On 5/18/08, Tom wrote:
> Sara,
>
> You wrote, "If you're not teaching inner city, why are they
> rude and disrespectful?"
>
> Based on my recollection of other posts you've written, I
> don't think you actually believe that inner city kids HAVE to
> be disrespectful, but your comment certainly reflects the
> general societal view that this is so.
Indeed I don't think it HAS to be so but having attended inner
city schools myself, I so it be so. There is a culture to the
inner city as there is a culture to New England, a culture to the
rural South, a different culture in Los Angeles etc. etc. When in
Rome do as the Romans do.
Inner city culture is different - what's rude out here in the
suburbs was not rude in the inner city. I could write at length
about that but the word 'multiculturalism' now abundantly found in
curriculum descriptions is not abundantly heeded by teachers.
Just because we all speak the same language doesn't mean we all
have the same rules of language.
Eye contact for example - it is considered offensive in the inner
city to make direct eye contact. Yet many teachers will insist
that all students make direct eye contact - a cultural difference
and very subject to misinterpretation on both sides. The crisp
tones that teachers can employ are considered edgy and almost
disrespectful by inner city kids. When teachers teach in the
inner city and find kids rude, I understand that. I don't agree
with it but I understand why they say so.
If though this teacher isn't teaching inner city, then I'd like to
know what behaviors she's encountering that she finds rude and/or
disrespectful. Often teachers will deem classroom restlessness as
'disrespect' when it's really restlessness. Some teachers find
any answer a child offers when instructed to do something 'rude'.
They expect children not to speak or negotiate in any way when
given an instruction. I don't find children asking me "why do we
have to do this' rude or disrespectful.
>
> So, to counter that general expectation, I would like to keep
> putting the thought out there that KIDS WILL ACT AS YOU EXPECT
> THEM TO ACT -- whether they are rich and white kids in an
> expensive rural private school, or the poorest kids of color
> in an economically-challenged inner city public school.
>
>
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