Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence in an Urban Context

When it comes to the shortcomings of schooling where does one begin?  I’m not sure if anyone heard of the school Beach Channel High School but from first hand I can tell you that education goes further than just looking at students as a group.  They don’t fail to understand that just because they don’t want to, but because there are just too many students in each room.  Also how can they worry about their own students when at the moment teachers are worrying about themselves?  When you think about the shortcomings of education it all comes down to money and being able to put in giving individuals attention.

I want to start off with my experience in Beach Channel High School.  This school is located in Far Rockaway and as people know it’s not one of the best or recommended places to live, especially in some areas.  Before even being allowed into the school we had to take off all our metal and put it into bins and walk through metal detectors.  If we forgot to take off a piece of metal or something went off in our bags we were directed to another line where they would search our bags and wand us.  Yes it felt like I was walking into prison everyday but this isn’t the worst of it.  Once we got into this run down school where there were buckets to catch the dropping water and massive puddles in rooms that made them unusable we finally sat down in our overcrowded classrooms.  These classrooms tended to be so overcrowded that we would spend a bit of time, before the teacher could start the lesson, rearranging desks and getting desks from other classrooms.  Also due to the large amount of students it was difficult to even hear the teacher and a lot of the time they wouldn’t even know how to settle the mass amount of students down so they would just continue teaching, call security which took forever to come, or just wait and stayed quiet until the students realized and quieted down themselves.  Extremely poor techniques but it all comes down to that there is obviously not enough funds being put into this or many schools.  Especially in areas of the most need.  It’s pretty obvious that the parents who send their kids to Beach Channel High School just hope for the best because they can’t supply their kids with a better education than the free one offered close to their home.   Even with this overcrowding in classrooms teachers were and still are being laid off and students from Rockaway High School were being pushed in because instead of fixing the problem they put it on another school.

Let’s think about this.  If the parents of students who live in Far Rockaway could fund their child to go to better schools do you think they would?  Absolutely.  It’s terrible that students with low incomes have to deal with poor conditioned classrooms and over crowdedness where the teachers can’t even dedicate some individual time to each of their student’s needs.  This is where education goes further than looking at students as just a group.  Teachers just can’t get on that much needed personal level with their students to help them prosper in their learning environment.  They can’t discover what their strengths and weaknesses are and students from these low income families can’t provide their kids with tutoring like others where they can actually find this bit of information out.  Many parents have to rely on whatever they can get.

It seems like the government just doesn’t care.  They don’t care that they’re treating them like criminals and sardines.   I guess they really don’t realize that these students are our future.  The dropout rates for schools, such as Beach Channel are tremendous.  Students are just giving up and do you blame them?  I was just talking to a girl who works at Burger King who recently just dropped out of Beach Channel High School.  She said she wasn’t learning and she just couldn’t take it anymore.  She felt like it was all just a waste of time.  When is this all going to stop?  When are the proper funds going to be put into schooling?  I see money being wasted and it’s sickening to my stomach.  The government helps bail out companies who throw parties and give out huge bonuses to people who are sipping piña coladas on yachts while we have students sitting on top of desks and teachers looking for jobs when students are looking for teachers.  Isn’t there something wrong with that picture?  The education system is all messed up and wrong because the proper funds and effort just isn’t being put into them.  Teachers can’t teach this way and students especially can’t learn this way.  Not all parents can afford to send their kids to get a better education and it’s just not fair.

Even before I was born it was like this.  My dad always said my siblings got a better education than me because before he was born his parents had the money to send them to Catholic School.  If my dad went to Catholic School and was seated in smaller classrooms they probably would have realized that my dad actually had a learning disability and could have helped him before it was too late.  What do I mean by too late?  Well my brother also has the same learning disability and since it was discovered at such a young age he is now getting the help he needs.  Getting this help at such a young age has really helped him and you wouldn’t even know he has this learning disability.  While my father on the other hand doesn’t know how to read or write past a third grade reading level.  Obviously this is a main concern because the textbook even stresses this as a problem.  I feel bad for students who go to schools in over crowdedness and poor funding.  I feel bad for students who can’t get that extra attention they need to find out they have problems such as learning disabilities rather than teachers thinking they’re not doing well because they’re just not studying because they can’t get to know all their students at hand.  Teachers can’t give students that extra attention because there are just too many of them.

Things have to change.  The education system has just gone downhill and it will only get worse as it will continue this cycle.  How will dropouts be able to help their kids at all?  As the book says it’s not only the teacher’s job to help flourish a healthy learning environment but also the parents.  How can a parent do that when they don’t even know how because they were never put in a healthy learning environment themselves?  How can they be good examples? Like I said things are just going to get worse and it’s just going to be a never ending cycle until someone puts their foot down and says there needs to be more funding and individual help in the classrooms.  Our kids are not just a group of people nor are they sardines.  They are individuals who need to be looked at as our future and of importance.  Time, money, and effort need to be put into them so they can pass it on to their kids and help them flourish.  We need a successful cycle that in the end will help everyone.  We again need change!