Unjust, Unfair, Unequal - The Educational System

Shawne Murphy
Discussion Director and Creative Connector
Week 3
Chapter 2

“…those who are not successful (in school for example) are blamed for what are in fact primarily institutional problems.  That is because in the official discourse of equality, there has been a deafening silence concerning the institutional barriers that make it almost impossible for some to ‘make it,’ while they virtually guarantee success for others” (Nieto, 2010, p. 55).

Every day, students in the educational community are facing difficulties in their learning and understanding of information, and it is not their fault.  I had firsthand experience through one of my field placements in which I worked with a teacher who had already given up on her students within the first two months of school because all of the educators had deemed the class as behavior problems that would never learn.  The educators in this position made it impossible for the students to learn and placed the blame on the students because they had “behavior issues.”  Had the teacher given these third grades students a chance, she would have seen that they were smart, funny and willing to learn with the proper encouragement; it took me about a week to find this in each child.

“…curriculum segregation is a major indicator of inequality that takes place when assignments, pedagogical styles and teaching materials differ according to the group of students with whom they are used for” (Nieto, 2010, p. 60).

Scaffolding was preached since the day I entered the school of education.  Scaffolding can be defined as the ability of an educator to adapt a lesson, information, worksheet, procedure, etc., to meet the needs of each student in the classroom setting.  Not all students have the ability to learn in the same way, nor do they learn by the same means whether they be hands-on, listening, visual, etc.  It is the responsibility of the teacher to meet the needs of the students through scaffolding instruction to provide each student with a fair opportunity to learn.  If we as educators use the same styles of teaching over and over again, we are setting the students up for failure because we are refusing to meet their needs. 

“The pressure to assimilate also means that they are expected to discard their native languages and cultures in favor of instead of addition to new ones, in the process of abandoning their identity” (Nieto, 2010, p. 67).

Students in the educational system are always feeling the need to assimilate into the school environment so they do not stand out.  I experienced a form of assimilation observing in an ESL classroom in an urban school.  The students that did not speak English well were ashamed to participate because they had an accent or their English was not easily understood and the often tried to copy what was done by a native English speaker in order to ‘fit in’ or seem ‘normal.’  It is not fair that students feel that they have to change the individual that they are in order to fit in with their peers or to be able to receive the same educational benefits that the rest of the students are receiving.