Low expectations are crucial to any explanation of the poor academic and > economic performance of urban Black kids in this generation.There is no > proven medicine for this -- no one set of "high expectations" that will > fill all these youths' problems and set them on their way. Clearly, > though, naysayers who keep drumming in that Black kids can't possibly > comprehend International Relations, are no friends to Black kids. Global > trade and international social contacts are the certain anchors of the > world they will grow old and die in. Why not teach them to be tomorrow's > winners instead of yesterday's losers?
I¹m a big believer that kids even desperately poor, disadvantaged, inner-city kids - will rise to the expectations set for them, and I believe it because there is really powerful evidence to support the theory. And I believe that, next to the criminal underfunding of urban public schools, criminally low expectations of the kids in those schools by the systems are the two biggest reasons for the failure of kids in urban schools. This teacher has already decided these kids won¹t get Ph.Ds. I¹m all for recognizing that not every person is academically inclined, and therefore there should be nonacademic options like trade schools and art schools for kids, and I think nonacademic work like precision manufacturing or cooking or policing or providing high-quality child care or dance should be respected and valued as much as sitting in an ivory tower scratching your butt contemplating the meaning of life. But this teacher is basically condemning every kid in UC¹s catchment to making babies and changing oil. And I think that that is the very attitude that is dooming these kids. And that is at least as bad if not worse than any Penn/Drexel/fill-in-the blank-driven gentrification. If they get kicked from one high school that considers them hopeless to another, what can be the harm, other than a longer commute? Sorry. I was biting my tongue. ;-) You provoked me, dammit, Tony. :-) Kimm
