"Inner city children don't want to learn"

[aziraphale]

Talking about poor performance in mostly minority neighborhoods, my grandmother told me something along the lines of (I don't remember the exact words), "The problem isn't the funding. Inner city children don't want to learn. Why should we waste money on children who don't have the will to learn?" I was blown away and just didn't know how to respond to this because this statement pretty much says "Black kids don't want to learn so why are we giving them the resources to do it?" I told this to some friends and they agreed that this was very thinly veiled racism. How common is this belief? I live in Boston, which is a very liberal area. Many politicians marched in Boston Gay Pride! There aren't a lot of right-wingers here so I don't often hear their point of view.

[leftace53]

I would have thought that crazy rich people's kids don't want to learn, they just get all their money from inheritances anyways (no offence to any well off comrades). Also, I didn't particularly want to learn from formal education, and frankly school is boring. So surely its not because they don't want to learn, but they might not have had the opportunity to experience success in the academic field or even be exposed to academics and such.

I don't know if that point of view is common or not, I would hope not.

[The Red Next Door]

That is not only racist but also elitist.

[Robocommie]

Heh, most kids in general don't want to learn, regardless of their skin color or economic background. Homework sucks. It's made even worse by the fact that the social environment these kids live in is usually pretty ragged, a lot of single parents who have to work to keep themselves and their kids fed and in clothes.

But you have to give these inner city kids credit, because they DO often work hard, a lot harder than more affluent folks, and whites in particular, would want to believe. Poverty doesn't just go away after you get a high school diploma, after all. There's also problems relating to scarce job opportunities, because of low economic development, as well as limited opportunities for college, stuff like that. It's precisely why the Armed Forces is so appealing to working class kids from all races, both urban and rural.

[tbasherizer]

All kids have more or less the same personal make-up until their environment is applied to them. I'm sure a kid from the OP's grandmother's "good old days", if given an inner-city upbringing, wouldn't have much of a will to conform to classical education standards. The solution to the problems of inner-city learning is twofold: improve conditions for mothers and women in general in the inner-city and anarchize education. Since women are often the victims of abuse and/or the sole guardian of a child, an improvement in their condition will trickle down to the child, and having more accommodation in terms of education methods would make the education system more palatable to children.

[Nwoye]

Heh, most kids in general don't want to learn, regardless of their skin color or economic background.
I would actually say that most kids in general do want to learn, they are just put in an environment that can often stifle their natural curiosity and impulse towards education.

edit: you're grandmother is a racist.

[Revy]

I think that the schools are so crappy it makes people feel like they are going to prison 5 days a week. The restrictions that are forced on students in the name of security can often be ridiculous.

It doesn't help that when you are a minority you feel stigmatized or oppressed by society. So you might think, "What's the point".

To say "inner city children" don't want to learn is over-simplifying what is a problem that transcends geography, culture and ethnicity, and what is apparent to many teenagers today: School sucks. So let's skip school and "have fun", is what so many students in America think today.

I dropped out of high school so I know exactly what I'm talking about. I was trapped in the closet (I am gay) with social anxiety (possibly Asperger's). so school was tough to get through, because I couldn't be myself and I couldn't be free, and I couldn't be social. Don't underestimate how someone's life situation can impact their choices in life.

Is it that people don't want to learn? Or maybe they're not really being taught to learn. so people are bored. and they are just doing the work because they have to. They don't feel like they are learning. They're just doing work.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well the ideas your grandmother has about this are, unfortunately, pretty widespread - but she didn't pull this concept out of thin air - there is a lot of propaganda about this. Since at least the 1980s there has been a concerted effort to remake public education as a business and in order to accomplish this, the right wing, politicians, charter advocates, and private education companies need to scapegoat the people who are hurt by this process.

The first victims/scapegoats are low-income students and families... by pushing a model of "rewarding excellence" in a education system full of social and economic inequality, the "top schools" (either by being private or becoming charters) can expel "under performing students". Since regualar public schools can't and shouldn't kick out the very students who need extra motivation or specialized help, the public schools are set up to fail in a public education system that rewards high scores and punishes low test-scores.

The second target/scapegoat are teachers and the teacher unions. Private Schools and some charters can rewrite teacher contracts or just hire non-union. In many states, when schools do not meet some pre-determined test-scores, the state government can take over the school (a inner city school that's underfunded and where kids do not have private tutors or lots of outside help scores poorly, and here comes the state because obviously the school is incompetent. If you are BP and destroy an Ocean, or a Bank that destroys they economy... well then it's hands off, a state takeover is unimaginable and would be barbaric!:rolleyes:). In Oakland, when the government took over the school district, teachers saleries were frozen; now Oakland teachers are the lowest paid in the state (staring for Oakland cop: $70k!!! I don't think any Oakland teachers have shot and killed anyone recently) and have a 30% turnover rate... but yeah, low-performance is the fault of teachers who are lazy and students who don't want to learn:rolleyes:.

Education is a tough subject for the left since the school are so bad and both the Democrats and Republicans push "characterization" (i.e. privatization) as the only possible solution.

I recommend the recent issue of the International Socialist Review for some recent articles about the fight for public education:


Why is the neoliberal model being pursued by such a united front of political and economic elites? Since the Reagan administration issued “A Nation at Risk,” its report on the state of public schooling, government education policy has shifted from an emphasis on equity to strident calls for “excellence.” As part of a backlash against the civil rights movement, the report shifts responsibility for public education’s failures from government to individual schools and teachers.

Obama’s neoliberal agenda for education (http://www.isreview.org/issues/71/feat-neoliberaleducation.shtml)

The education “shock doctrine” (http://www.isreview.org/issues/71/feat-disasterschooling.shtml)


Socialist Worker Newspaper also has coverage of the election of a rank and file reform slate (http://socialistworker.org/2010/06/14/new-day-for-chicago-teachers) inside the Chicago teacher's union. The president-elect of the union put it much better than I could:


"Today marks the beginning of the end of scapegoating educators for the social ills that all of our children, families and schools struggle against every day. Today marks the beginning of a fight for true transparency in our education policy--how to accurately measure teaching and learning, and how to truly improve our schools and how to evaluate the wisdom behind our spending priorities. This election shows the unity of 30,000 educators standing strong to put business in its place--out of our schools.


Corporate America sees K-12 public education as a $380 billion trust that--up until the last 15 years--they haven't had a sizeable piece of. So this so-called school reform is not an education plan. It's a business plan, and mayoral control of our schools and our Board Of Education is the linchpin of their operation.


Fifteen years ago, this city purposely began starving our lowest-income neighborhood schools of greatly needed resources and personnel. Class sizes rose, schools were closed. Then standardized tests, which in this town alone is a $60 million business, measured that slow death by starvation. These tests labeled our students, families and educators failures, because standardized tests reveal more about a student's zip code than it does about academic growth.


And that, in turn--that perceived school failure--fed parent demand for charters, turnarounds and contract schools. People thought, "it must be true, I read it in the papers. It must be the teachers' fault." Because they read about it, every single week. And our union, which has been controlled by the same faction for the last 40 years--37 out of 40--didn't point out this simple reality.


What drives school reform is a single focus on profit. Profit. Not teaching, not learning, profit.

[Crusade]

As an "inner city kid" I'd have to say your grandma is pretty racist. That's okay though. All grandma's are racist.

Jimmie you're spot on. Your posts always kill threads since there's no point in saying anything else after them.

[counterblast]

Its true -- kids in the inner city don't want to learn.

Who would consider George Washington or algebra important or relevant at all, when you're living hand to mouth and being threatened on the street every day by cops and gang members?

You can pour all the money you want into the schools; but until you're willing to address the systematic stuff; things are only going to get worse.

[Alleline]

They want to learn. They just need a white middle-class woman to inspire them.

[the last donut of the night]

Many good points have been made. We have to address many thing when it comes to this issue.

The first problem is that inner city kids do not want to learn what they're taught. Studies have proven working-class schools often encourage rote memorization and mindless working -- preparing them for the labor market late -- and forgo creative growth. After all, schools are lacking enough money to have good programs that encourage true intellectual growth. Also, there is something wrong with the whole American educational system. Why would black, working class kids, for example, want to learn the story of dead rich slave-owners? How does abstract mathematics apply to your life when all the math you're gonna need in the future is probably counting up multiples of five to sell drugs? There's a dichotomy in what's useful and what's not. All these things create an environment of hopelessness and disinterest toward learning in general. If kids were taught about slave rebellions, radical movements in US history, the Black Panthers, or the proud story of the working class here and internationally, I'm sure they'd be more interested in school.

I would recommend the OP to listen to "They Schools" and "Commencement Day" by dead prez and Blue Scholars, respectively. These songs clearly show what's wrong with the educational system for poor kids today.

[the last donut of the night]

In accordance with my last post:


They schools can't teach us shit
My people need freedom, we tryin to get all we can get
All my high school teachers can suck my dick
Tellin me white man lies straight bullshit (echoes)
They schools aint teachin us, what we need to know to survive
(Say what, say what)
They schools don't educate, all they teach the people is lies

You see dog, you see how quick these motherfuckers be to like
Be tellin niggas get a diploma so you can get a job
Knowwhatimsayin but they don't never tell you how the job
Gonna exploit you every time knowwhatimsayin that's why I be like
Fuck they schools!

.....

Cuz see the schools aint teachin us nothin
They aint teachin us nothin but how to be slaves and hardworkers
For white people to build up they shit
Make they businesses successful while it's exploitin us
Knowhatimsayin? And they aint teachin us nothin related to
Solvin our own problems, knowhatimsayin?
Aint teachin us how to get crack out the ghetto
They aint teachin us how to stop the police from murdering us
And brutalizing us, they aint teachin us how to get our rent paid
Knowhatimsayin? They aint teachin our families how to interact
Better with each other, knowhatimsayin? They just teachin us
How to build they shit up, knowhatimsayin? That's why my niggas
Got a problem with this shit, that's why niggas be droppin out that

[incogweedo]

well, yes. It's true, a lot of inner city kids do not want to learn, I agree with counterblast on this one. But you should cut funding, because there are kids who do want to learn.

Not just the inner city kids don't want to learn. I'm pretty sure there are kids in every school who just don't want to learn, whether it's problems at home or at school.

[Jimmie Higgins]

If "not wanting to learn" is a reason to cut funding, then all evangelical schools should be de-funded since they don't want to learn about evolution; the State of Texas should be defended because they don't want to teach students about slavery or the enlightenment; Arizona should be defended because they don't want to teach about Latino or Black history.

I assume you mean this...
But you shouldN'T cut funding, because there are kids who do want to learn....otherwise, I'm confused about the point you are making.


Not just the inner city kids don't want to learn. I'm pretty sure there are kids in every school who just don't want to learn, whether it's problems at home or at school.Very true. There's a widespread idea (popular among many older or middle class US blacks unfortunately) pushed both by conservative as well as Democrats and Obama that black kids don't excel because "bad" black kids make fun of smart kids for "acting white". While no doubt if you are black and speak with a WASPy dialect you get teased - no doubt if you get good grades and are black, you get teased. But guess, what - this is true for ALL ethnic groups! Asian kids get shit for getting good grades because it falls into a racist stereotype; latino/white/arab kids get shit if they have good grades.

Someone should send Obama and all the other politicians (and racists) who blame education inequality on "black culture" any number of teen-comedies where white kids who get good grades are the comic relief and/or are called NERDS!NERDS!NERDS!NERDS! Get Obama a copy of "Fraisier" DVDs if he thinks that only black kids are ridiculed for speaking which what is seen as an upper class dialect. Remember all the movies and books where the bookish white guy goes around correcting the slang of working class whites gets respect from people and gets the woman and saves the day? No such movie exists.

It's amazing to think in a culture where George Bush (a man with a fake regional dialect and fake "folksy saying") was promoted by the media and politicians as an ideal leader (act first, don't talk) for a number of years after 9/11; a country where elites still deny the human impact on climate change; a country where school boards are making evolution and creationism equivalent... that people would claim that anti-intellectualism is a "black problem".


you're spot on.Thanks comrade:blushing:.

[Foldered]

A major issue lies in what is being taught and most importantly how it is being taught. I don't think children in general don't want to learn, I just think we (universal, not us in specific) have a narrow view of what teaching is.

[GreenCommunism]

i don't understand why ethnic minorities would live in the inner city, isn't that where the prices for rent is higher? though it's probably quite low in ghettos. i still don't understand.