Life Skills & Assessment

Question Posed in Depth and My Concentration in This Study

 

 

How much of what students are learning in school today applies to everyday life skills for future success?

 

What our group would like to explore in this study is if the students, especially in urban areas like Newark, are getting the education needed to become competent and successful members of society. The issue of changing school and curriculum (educational reform) to compensate for the rapidly changing world in which these schools and it student’s exist has been an ongoing battle of both failure and success in particularly urban areas. Most of the students in the area we will be looking at, Newark, come from the lower income, working class families that are just barely making ends meet. The parent(s) in these families have low educational backgrounds and this lower education is linked to the lower income status they possess. President George Bush, in an effort to raise the failing schools and students in all areas, rural, urban, and suburban, proposed No Child Left Behind; a series of standardized tests and guidelines for meeting AYP or the school receives less funding or is closed down. What President Bush did not account for is that the students and families in all areas are different; some come to school hungry; some schools simply do not have the funding for necessities such as paper; and most importantly, all students learn differently. He did not leave room for other remedies and solutions to each area’s different social class make-up, ethnicities, poverty and etc. This idea of standardizing, everything goes against nature; there needs to be more than one solution to assessing schools and students.

What is happening due to the standardized testing is educators are teaching to the test, which right off the bat makes them invalid. The students are then being assessed on how much test content and information they can memorize to pass instead of assessing the depth, reasoning, and critical thinking that goes into making decisions of what they really know and understand. What our group strives to find is if these tests are giving the students the skills and tools needed, not only for school but, after graduation and in the work place, and in life. Many of the students coming from urban areas do not pursue further education and join the work force after graduation. The Secretary’s Commission of Necessary Skills released a set of competencies and foundations that are needed in the workforce. These skills are the foundation of a competent and successful member of society. Skills such as reasoning, critical thinking, and lifelong learning, etc. will help a student to success in any facet of life. In a world that is undergoing many changes of globalization it is important for one to understand how to work with others and make intelligent decisions, also part of SCANS. Unfortunately, educators are not preparing students with these necessary skills due to the pressures of “teaching to the test.” It is these students in the low income, low performing schools that are ultimately being set up for failure and the continuance of this concept of low education leading to low socio-economic status. We will also be exploring across seas and comparing techniques; curriculum and assessment of other countries such as Belgium and Sweden, where students out perform the United States on Math and Science tests and have higher success rates.

My part in this study really dives into the issues of “teaching to the test” and how all students learn, retain, and recall information differently. Also, how this rapidly changing world requires more cognitive demand on its students who need to be able to think creatively, out side of the box, and be able to reason intelligently. Students are not being taught how to think, they are being taught what to think because these standardized tests only have one right answer. We need to teach our students that there is always more than one solution and teach them how to learn and think critically building upon their strengths. If you want to see a student involved and interested, relate the content to something they care about and answer the question that students inevitably ask, “Why do I have to learn this stuff?” My other issue has to do with passing test after test – for what? Just to pass? School shouldn’t be solely about passing, it should be about what the students have learned and can use sufficiently in the world to contribute to society and use for the next steps in life. I will pose alternative forms of assessment, such as portfolio based and performance based, that can be used in juncture with standardized testing, but gives students the ability to show what they are capable of, how they reason, make decisions, and grow on their natural talents and interests. School reform is not a new issue; it has been talked about for years and slowly little steps are being taken. 

Research Topic

Topic:

How much of what students are learning in school today applies to everyday life skills for future success?

 

Data Type:

Qualitative

            Interview

                        a. Students- Current, Dropouts, Graduates

                        b. Teachers

                        c. Administration- Superintendent/Principal (+20 years exp.)

                        d. Janitors

            Observation

                        a.  Facility- Inside and Out

                        b. Area/People Around the Facility- Few Block Radius

                        c. Student/Teacher Interaction- During and Outside of Class

                        d. Student/Student Interaction- During and Outside of Class

                        e. Teacher/Teacher Interaction

 

Interview Questions:

            Teachers

                        1. Are you required to

                                    a. Show or submit lesson plans of your curriculum?

b. Prove by documentation the use of the NJCCS within your curriculum plans?

c. If yes, how is the proof documented; on the lesson plans themselves or written on the board during the lesson.

d. If no, why is there lack of connection between the teachers, state curriculum and the school? Do you think that this connection is beneficial to the students and the school?

 

2. Do you feel that through your curriculum you are teaching your students the necessary life skills they need for future success post schooling? ie- Critical thinking skills, collaborative skills, reasoning skills, lifelong learning skills?

 

3. Have the standardized tests changed anything specifically about your curriculum and/or teaching style? If so, what has changed?

 

4. How important are standardized testing to you? Do you think it is beneficial to the students learning?

 

5. Have content area class been cut as a result of standardized testing? If so, what classes? Do you feel that these classes are important to the student’s well-rounded development?

 

6. What skills besides literacy and mathematical competence do you feel your students will need after graduation?

 

Administration-Superintendent 

            7. How has the budget been affected, if at all, by standardized testing?

 

8. Do you find yourself in Trenton trying to collect funding for your schools?

 

9. How important do you feel standardized testing is for the success of your schools and students?

 

10. Have you felt a true change in your schools, perhaps more pressure or stresses on yourself or the faculty due to standardized testing?

 

            11.What steps are you taking to ensure that your schools meet their AYP?

 

            Students

                        12. What is a standardized test?

 

                        13. How important are the tests to you?

 

14. How do the tests make you feel? Do you like them? Do you think that they will help you for your future? If so, in what ways?

 

15. Have you had any other experiences with tests? If so, what type of tests? Do you like those tests better?

 

16. Do you think that standardized testing really tests your true abilities and strengths?

 

17. Do you feel any changes in your classes as you have moved up through the grades about what you are learning?

 

18. Do you think what you are learning is going to be useful in the real world after you graduate?

 

19.  What skills do you think will be important for you after you graduate?

 

20. What do you want to be when you grow up?

 

21. Do you feel that after receiving your diploma, you will have all that you need for success in the future?

 

22. What are you plans after graduation? Will you pursue further education (where to) or join the work force (in what line of work)?

 

23. How would you change school if you could?

Data Charts

 

            1. Pie Chart representative of the races/ethnicity of the students and faculty of the             school.

 

            2. Pie Chart representative of the social classes and family make up of the school.

 

3. Bar Graphs representative of the performance of standardized testing broken up into the years, content being assessed, and scores.

Annotated Bibliography

Aguirre, E., Brock, W. E., Biggins, J. V., Black, J. P., Brockett P. L., Burdick, W. E.,

Burge, J. D., Carswell, B., Chapman, T. W., Cole, P. F., Conn, G. J., Cortina, G., Doyle, F. P., Foreman, J. H., Foster, B. G., Gregory, W. H., Herrera, Y., Martin, L., Jennings, M. P., Palko, S., Patterson, J., Parnell, D., Resnick, L. B., Rivera, R.E., Semerad, R. D., Sticht, T. G., Watts, G. D., Wetjen, S. M., Whitburn, G., Zimmerman, J. H. (2000). U.S. Department of Labor: What Work Requires Of Schools: A Scans Report for America 2000. The Secretary’s Commission On Achieving Necessary Skills, June 1991, i-36.

 

http://wdr.doleta.gov/SCANS/whatwork/whatwork.pdf

 All young Americans should leave high school with the know-how they need to make it in the real world; less than one half of our students have the knowledge or foundation required to find and hold a good job. The nation’s schools are failing to develop the full academic abilities of most students and utterly failing the majority of poor, disadvantaged, and minority students. It is proven that low skills lead to low wages and low profits. SCANS, The Secretary’s Commission on Necessary Skills have compiled a set of foundations and competencies needed to perform in the workplace and in further education, in many cases simultaneously.

Cornfield, I. R. (2002). Learning-To-Learn Strategies As A Basis For Effective Lifelong

Learning. International Journal Of Education, 21(4), 357-368.

 Great changes have occurred in our world regarding education, technology, and the economy. With these revolutions, the nature of work, skill, and knowledge have changed in the way of being more cognitively demanding. The importance of incorporating the teaching of cognitive and metacognitive skills in the classroom will give students the lifelong learning skills needed at all levels of schooling and beyond in the world of work. Curriculum needs to be adjusted to include learning-how-to-learn. Once students learn ultimately how they learn, then these skills can be applied to lifelong learning skills for success in the ever-advancing future.

Glaser, R., Silver, E. (1994). Assessment, Testing, and Instruction: Retrospect and

            Prospect. Review of Research in Education, 20, 393-419.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1167389

 Assessment is both part of the problem and part of the solution. There is evidence that suggests both sides of the argument. Assessment other than high stakes tests can be used as a valid measure of the performance and thinking students foster. These other types of tests such as selective testing and performance based testing can be used in addition to the state and national tests. What we must teach our students is that there is more than one right answer to a single problem and standardized tests do not leave room for the critical thinking and reasoning that accompanies this real life application of education and life skills.

 

Packer, A. (2007). Meeting Standards Will Not Guarantee Success. Fairtest, The High              School Assessments Forum: Oakland Mills Interfaith Center, 2003, October 21.

 What determines success? – High test scores or skills needed for lifelong learning and the work force? Educators need to think about what the economy is going to look like for the students they are teaching now who will enter the work force in the future. Today, many jobs have already been moved across seas due to globalization and computers are taking over jobs once done by humans. Employers want creative problem solvers, decision makers, collaborative team players, effective communicators, and life long learners, but high stakes assessments are hindering these valued skills. A math test may take away from an art lesson and that art lesson may have given the student who thinks creatively a job with the Ford Company who needs a new design for their Taurus, which is no longer attracting consumers. Also, assuming that all students are alike by giving them the same standards-based tests is unfair because not all students learn and retain information in the same way. What is wanted is more productive workers, more informed citizens, more lifelong learning, and more developed human beings. 

http://www.fairtest.org/meeting-standards-will-not-guarantee-success

Madus, G. F. (1988). The Distortion of Teaching and Testing: High Stakes Testing and

            Instruction. Peabody Journal of Education, 65(3), 29-46.

 Tests are losing their legitimacy on testing students on their learned knowledge due to the “teaching of the test.” This corrupts the information that the students have learned and therefore know because instead of retrieving the information from long-term memory, they are memorizing test material and format. The scores are no longer valid because memorizing stock sentences as prompts for example, is not an indicator of how well or creatively one can write. It has now become an assessment of the student’s ability to recall memorized information.

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.montclair.edu:2048/stable/pdfplus/1492818.pdf

 

Wallis, C., Steptoe, S., (2006, December 18). How To Bring Our Schools Out Of The

20^th Century. Time Magazine, 51-56.

 We need to take our schools into the 21^st century and prepare our students for the uncertainty they will face in the world ahead of them. Advances in technology and our global economy will have tremendous effects on what the world will look like for students when they enter the work world or even adulthood. Students need to learn more about the world, think outside of the box, become smarter about new sources of information, develop good people skills and redefine how they learn. The curriculum needs to be adjusted to incorporate a balance between core knowledge and portable skills such as critical thinking, making connections between ideas and knowing how to learn. It is suggested that the curriculum of the United States should become more like those of Singapore, Belgium, and Sweden, where students out perform students on math and science tests. In these countries key concepts are taught in depth and smaller textbooks are used to focus on the powerful and important ideas instead of forgettable details. Also, the curriculum should be more interdisciplinary to help students to think creatively aiding in the production of new breakthroughs in technology and such.

Synder, L. G., Snyder, M. J. (2008). Teaching Critical Thinking Skills and Problem

            Solving Skills. The Delta Epsilon Journal, L(2), 90-99.

 Students who are able to think critically are able to solve problems effectively. Having knowledge is simply not enough in today’s world. To be effective in the work place and in personal lives, students must be able to solve problems and make effective decisions; they must be able to think critically. Thinking critically should be implemented by teaching students how to think, instead of what to think. Unfortunately, standardized curricula and the focus on “teaching the test” undermine the educator’s ability to address critical thinking in the classroom. Also, on standardized tests, students cannot apply critical thinking skills; instead they are only recalling facts. This type of assessment does indicate the student’s knowledge and understanding of the idea, concept, or content area being assessed. 

Culture of Self Revised

I grew up in Ridgefield, New Jersey for the most part; a small, wealthy, predominantly white, suburban community where education was valued, being involved in structured extracurricular activities and getting into the big universities was the main focus in high school, class had much to do with your social status and acceptance, the number of minorities enrolled in my district could be counted on my fingers, family, along with it’s traditional structure and moral values was the accepted, and respect and manners were a given while addressing elders. My family life however, was substantially different from this stereotypical standard associated with suburban life. Although I am white, my family never quite fully fit into the persona of the suburban American family who owned a home, with the white picket fence, two parents happily married including the stay at home mother, and the breadwinner father, where daily family dinners were a ritual, and little financial worry.  Although many of my friends lived the glorified suburban standard of life, I surely did not.

When I was four, my mother and father got divorced; it was a terrible experience.  I remember clinging onto my father’s leg as my mother was pushing and throwing his belongings down the stairs at us. My brother was not even a year old at the time, so he has a very different perspective of our family structure than I do. For JJ, that’s just the way things were/are; we lived with Mommy and we saw Daddy on the weekends, summers, and some holidays. My father tried to keep things between them civil for us; he always had our best intentions in mind. My mother always took good care of us physically, but abused both my brother and I verbally. I got the brunt of it. For as long as I can remember, she has called me every name in the book and kicked me out of the house for the first time when I was four. My dad, who moved in with my grandparents (where we all still live today) got a call from my mom during the school week saying, “Come pick this f*cking b*tch up.” Needless to say, each time it happened he went to get me and drove me all the way back the next morning to go to school.

We lived with my mother because she didn’t want to give up the custodial rights to my father, although she was very eager to get rid of us every weekend. I think it had something to do with finances too; I’m not really too sure about that. I do know however, we never had any money for extras and my mother NEVER paid for anything more than the necessities. The entire financial burden was placed on my father. If we needed medicine, clothes, school supplies, class trip money, entertainment funds for a trip to the Sweet Shop or Dairy Queen with friends, application fees for college, etc., the response we would get was, “Go ask your father.” Now, giving my mother the benefit of the doubt, maybe she simply didn’t make enough each week to include extras, but my dad paid child support so that should have covered all of the extra amenities for my brother and I. Also, we seemed to move frequently from apartment to apartment, although in the same town (except for two years: first and second grades in Bogota) my understanding of stability was very unstable in itself. I found comfort in structured activities, like my Jazz dance class on the weekends as a kid, being in school with my friends: including all of the extra curricular activities, and simply playing with my brother on the weekends seemed to be activities that I enjoyed greatly because they were constant. I also came to find that alone time was something that I enjoyed whether I was cleaning (I loved to clean and organize as a kid, I still do), expressing myself creatively through fine arts, listening to music, or being outside observing nature.

My brother and I spent the weekends with our father and paternal grandparents. My brother and I, because we have gone through all of these life experiences together, were very close. More so than that, I took care of him (changed his diapers starting at age five) and watched after him during the week, so the weekend was my time to relax and be a kid. My dad, being a police officer, works crazy hours and even if he asked my mother to keep us until he got out of work or perhaps keep us for the weekend if my grandparents were away, she would never let us stay with her. Friday came and we were out no matter what! My dad always had to rearrange his life to fit her needs and it was never the other way around. In theory, my dad always got the sh*t end of the stick even when it came to holidays. I think we woke up with him on Christmas once as kids, when we still believed in Santa.” My brother and I would be threatened if we said we wanted to go by dad or even see him saying, “Then why don’t you go live with your father.”  And finally, after she punched me in the face, that being the final straw, I moved in with my father when I was sixteen years old. I didn’t talk to her for one year after that and my brother stayed with her because she manipulated him with guilt trips to make him stay. I should have gone to live with dad sooner. But, since the idea was always expressed as a threat, it never seemed appealing.  Additionally, I was afraid to leave all of my friends, my school; the life away from my house that I enjoyed and especially my brother. My father worked it out that I still went to school with my friends and graduated from Ridgefield Memorial High School.  It was so much better living with Dad, but I missed my brother.

Unfortunately, my mother is sick now, diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and we don’t talk often. She definitely has taught me what type of mother and educator not to be. Her choices, judgment, and rational have proved themselves to be encompassed in selfishness and greed, an embarrassment to both my brother and I. Since I have been sixteen years old, I have lived with my grandparents and my father in an owned home in the suburban community of River Edge, New Jersey. I consider my grandmother to be more of a solid mother figure than my mother has ever been. My grandmother was a foster child and doesn’t know too much about her heritage. She did bring with her protestant faith that she designated as hers but did not practice regularly or put onto us. Heritage and religion weren’t strong definitive qualities in my household. I wasn’t brought up with strict religious implications in either household like many of my friends. I should mention that I never associated with anyone from River Edge because my life was very much still part of Ridgefield. However, I went to CCD, made my holy communion and have a cross hanging in my room because in both communities that was the accepted and our family was so different as it was, that in a sense, we had to conform. But, by no means does Catholicism or Protestant faith really define me as a person. I will not get married in a church although I do believe there is a God because of fear of not to. I believe in the more scientific explanations of how the universe and we were created. My grandmother also raised me with the 1940’s etiquette, manners, and respect she learned growing up including the idea that cursing, as a woman, was absolutely not accepted. However, although I don’t curse at home, I somehow developed a trucker’s mouth around my friends. I believe that my mother had a large influence on that aspect of me because of the way she spoke to me as a child. I uphold respect for my elders and those who work very hard to make our communities a better place to live like educators, policemen, firefighters, and paramedics, make eye contact with a person during conversation, and use manners and politeness in my actions and speech. My grandfather on the other hand is not religious, but is the stereotypical stubborn German. My great-grandfather, my Poppop’s father was an officer in Germany in World War I. He and my great-grandmother immigrated to America in 1922 and had twins, my Poppop and my great-uncle. Both my grandfather and my great-uncle have lost their ability to communicate in German and therefore our main language spoken at home is English.

Although I am of German and Irish heritage (my mother’s mother was German and Irish) and of Catholic and Protestant faith, I consider myself an agnostic American. I was born here and influenced by suburban American culture and its environment. Although one could arguably say that my broken family life and lower economic status weren’t cognizant of my suburban upbringing. However, in spite of my family adopting our own traditions and customs regarding our time together and the activities in which we participate, each has been influenced by suburban culture and accommodated by us through our experiences to fit our needs. My experiences are a huge part of my culture along with the environment I have grown up in. I believe that my experiences truly have shaped my thinking and me as an adult. From middle school through high school, I always felt like an outsider; I was different. Not having the accepted life that everyone around me did was hard socially. I missed out on the social interactions with friends on the weekends and in high school being social is a big part of one’s acceptance and identity. I feel that this lack of acceptance has proven itself to take me longer in finding and accepting myself. I am fortunate to have my brother and my two best friends that have been there through everything: all the way back to kindergarten. I feel that school was very important for me; it was my stability. I was very involved in every aspect of drumming in the music department and the creative outlets like editor-in-chief of the yearbook. There were times that I didn’t leave school until nine o’clock at night because I would much rather be involved with my friends than go home to my mother. My father was very supportive of my active high school life and even when I moved in with him, he didn’t ask me to quit any of my extracurricular activities especially since they looked good on my transcripts and college applications.

Going to college was a big deal in Dad’s home, in my community, and in school; it wasn’t an option. After grammar school, you went to high school and then off to college. My mother does not have a college degree and did not care if my brother and I went to college or not. My father on the other hand, went to an automotive technical school for two years out in Colorado. His brother and sister, my aunt and uncle went to Michigan State University, so when you go to college in my family, you go away. Where to go to college was a big deal coming from such a small town. I wanted to go somewhere that I could start over and be me, not defined as what kind of family I came from and also somewhere that I could meet different types of people coming from all backgrounds and experiences.

Ridgefield Memorial’s population was very small (ninety-eight in our graduating class) and predominantly white; I think we had six black students in the whole school. Our junior high school was located in the same building and as the high school and as I traveled through the grades, I started to see an increase in the Asian ethnicity of the students. They tended to keep to themselves and as I approached eleventh grade, there was a true segregation between the whites in Asians not only in our graduating class but also, within the whole school. Many times they didn’t want to socialize with us or did they try. They spoke Korean amoungst themselves in school even after learning English. What did bring us together was the competition of where we were going to school. I ended up going away to North Carolina, Catawba College and then to New York, Manhattanville College. It turns out that I went the furthest distance as compared to anyone in my graduating class. I found a whole new culture down south and an extremely mixed culture community at Manhattanville.

I feel that my culture: experiences, family life, community, agnostic religion, gender, and exposure to race and ethnicity (although limited) have really shaped who I am today. I feel that I can relate to children of single parent homes and abusive parent(s) maybe not in the extreme context that some of my students will bring to me, but with a better understanding then someone who has not been through it at all. I think I have risen above the negative connotation and social disconnect that divorced/broken families endure in suburban communities. I also understand that my situation was not nearly as bad as it could have been. I had positive reinforcement and support from my father and grandparents that pushed me to want to better myself, to be an independent woman, and have goals towards success. They also fostered creativity providing the reasoning and ability to think outside of the box instilling that there was always more than one answer to whatever the situation may be. I have been fortunate coming from the suburban community that I have to have a caring family, friends, a roof over my head, enough food to eat, and clothes to keep me warm, an adequate education with educators who really cared, choice in the structured extracurricular activities in which I participated in, and the freedom to choose where I attended furthered my education. I hope I can pass onto my students that you can rise above educationally, almost anything and find the positives in any situation as long as you believe in yourself enough to make change. Take J. K. Rowling for example. It is possible to come from nothing and use education and creativity to make something of one’s self.  I have internalized how my mother has treated my brother and I and this has given me a greater understanding of how an individual can be affected by another whether in a positive or negative way.  I hope to be an insightful, creative, inspiring, active, caring, and understanding educator and learn more about the students, their culture and experiences, and their needs in urban areas.

 

Open Blog #4

  According to the reading of the last chapter in Fruchter, it seems that when a controversial subject is introduced within a school district that is directly related to or especially challenges the views, beliefs, and culture of the children’s families who attend there, more parent and community involvement is guaranteed. Why is it that when a district trying to make positive changes in the current educational system calls for reform, there is limited parent and community support? It could be perhaps, because the reform isn’t challenging or relating directly to the children’s families in a way that gives them a true voice. In 1991, when The Children of the Rainbow Multicultural Program was introduced to New York City’s schools, it raised such a commotion with an outpouring of participation and involvement from the community members and parents to the school board meetings most of them challenging the program from being implemented. This opposition went deeper than just the curriculum in the classroom, “several speakers expressed blatant and sometime vicious homophobia.” Unfortunately, we live in a society that is faced with homophobia, racism, segregation, and etc. This is why we need reform. We need to educate on acceptance on sexual orientation or race or culture; we are all part of the same human race. If controversial propaganda in the school district works to gain involvement in the school therefore allowing the expression of democracy and have the community, parents, and students have an active role in some of the decision-making regarding reform and curriculum, then we need to utilize that. If the bureaucracies listen to the students and the community in which these students represent and will inevitably run in the future, they may have a different perspective for change. This involvement may help reduce the changing to “choice schools” and foster the support for reform that the district needs. The first step should be, breaking down the corrupt bureaucracies or holding them accountable and then provoking the parents with reform that challenges their beliefs to give them a major role in the curriculum their children will learn.

Culture of Self

I grew up in Ridgefield for the most part. When I was four, my mother and father got divorced; it was a terrible experience.  I remember clinging onto my father’s leg as my mother was pushing and throwing his belongings down the stairs at us. My brother was not even a year old at the time, so he has a very different perspective of the divorce than I do. For JJ, that’s just the way things were; we lived with Mommy and we saw Daddy on the weekends, summers, and some holidays. My father tried to keep things between them civil for us; he always had our best intentions in mind. My mother always took good care of us physically, but abused both my brother and I verbally. I got the brunt of it. For as long as I can remember, she has called me every name in the book and kicked me out of the house for the first time when I was four. My dad, who moved in with my grandparents (where we all still live today) got a call from my mom during the school week saying, “Come pick this f*cking b*tch up.” Needless to say, he went to get me and drove me all the way back the next morning to go to school.

We lived with my mother because she didn’t want to give up the custodial rights to my father, although she was very eager to get rid of us every weekend. I think it had something to do with finances too. We never had any money for extras and my mother NEVER paid for anything more than the necessities. The entire financial burden was placed on him. If we needed medicine, school clothes, school supplies, money to go on a class trip, application fees for college, etc the response we would get was, “Go ask your father.” Now, giving her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she didn’t make enough to include extras, but my dad paid child support so that should have covered all of the extra amenities for my brother and I. My dad, being a police officer, works crazy hours and even if he asked my mother to keep us until he got out of work or perhaps keep us for the weekend if my grandparents were away, she would never let us stay with her. Friday came and we were out no matter what! My dad always had to rearrange his life to fit her needs and it was never the other way around. So, my dad always got the shit end of the stick even when it came to holidays. I think we woke up with him on Christmas once as kids, when we still believed in Santa. We would tell her that we wanted to wake up with daddy but she would always “threaten” my brother and I saying, “Then go live with your father.”  And finally, after she punched me in the face, I said that’s it and I moved in with my father when I was sixteen years old. I didn’t talk to her for one year after that and my brother stayed with her because she manipulated him with guilt trips to make him stay. I don’t know why I didn’t go and live with dad sooner. Maybe because the way she expressed living with him as negative and came through as a threat. Plus, I was afraid to leave all of my friends. We worked it out that I still went to school with my friends and graduated from Ridgefield. It was so much better living with Dad, but I missed my brother.

Unfortunately, my mother is sick now, diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and we don’t talk often. She is still selfish and manipulative and has ruined our relationship and recently the relationship between her and my brother. She definitely has taught me what type of mother not to be. Her choices and judgment have proved themselves to be an embarrassment to both my brother and I.  I consider my grandmother to be more of a solid mother figure than she has ever been. My grandmother was a foster child and doesn’t know too much about her heritage. She did bring with her protestant faith that she designated as hers but did not practice regularly or put onto us.

I wasn’t brought up with strict religious implications in either household. I went to CCD, made my holy communion and have a cross hanging in my room. But, by no means does Catholicism really define me as a person. I will not get married in a church and I do believe there is a God because of fear of not to. I believe in the more scientific explanations of how the universe and we were created. My grandfather on the other hand is not religious, but is the stereotypical stubborn German. My great-grandfather, my Poppop’s father was an officer in Germany in World War I. He and my great-grandmother immigrated to America in 1922 and had twins, my Poppop and my great-uncle George. My grandfather has lost his ability to communicate in German and therefore our main language spoken at home is English.

Although I am of German and Irish heritage (my mother’s mother was German and Irish) I consider myself American. I was born here and influenced by American culture and environment. I feel that my broken family life is related to that of families in urban areas more so than the suburban community that I grew up in. I was one of the very few who did not have both parents at home. I always felt like an outsider; I was different. I didn’t have the typical life that everyone around me did. I missed out on the social interactions on the weekends and in high school being social is a big part of one’s existence. I am fortunate though to have two best friends have been there through everything, that date all the way back to kindergarten. It seemed like everyone else had it so much better than I did, the parents, the money, the stability, and etc. I feel that school was very important for me; it was my stability. I was very involved in every aspect of drumming in the music department and the creative outlets like editor-in-chief of the yearbook. There were times that I didn’t leave school until nine o’clock at night because I would much rather be involved with my friends than go home to my mother. My father was very supportive of my active high school life and even when I moved in with him, he didn’t ask me to quit any of my extracurricular activities especially since they looked good on my transcripts and college applications.

Going to college was a big deal in Dad’s home, in my community, and in school. It’s just what you did. After grammar school, you go to high school and then off to college. My mother does not have a college degree and my father went to an automotive technical school for two years out in Colorado. His brother and sister, my aunt and uncle went to Michigan State University, so when you go to college in my family, you go away. Where to go to college was a big deal coming from such a small town.

The high school that I attended was very small (ninety-eight in our graduating class) and predominantly white; I think we had two black students in the whole school. Our junior high school was located in the same building and as the high school and as I traveled through the grades, I started to see an increase in the Asian ethnicity of the students. They tended to keep to themselves and as I approached eleventh grade, there was a true segregation between the whites in Asians in our graduating class. Many times they didn’t want to socialize with us or did they try. They spoke Korean amoungst themselves in school even after learning English. What did bring us together was the competition of where we were going to school. I ended up going away to North Carolina, Catawba College and then to New York, Manhattanville College. It turns out that I was the only one in my class to go the furthest away.

I feel that my experiences, family life, community, culture, agnostic religion, and exposure to race and ethnicity (although limited) have really shaped me. I feel that I can relate to children of single parent homes and abusive parents maybe not in the extreme context that some of my students will bring to me, but a better understanding then someone who has not been through it at all. I think I have risen above my negative situation and I know that it has not been as bad as it could have been. I had positive reinforcement and support from my father and grandparents to do great things and succeed in life. I hope I can pass that onto my students, that you can rise above as long as you believe in yourself. I think that I internalized how my mother has treated my brother and I and this will help me respect other people’s feelings inside and outside of the classroom. I hope to be an insightful, creative, inspiring, active, caring, and understanding educator. Even after culture and our experiences, we are all still human.