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| Education - Anthropology 172AC | |||||||||||||||
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Michelle Martinez
Strategies for Failure
One of these so-called strategies for failure of the system was control through containment--segregation. People have lost hope since results are slow and minimal. There were plans made for the Black people to move into "whiter" territory since the places where they came from were getting overcrowded and since the Black people wanted to attempt to receive the same education as the White people. White supremacists were resilient in the Black people's attempts of breaking through containment by bringing forth obstacles to them such as doubt, slander, racism, discouragement and even turning the law against them. The community Board controls the opinions of everyone. Experiments in attempting desegregation and decentralization have been abolished or forgotten. When people support the board, they "lend an aura of community confidence." If people go against them, the Boards are there to restrain. Another strategy is training teachers to fail. Teachers in the schools have been "trained" to think lowly and to belittle non-white students. Reading prerequisites hold minorities down. Low reading levels lead to lower status. Low income alone bears no direct relation to achievement. Minority students have no motivation, weak self-concepts, and no curiosity. Teachers are ignorant of their situation yet acts like they know all about the ghetto. A third strategy is institutionalizing mechanisms for failure - a magic bag of tricks. There seems to be a support system for these teachers, who have a handful of rules to play out with minorities. They don't talk about any educational goals, assign biased textbooks, teach lower level education, and track students. I enjoy the way Stein uses reverse psychology to capture readers' attention by noting that although people often strategize for greater achievement, the strategies directed towards segregation has brought nothing but empty promises leading Stein to call these "strategies for failure". The root of her essay is the irony of these strategies. The irony that the strategies have produced nothing but failure instead of success and the irony that the very country of opportunity is the country that represses opportunity. The middle groups have been so misled as to honestly believe the racist suggestions that have been implanted in their heads, almost as a brainwash. I have learned that if parents were to act out more and educators become more open minded, then perhaps these strategies could lead to success. Asian-American Education Historical Background and Current Realities By Meyer Weinberg According to Weinberg, Chinese people who emigrated to the US struggle for upper-class status by attempting to get into the best educational institution that they could to increase their status as much as possible. The same type of hierarchy exists for immigrants in urban and suburban areas. However, many Chinese people were poverty stricken. They could barely pay educational fees. These immigrants ended up facing overcrowded, understaffed, unkempt schools. They did not even receive special language instruction that they needed for equal opportunities in education. There was another group of Chinese immigrants who came from highly educated and professional backgrounds in China. However, when they move to the United States, they end up procuring badly paying mediocre or even less than mediocre jobs just to have a living. These people stress education to their children, providing them with strong academic motivation. The Chinese have always been rewarded by wealth and power historically. These goals were still around when challenged by facing the United States. The Chinese have been equated with high academic achievement, however this is due to neglecting to acknowledge the low achievers in China. Even though high achievement is not really essentially Chinese, stereotype has branched out of the high achievers who have overshadowed the low achievers to make it so. Another one of these stereotypes surrounds the Japanese Americans. People tend to look past their years of discrimination and concentration-camp experience. People looked up to the attributes that were related to them since they seemed to be successful and uncomplaining. They became a model for minorities. People characterized them as "self-reliant, independent of charity, industrious and achievement oriented, and not dwelling on grievances." Weinberg's essay was insightful for he brought in information that negated stereotypes and challenged them with facts. His way of writing seemed to unveil new things that could help in overcoming stereotypes. If people thought more about the truth behind these stereotypes, they could find that these model Asians were not above everyone else, but they have discrepancies too such as we do. We just tend to emphasize their achievements somehow. |
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