Villalta 1

Josue Villalta

Prof. Monique Williams

English 1A

22 December 2013

Final Essay

Karl Marx once said that religion is the opiate of the masses. In the world today I believe that stereotypes, especially those having to do with poverty, is the new opiate of the masses. Poverty stereotypes hold the middle and lower classes down in society. The stereotypes act like opium because they stop people from realizing all the injustices that are happening around them. During readings and research I have found authors, such as Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, which agree with my point of view and opinion. I will be referencing these authors and resources throughout my essay. Poverty stereotypes keep the status quo and keep people oppressed in our society. I believe that poverty stereotypes are able to oppress certain people because they prevent unification and benefit the rich more.

The wealthy are able to use stereotypes to “numb” the thoughts of the middle and lower classes because stereotypes prevent unification. Poverty stereotypes promote judgment and prejudices within a group of people. People separate themselves from others based on general pre-conceived stereotypes and do not attempt to understand the individual. However, in this recent economic crisis, many citizens in America are not all that different. The book The Rich and the Rest of Us states that, “The number of people living in poverty rose by 2.6 million between 2009 and 2010” (Smiley and West 25). There is a significantly large group of people that are facing economic troubles and that number seems to be growing exponentially. If the millions of people were to unite they would be able to move forward economically as a group for the better. However, the wealthy are aware of the power of the masses and so they promote stereotypes to keep the middle and lower classes divided. If poverty stereotypes are to continue then the economic oppression will continue.  

The second way that poverty stereotypes keep the middle and lower classes oppressed is that it benefits the rich more than they already benefit off of society. Because of stereotypes, the wealthy are able to get wealthier and the poor are only made poorer. It is obvious that in today’s times the wealth in America is not distributed equally. Actually, it is not even close to being distributed equally in a just way. According to the book The Rich and the Rest of Us, “…an American ‘in the top 1 percent takes in an average of $1.3 million per year, while the average American earns just $33,000 per year’” (Smiley and West 24).   I believe that this income gap will only increase because of stereotypes about poverty. Poverty stereotypes give people a negative notion about those people in poverty that are in need of assistance. As a result, those people in need are restrained from opportunities and encouraged to a lesser extent to do big things with their life. The wealthy will stay as an elite group and continue to control America economically.

Poverty stereotypes are able to oppress people economically in our society because stereotypes prevent a productive unification and because it behooves the rich to keep the stereotypes. In my opinion, the only way that the middle and lower class can regain economic strength is through unification. It is noted that a house divided cannot stand and that statement is still true today. If stereotypes were viewed just as generalizations than it would allow for the unification of people and eventually would bring about change. However, although this essay might have went against the wealthy in some instances, perhaps it isn’t against the wealthy that we should unify against. Perhaps we should all unify against the society and the structure it has created in America.

The article I read was "U.S. Prison Myth vs. Mayhem". In this article the author writes about the current prison systems flaws and how it affects society. At the end of the article, the author talks about alternative punishments for non-violent criminals. Some things that caught my attention in this article, was how the author brought up the philosophical purpose of all prisons; which is punishment. Our current prison system does effectively punish criminals. This is probably because “punishment” is viewed as a very negative thing. The prisons put away criminals and isolate them with other criminals. Often times we just forget about the inmates because they are out of sight and out of mind. Another point that I found interesting was about the construction of new prisons and jails. These constructions cost billions of dollars that taxpayers, like myself, have to pay. Eventually those new constructed prisons are going to be non-functional just like the rest of the prions in our country. We are putting money into a black hole and expecting to see miraculous results. But it just doesn’t work like that. I’m not sure what we should do to reform the prison system. There is no direct answer in my opinion. I think restitution centers will better the system. It will also save the country some money because low offenders will not have to be given all the luxuries that prisons contain (3 meals, gyms, library, etc.). In regards to actual prisons, I think we should look to Europe for improvement of our system. Inmates inside prison should be rewarded their stay and privileges. That way, not all the expenses are passed on to the tax payer directly. 

It would make sense that when a teacher fails to do his/her job they should be fired. After all, that is what happens in any other job when the employee begins to not meet expectations. However, one big obstacle in getting rid of bad teachers is the idea of tenure. Tenure is having the guarantee of your job and the right to keep it for as long as you want. Originally, tenure was meant for college professors but it now has moved to grade school as well. In the movie Waiting for Superman (a film discussing problems in the education system) one of the people states that essentially all a teacher has to do to receive tenure is breathe for two years. No evaluation on how the teacher is meeting expectations and no separation of bad and good teachers. The students suffer from the bad teacher’s conformity and guaranteed paycheck.

            Another reason why schools and districts cannot get rid of bad teachers is because there is no real critique of their teaching. Unlike other jobs, teaching can be done in different ways and there are various teaching methods. This makes it difficult to evaluate teachers or create a universal standard for teachers. According to the documentary Waiting for Superman, 1 in 57 doctors will lose their medical licenses for failure to meet expectations and do their job, 1 in 97 lawyers will lose their law license for the same reason, but only 1 in 2500 teachers will lose their teaching credentials for failing at their job. Thousands of bad teachers are still able to teach students because they have their teaching credential. Often times, this creates a problem known as the “dance of the lemons” in some areas. This is where teachers that are known to be bad are passed on to a different principal and school every year. Because the bad teachers still have possession of a teaching credential they are now able to ruin a different classroom in the school district every year. All of this occurs because there is a lack of an efficient critique on teachers.

            It has also become problematic to get rid of bad teachers because of the huge opposition that teacher unions put up. Teachers unions were first created to ensure equality between male and female teachers. However, many teachers unions now in days try to ensure equality between great and bad teachers (not acknowledging how bad teachers affect students). One way that teachers unions block the firing of bad teachers is through financial means. If taken to court by the teachers union, the school district is faced with the dilemma of using thousands of dollars and wasting valuable time. According to Albany’s Times Union “…the average process for firing a teacher in New York state outside of New York City proper lasts 502 days and costs more than $216,000.” In Illinois, the legal fees for firing a tenured teacher cost an average of $219,504. School districts are already facing financial problems because of the recent recession. Schools cannot afford to throw away money like that. They might not even be successful in firing the bad teacher. Firing a bad teacher is not a favorable financial move for school districts and therefore bad teachers are not fired. 

Bad teachers can affect students in a negative just as a great teacher can impact a student in a positive way. Great teachers inspire students to go beyond what is asked for them and teach them to have an aspiration for the future. But bad teachers show students that they can’t all be successful and bad teachers don’t show their students that kind of positive future they could have. In a wood shop class set up for “special” students who have fallen behind (probably because of a bad teacher) are given different tasks to do than in a regular class.  “The children learn to punch in time cards at the door…in order to prepare them for employment” (Kozol 116). Who said those kids were going to be in a blue collar job that would require them to punch in times? But more importantly, why don’t these students have a teacher that encourages them to become something bigger in life? Bad teachers do not envision their students to achieve great success and therefore their students do not strive to become anything. The students conform to whatever they are trained to be.

These children who have bad teachers throughout the years also fall behind in academics. This makes it more difficult for the students to go onto college or even graduate from high school. According to the documentary Waiting for Superman, a good teacher can cover over 150% of the curriculum during the school year; which means that the teacher has well-prepared the student for the following year as well. But a bad teacher will only cover 50% of the yearly curriculum. The bad teacher fails to maintain the student at grade level and doesn’t prepare the child at all for the next year. Many examples are found in the book Savage Inequalities of students in high school whose reading level is significantly low. Reading levels as low as the second and third grade.

Another affect that bad teachers have on students is that the children learn to not be passionate about things. This hurts our society’s future because we will have a workforce and a society made up of people who are passive about big issues and are not passionate about their lives. We will have people who are not involved in shaping the future and this will create a cycle that never ends.

Poor schools are often time more prone to having bad teachers. Good teachers are wanted everywhere, which means that they receive opportunities at different schools and can freely choose between them. However, bad teachers aren’t in a high demand and so they do not require as much pay as the good teachers because all they want is a job at least. In the Chicago area, lots of these “bad” teachers come in the form of long-term substitutes. “The salary scale, too low to keep exciting, youthful teachers in the system, leads the city to rely on low-paid subs, who represent more than a quarter of Chicago’s teaching force” (Kozol 63). In most cases, the teachers with exciting new ideas are young and recently graduated. This means that they often times (on top of paying their normal bills) have loans to pay for school and they cannot afford to take the low-salaries that poor districts offer. The result is that the youthful teachers go to richer district and whatever is left over is given to the poorer school districts.

Another factor that makes schools more prone to bad teachers is the demographics of the school. If the school is more populated with minority groups there exists a larger chance that bad teachers are there. This could be true for many different reasons. Minorities in “ghettos” tend to have less money, the neighborhood of the school might not be pleasant, or perhaps it is simply racism and discrimination. Desert Trails Elementary students are 62 percent Hispanic and 27 percent black. This school “…ranks in the bottom third of California schools with similar demographics and has been stuck on the federal watch list for failing schools for six years” (hechingerreport.org). When a school has been on the federal watch list for six years it is undeniable that something is wrong. The students are not to blame in this case. In six years many of the students who attended Desert Trails have moved on and gone to other schools, however the school still fails. This is because something at the base of the school is not right. And at the base of each school are the teachers.

Schools that have low testing scores are also prone to have bad teachers. This includes classroom where the students have been labeled as “slow learners” and therefore need a special class. At a school illustrated in the book Savage Inequalities, two different classrooms are described. The first is a class for “gifted” and advanced students and is full of decorations around the walls and the teacher seems energetic and involved with the students. In the other classroom, the students are “slow” learners and the teacher just hands out packets of work. Needless to say, the majority of students in the “slow” class were black and the majority of students in the advanced class were white. The division between these students will always exist if the teachers for these classes continue to be divided at two extremes. 

The San Mateo Union High School District is dealing with discrimination issues. The issue is that Chinese students are discriminated against and put into low performing schools. This discrimination issue was also talked about by Jonathan Kozol about the city of New York. In this city, kids of color were overwhelmingly found in “special” classes that were designed for those who needed extra help. White students were put in either proficient or advanced classes for the “gifted”. This observation has to do with my topic of bad teachers because these bad teachers are usually found in the lower special classes where the color kids are.

At another school, 100 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Desert Trails Elementary school also has a population that is 62 percent Hispanic and 27 percent black. This poverty stricken school is indirectly talked about by Jonathan Kozol in his chapter about East St. Louis. In the East St. Louis area school would get cancelled because of sewage problems and the students (mostly black) would play in grass that was growing from sewage waste. The issue of poverty is seen in both the Desert Trails Elementary example and the example Kozol gives. At both schools the test scores were low and therefore the school was labeled as low-performance. Poverty connects to the topic of bad teachers because the district can’t afford to pay more for good teachers.

Another finding that I was able to find was a chart of 2 schools being compared. The first school was located in Beverly Hills and the other (much poorer) school was located in the nearby city of Alerta. The table showed different areas like the economics of the students but also showed what kind of classes the students were taking. In the Beverly Hills high school many AP courses were offered and the percentage of students who passed those tests was very high. However, in the high school in Alerta, few AP courses were offered and only 1 in 3 students actually passed the test. Jonathan Kozol explains this in his book as well. He talks about schools that offer advanced classes for the “gifted” and how students in those classes are given more opportunities and are treated differently. Those gifted students are prioritized. This variation in classes is connected to bad teachers because the good teachers are put into AP classes because they are usually more qualified. 

The topic sentence that grabbed my attention stated “Poorly funded public schools have poor teachers because they cannot attract young and ambitious educators due to low salaries”. This is a topic I have noticed and have become more familiar with in the past few years. Both my younger sisters attend a “choice” school where they were selected and random. These teachers are almost all fresh out of college and full of energy. They make sure to make strong bonds with their students and it even gets to the point where the students talk about their teachers as if they were friends. At the school I attended most teachers were around the age of 40, if not older. At first I didn’t understand why that was, but money influences many things. Jonathan Kozol takes note of this and explains that the salaries at these “choice” schools are significantly higher. Kozol notes the words of a principal at one of the lower public schools in the Chicago area. “Top Salary in a school, he says, is $40,000. ‘My faculty is aging. Average age is 47. Competing against the suburbs, where the salaries go up to $60,000, it is very, very hard to keep young teachers’” (Kozol 85). It might sound a little harsh, but if I was a brand new teacher I would go teach at the choice school that would pay me $60,000. Also knowing that because it is a choice school, the students may also be better and less troublesome. I think that the government should step in on this topic and maybe give grants to at least bring the gap a little closer. 

Education differs from other popular controversial issues in today’s society because education directly involves the future citizens of our country. It is sometimes hard to think about, but in less than a decade it is for certain that those students in middle school will be adults roaming around in society.  This is why fundamental values, like passion, must be evident in schools so that our future adults will have those values as well. This is significantly important because if students are not taught core values from schools (the place where they spend most of their time in), they will learn values from other sources. These other sources like the media and peer groups can often bring false values and ideologies. Students should learn that school is a tedious obligation because then they will apply that value to life and assume that all aspects of life are obligations.

            It is also important that our students are not taught that school is an obligation because they may take things for granted. This applies to the student’s life in both the short term and long term. Students may feel that because school is viewed as an obligation, it will always be there.  This creates two types of problems. The immediate problem is that the student may not put an effort in school or may stop attending school because they feel that they could always go back one day. The other part of the problem is that when that certain student is an adult they may apply the same logic to their life. They might think that their job is granted and will always be there; however, in reality, if they do not put effort in their work they will get fired.

            Another negative consequence of replacing passion with obligation in the education system is that students do not develop critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is the ability to evaluate, reflect upon, and reason to solve a certain problem or to further enrich one’s knowledge. This shortage of critical thinking skills occurs because students are not passionate about learning and they learn to do the minimum because that is all they are obligated to do. This becomes problematic because people who are not critical thinkers often cannot help the society progress. Neither can they help progress themselves (for example in job positions). 

A concept in this video that really grabbed my attention was the part about how we are taught that life is linear. However, in reality, it’s organic. It doesn't have to follow certain steps in order for your life to be successful. In the video he talked about how even in kindergarten we are envisioning those kids as college kids. We as a society do not let them explore first. However, they should explore first because that way they know what they want to do once in college. Our change has to be from the fundamentals. It’s not messing around with the little details at the top. The structure has to be changed as well. If we want successful people in the future they have to be doing something they are passionate about. They shouldn't follow a linear line.

Teachers need to be passionate in the classroom about what they teach because they pass on their passion to their students. Education should not be viewed as a tedious obligation that both students and teachers have to attend to. It should be full of passion and enthusiasm. In the script for the “Passion Project” one of the students explained the negatives of having a dull and boring classroom environment. She explained that the teacher needs to add their own “flavor” and “style” to the way they teach or else the content of the class will not be enthusiastic or lively. A successful classroom needs a teacher that is both passionate and knowledgeable in their subject and is able to transfer that passion to their students. This idea is talked about as one of the five characteristics to a successful school in the article “Taking schools to the next level”. “What is needed is pedagogical subject knowledge that includes both the personal proficiency of the teacher in the subject and the teacher’s understanding of how to engage students with the subject” (McAleavy 14). Any person can have knowledge in a certain subject, but someone who teaches children should be passionate about their knowledge. Outstanding teachers are also able to “read” their students so that they could better involve the students in learning. “The best teachers adapt their teaching to respond to the direction suggested by learner reactions, adjusting the lesion “live” whilst maintain a consisting focus on planned learning outcomes” (McAleavy 14). By having flexible teachers the students are able to feel more comfortable and relaxed in the classroom. These students can also feel that they have a voice in the classroom and therefore have more respect towards the teacher. 

My title for this blog is “Josue from English 1”. I think it’s appropriate because it simple and it explains the purpose of this blog. The background of my blog is “technological”. I did this because it explains the job I am in which is an IT assistant. I also liked how the design of it looked. Some things that are most important to me are my family, those people close to me, music, and my culture. I’m very passionate about music. I listen to it a lot and I also play various instruments. I also like sports; both watching and playing them. I’m in school right now because I want to have a stable job in the future that makes enough money to maintain myself. I’m at Chabot because my plan is to transfer out to a UC in the future. I hope to get some sort of new knowledge from this class and of course, credits. My values, like my family and the people that are close to me, will help me because they could motivate me and make me look towards the future.