All men are created equal, however not all men will have
equal opportunities and the resources to realize their dreams. Some children
may be born to wealthy families where they have family guidance and financial support
to become whatever they want to be. Other children may come from impoverished
families where getting by day to day is a struggle and they can’t even begin to
think about their dreams when they don’t even know where the next meal is going
to come from. Like Jacqueline Novogratz, I believe that in order to change the
world, we must start at the very bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We must
understand how we can provide the food, clean water and shelter for these
impoverished families and then create self-sustaining systems to teach them how
lift themselves out of their poor living conditions. Only after we meet these
basic needs can we focus on higher needs to level the playing field and offer
equal opportunities.
In order to have equal opportunities, education and
mentorship is needed. Freshman students from low-income or immigrant families
often times are not aware of all the resources available to succeed. They do not
know that frequently visiting office hours will help them build a strong
relationship with the professor where the student can draw further expertise.
They may not have the guidance needed to help them cope with college life and
professional development. As a result, a mentorship program must be created to
provide these low-income students with resources and guidance that will help
them excel in their studies and prepare them well for internships and full-time
jobs.
Going beyond college, education can be reformed as a whole from K-12. In New York, students have to take exams in 4th grade to determine which middle school they go to. Then in 8th grade, they take the Specialized High School Admission Test (SHSAT) to score a spot in one of the eight best public high schools in New York. Then from grades 9 - 11, they must take the SATs to place into colleges. All along the way, an elementary student who is passionate about learning but is horrible at taking tests will be placed into a poorly equipped middle school. Teachers and learning environment may not be as great as those in better schools. Then they may not do well on the SHSAT and go to a similarly bad high school. These students will be slowly fall behind and be less competitive when it comes to college. What if we are able to level the playing field with different forms of education? Perhaps introduce Virtual Reality and simulation games that will inspire and excite students when it comes to learning. What if we can teach them to chase after their interests in learning rather than feed them test prep throughout their K-12 student careers? When education is reformed to create the new generation of scientists, leaders and creative individuals, these students can better serve the world by doing what they love to do.
I agree and one of my first thoughts when thinking about bettering the world is better education and increasing access to education. However, I think mentorship is critical too because it allows individuals to have a tangible person to aspire to become.
ReplyDeleteA major issue is that people oftentimes do not know what to do with their education. As more and more people are getting educated, and low-income and first generation college students matriculate, there isn't enough being done to plan the next steps. Yes, a college's responsibility is plainly to educate their students. Yes, colleges have career centers with advisers and guidance counselors. But not even close to enough is being done. The difference is that people from certain backgrounds only know the paths that lead to the same situation. We need to show people jobs, opportunities, lifestyles, and goals that they did not even know exist. By doing this, we can open people to greater opportunity and a more level playing field.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that people initially resort to computers and other technology as being the solution to problems. Sometimes we want to give people so much that we often miss meeting their basic needs. Food, clean water, shelter are all things we take for granted everyday, and it can arguably be a reason why we we forget that there are people in the world who don't have access to them. I agree that we need to take a step back to meet these needs first, and I also think access to education is places just as high importance. I liked what Jonathan said about exposing students to new opportunities and jobs beyond what they are familiar to. We need to teach these students that their current situation doesn't have to be their fate.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure what you mean about the correlation between freshman low-income students not being aware of the resources they need to succeed. I come from an upper-middle class family and I have plenty of lower-income friends from high school (there's not as much at USC) and I have no idea what constitutes me being better informed or more aware of "resources available to succeed". Likewise, I've never met a low-income student who seems to be any bit more ill-advised or uninformed on the resources of their school than I do. In fact, what I've found is it turns out to be the opposite - the low-income students have exhausted their resources trying to get all the funding/aid/scholarships they can and get the most out of their school since oftentimes they're the ones taking out loans and what not. My girlfriend comes from a low-income single parent and is pretty much funding her education on her own and I can tell you she's either just as or more informed about the resources available to succeed than I am. That being said, if I were to tangent off your ideas I would say that I agree the K-12 system is really what needs fixing. My WRIT 150 class was actually about education and we found that SAT scores are actually a very poor reflection of college-readiness, so clearly there needs to be something done about that, since it is in fact a huge factor in determining where someone or if someone goes to college. I also read a study about a high school somewhere in the country (forgot where) where the principal worked with the local junior college to help mold the curriculum into one that better prepared them for college - they had great success with the program. I think that's how we should refocus education: it should be about preparing for and exposure to college academia.
ReplyDeleteAs a Canadian, your description of how this division occurs in New York public schools from as young as 4th grade was absolutely shocking to me. From this story you have told me, I think the biggest issue is the fact that there is a public school system that 1) has certain schools that require higher test scores to be admitted 2) such testing to divide students based on intelligence exists. Your argument that this system create a huge advantage for privilege children is absolutely true. However, the best way to fix this issue is by not creating a system that creates an intellectual hierarchy within the system, and then prioritizes funding, etc. to the schools with the most intelligent kids. By reworking the education system and how it is funded, provided equal opportunity, resources, quality of teaching staff, etc. to every school will be the best way of creating equal opportunity to education.
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