Mississippi: Refocusing the Nation
I was fortunate enough to be able to spend some time in Memphis, Tennessee while chaperoning students attending a conference. During the days spent in Memphis I was able to coordinate some time in Clarksdale Mississippi to visit Clarksdale High School located in the impoverished northernmost delta region of the state. Here I was given a tour of the facilities, met a number of teachers, sat in on a full day of classes, and was able to speak with the Assistant Principal and Principal of the school. Clarksdale High School is also hosting a number of Teach for America volunteers and I was fortunate enough to sit down with many of them to discuss the challenges (both negative and positive) that this institution faces. Low attendance, gang violence, teenage pregnancy and a high AIDS/HIV rate were among the top issues that educators candidly expressed to me. I was shocked that in such a rural and isolated area these types of challenges were eroding the pedagogical environment here in Mississippi. I naively thought that poverty, healthcare, unemployment, and racial issues would top the list but after working in a number of different settings I have learned that assuming and stereotyping can be a dangerous thing. The issues and concerns surrounding rural Clarksdale are very much those that are affecting urban schools in New York and are even more closely related to the schools (both colored and black) in South Africa. These challenges all encompass the same fundamental principles: unstable environments that promote (perhaps almost always inadvertently) distressed and frayed learning for the students.
When working in rural and suburban schools in New York, and even white schools in South Africa, it became clear that the schools that are functioning the best (albeit, they have there problems) are those with smaller classrooms, higher teacher to student ratios, extracurricular funding, and maintained facilities. You may be saying “dah!” but I was shocked to be exposed to schools in South Africa that were running great and putting on huge play productions while a school down the street couldn’t even afford enough desks for students. Or, here in the US we have schools with classrooms that are overcrowded, lack trained staff to teach our youth, and seniors who cannot read or write, while other public schools are doing amazing things and functioning well above the national average. I speak with parents who openly proclaim that public schools here in Albany, NY are not suited for their children and that private schools are the only way for their learners to receive a proper education. Or that certain districts are better then others so a move will be necessary when their child reaches middle school/high school. How did this happen? How have we gotten to this point? When did we begin failing our students, our teachers, our communities? And how did the gap between public educational institutions shift to the point were we can not possibly begin to bridge them? These problems are unacceptable in developing nations like South Africa but are easily dismissed by so many due to political climate, healthcare issues, and a number of different factors; yet here in our own backyard nationally it makes me ill to think that we have schools in America (one of the richest most advanced nations in the world) that would make parents in South Africa cringe…
I will be heading back to Clarksdale in January, as well as a number of other schools in Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi. Here I will be able to engage with seasoned educators and administrators as well as the fresh faced corp. members who are working with Teach for America. My aim is to better understand the challenges these institutions face. What we need to do is look at each area separately to determine what areas are strong and, conversely, which areas need renovation. This is unfortunately a long process that requires not only time but energy! However, by working and learning with those from diverse regions and areas we can begin to heal the problems within our national education system(s) and those abroad. I am annoyingly optimistic that we can progressively and positively change our broken system and provide an education for the 21st century global citizen that is each of our students. This will not happen overnight or within the next year, this will take a commitment to excellence that will champion our more recent commitment to mediocracy.
