Prompt 2- Kozol

My class is a third grade inclusion class, as you might have gathered from my 1st prompt. The class is pretty diverse, a mix of majority black then Hispanic and white students. This classroom in particular seems more diverse then the school as a whole. On infoworks the school demographic states that 70% of the students are Hispanic, 11% African American and 13% white. With this information it is clear that this school is segregated, and with segregation other inequalities begins such as economically and educationally. Jonathan Kozol expresses the extent of which these inequalities exist throughout the United States. Kozol makes a point by comparing the number of highly segregated school that are named after famous African American activist, strangely enough my school is named after a educator who has worked in the White House prompting economic equality in a school that info works informs me that 88% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch.
I believe my classroom may be more diverse than other because it is an inclusion class. From being in the classroom a few weeks now I do pick up on some sociocultural and ethnic qualities of the students. One morning after the students put their bags in their lockers, they quietly conversed before class began. I heard a few boys responding to each other in Spanish, just simple “si” instead of yes but still, it showed that in a relaxed nonacademic atmosphere students will use their home language. This point of bilingualism in my class was further made known to me while sorting the children’s homework folders as a few had old English Language Learns information sheets in them. This ability of the students can be seen as an example of them having cultural capital, but instead of the skill being embraced and used, it is never acknowledged by the teacher, or at least I have not seen this.
I was able to gain a real look at one student’s life this week when I was helping him in writing. The project was to get information on a state and write a booklet on it. Sharp, the student had his home state. So after finding the general information like state bird, and population the prompt asked what activities could someone do while on vacation in that state. He explained to me in detail the time his mom brought him to a children’s museum and another time to a beach. Sharp also expressed how he lives with his mom and how their moving so he won’t come to this school next year. And how he expressed how he is his mom’s helper and is the man of the house, because his mom kicked his dad out. From this, in a non bias way, it was my assumption that Sharp was part of a lower class family. Kozol interviewed and read many letters from school children who considered themselves in a category of wanting what “the other kings have”. Sharp along with many of his classmates would say similar things, even though the school is new and clean it is lacking in diversity and patience for slower learners.Kozol main focus in his articles is to bring to light the huge gap between the education children are recieveing in different neighboorhoods. This school as a whole may be cosmetically nice but underneath, I believe the children deserve more understanding teachers.
I do not see any incorporation of socioeconomic, linguistic or ethnic differences by the teachers however. This lack of participant says something for itself .