kids were given too much homework. Of course I agreed at the time until I went to college.
I was scared shitless of going to college. Then, when I got there freshman students were struggling to read at a highschool level, were shocked they had to write a paper longer than a page or had never taken an exam that wasn't multiple choice. Half my freshman class in college either failed out or dropped out.
I remember hearing news stories growing up questioning whether kids were given too much homework. Of course I agreed at the time until I went to college.
I was scared shitless of going to college. Then, when I got there freshman students were struggling to read at a highschool level, were shocked they had to write a paper longer than a page or had never taken an exam that wasn't multiple choice. Half my freshman class in college either failed out or dropped out.
If slavery was the main reason. Then how come the peak of black history was in 60's. I am not saying slavery is not an underline issue. All I am saying is the highest peak of black community was at the time when civil rights was still in question.
When I talk about peak. I mean in respected leaders, family structure and self pride.
When I talk about peak. I mean in respected leaders, family structure and self pride.
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