Old ways vs New Ways

Someone said, “We are not doing enough for our children of color in the area of math, reading and science, never mind in bilingual and special education”. More children are being placed in remedial class for support than ever before. The students just don’t get the subject matter. There is total disagreement amongst the teachers and the parents are left completely in the dark when it comes to education choice made for their children.

If a child comes home with homework and does not understand how to do it, parents often are unable to offer any assistance.

The old way of teaching as and example math is long gone and a new analytical approach is being used. I say, how can we apply this math to everyday life. I have gone into stores to purchase food. I find the cashier can’t perform calculations that are independent of the cash register. They just look at the money in their hand and I tell them how much change I am supposes to get. I also heard that remedial math course are on the incline in college because students are not making the grades on entrance exams. What are we going to do to a system that is failing so many students?

There is hope?

I was reading an article by Harold Hodgkinson that presents the argument; the culture demographic in America is changing. The dominant races will be Hispanic and Asian. As people of these cultural backgrounds classify themselves into the culture groups that they identify themselves is base on skin color, it will have a huge effect on society. Hodgkinson states in the article that the growth has occurred in states like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut just to name a few examples.

As the demographic change, new education programs will have to be implemented to support these cultural groups. More schools will have full time preschool to encourage early education.

The part of the article that I found most interesting is the comments about baby boomer and the need to replace the financial resources that they contribute to society. The young families and the number of children will increase while the baby boomers in the community will decrease. This change will have a dramatic effect on the finances in the area making it unbalance therefore taking away resources that are needed.

Hope versus despair can only be keep in balance when racial line are removed and this country stops seeing minorities as part of the problem. The hope will be to have minorities educated and for them to contribute to society as independent, productive and successful in areas that need it the most.