February 6, 2017
Dr Grace
The Story of School Part II
In the early days of public education in the United States (1900-1950) there was definitely a central focus on the caucasian students. Students that were of African American, Mexican, or any other descent were told to focus on a trade rather than to aspire to further their education with college. These students were outright told that they were not smart enough to go to college and that they needed to focus on developing their skills in a trade such as carpentry. I certainly found this to be extremely sad and find myself wondering what the motive was. Did the educators during this time truly believe that people who are not caucasian are inherently less intelligent? Or was there an alternative motive to keeping non whites out of college?
Another problem the schools faced was the issue of language. There was a growing amount of children in America who couldn't speak English, and yet America kept pushing and pushing for English only in the classrooms. Children were actually punished for speaking any language other than English in the classroom. But how are the kids supposed to learn when you're teaching them in a language they don't know? It's a tough situation for sure but I don't think the American education system handled it the right way. While I understand as a teacher if you only speak English and you have a student who only speak Spanish, it's going to be incredibly difficult for you to teach them English. At the same time though, you have to understand that if you're trying to teach them complex things in a language they barely know, that's just not going to work.
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