Regarding a post and comments from this link:
The Worst State in America for Black Children Has Been Declared
My reply was too long so I decided to put it on here instead of take up a bunch of space on Katie’s wall. Here it is;
It’s not always the parent or the teacher who are to blame. Not that they don’t hold some responsibility. Sometimes it the other students.
When we lived in Hawaii my oldest, who was then still in grade school, was bullied terribly. She was one of four white kids in her class and she had poor social skills due to having asapergers. Even the other three white kids shunned her. Her teacher tried to help her but didn’t know how and I tried but was just on the brink of learning about her aspergers and changing the course of many thing to help her. So the teacher and I still held some responsibility. But, back to the students, their behavior toward my daughter caused a lot of pain, some depression and this affected her grades. She failed that year. The next year in Michigan started off bad but between my learning things I needed to learn to help her and having the Vice Principal take a personal interest in her things started changing for the better. The more confidence she got the less she was bullied. The less she was bullied the better her outlook was. The better her out look was the higher her grades went. Her mood was a direct link to her ability to learn.
She is one of the fortunate ones in some ways. She has a parent who is available to help her step by step. Many low income kids like her have parents or a parent who has to work long hours just so they can survive so they are not available to help the school fix any bullying issues and such. There are still many teachers who care and are good teachers but have no clue how to stop bullying or even recognize that it is present.
When I lived in Plover, WI a black family moved to our block. It wasn’t till then that I realized how rare it was to see black people here. I was also shocked to hear the gossip that erupted about them immediately. Parents were concerned for their kids because they were playing with the black kids and they just knew anything that went wrong was “those” black kids fault. The resident snob had finally began speaking to me but when I went over to befriend the new family, well, Mrs. Snobby Pants stopped talking to me again. (Her loss not mine.) If that family was per-judged upon arrival that fast then I can imagine it would likely be worse in school.
The blame can again go back to the parent here because a parents racism can affect how their kids see the world. However, there are studies done that found that children are more affected by their community even more then their own parents. So, in most cases, students at school and friends are shaping each other which takes some of the blame off the parents shoulders, depending.
Anti-bully education needs so much improvement. Rather then be discouraged, it’s good to remember that we are more aware of it now and exposing it now then we did back in the 70’s and 80’s. So, there is hope as long as we don’t throw our hands up and quit. Maybe if more people realized that they are not their child sole educator or that the teachers aren’t the only one shaping their kids but that their class mates and friends are as well, well, maybe they will take more of an interest in their child’s community. It certainly isn’t a quick fix.
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