pqr Posted September 24, 2011 Author Share Posted September 24, 2011 This is one of the craziest things I've read in a long time. As someone that grew up in an inner city area, I can say that you are beyond mistaken. ......so how did you learn to read? No one says it is not tough, but blaming everyone else is beyond mistaken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2scouts Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 But this can't be the whole story, because many children of immigrants do well (historically and now), even though they may be poor. They have a work ethic and drive to succeed. And frankly, immigrants know how to stretch a dollar like nobody's business, which is something generally only Depression-era Americans can do. There are plenty of places in the world (like Korea) that have radically improved literacy / education rates rather quickly. I think it's something else. I don't know how to put it into words. Drive? Outlook? Positive examples? And the true mark of an excellent educational system is not to take geniuses in and turn well-educated people out. It's to take illiterates in and turn out the well-educated. :iagree:We knew a couple who were Russian Jews and they moved to the US so that their two sons would have better opportunities. They were very poor and came with only what they could carry. They got food stamps and help from a local church until they could make enough to support themselves. The two teenage sons didn't speak English, but they learned it quickly and both graduated with almost straight A's. One son is now a doctor and the other is an engineer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hana Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 This is one of the craziest things I've read in a long time. As someone that grew up in an inner city area, I can say that you are beyond mistaken. Yes. And there are lots and lots of examples of families that have indeed "pulled themselves up by the bootstraps," but this is EXTREMELY hard to do in a high-poverty, low employment, riddled-with-danger city like Detroit, especially if you are a part of a minority that remains desperately underprivileged compared to many in our country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YLVD Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 (edited) ......so how did you learn to read? No one says it is not tough, but blaming everyone else is beyond mistaken. Oh come on. It is beyond tough. My dad didn't get the education that he could and should have otherwise because he had to live on the streets at 14. He was a white kid and grew up in south central Los Angeles. He is very intelligent and could have done anything. He had to work in furniture moving as he was good at it, strong, etc. That is the way he has made money throughout life, to support his family and to get out out of the inner city and into a fantastic suburbs with good schools so his children could be educated. Fast forward to now..he is almost totally crippled due to his time in that business..over 30 years. He finally has the opportunity to spend the time learning and reading what he missed. He was too busy working day and night, and supporting himself and his siblings, and then my mom and I..he is my stepdad but he raised me. This type of story is not uncommon. I think that things were easier on him because he was white as he didn't have the racial component to overcome. It's very easy to sit and point fingers when you have no clue. Just thinking about the opportunities he did not have and what he would have done with them makes me tear up. Edited September 24, 2011 by YLVD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YLVD Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 (edited) Yes. And there are lots and lots of examples of families that have indeed "pulled themselves up by the bootstraps," but this is EXTREMELY hard to do in a high-poverty, low employment, riddled-with-danger city like Detroit, especially if you are a part of a minority that remains desperately underprivileged compared to many in our country. :iagree: I just posted something about my step-dad that did do just this. He isn't a racial minority though. If he had been, it would have been much much harder. He is the only one of his 8 brothers and sisters to do it. Three of them are in prison right now. Edited September 24, 2011 by YLVD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pqr Posted September 24, 2011 Author Share Posted September 24, 2011 (edited) It's very easy to sit and point fingers when you have no clue. Just thinking about the opportunities he did not have and what he would have done with them makes me tear up. You have absolutely no idea what I do or do not have a clue about. What I do know is that hard work and a desire for education makes a huge difference and that sitting back and blaming others for one's predicament fixes nothing. You are the proof that hard work makes a difference. Your Father learned to read and worked hard why do the 47% who are apparently illiterate not do the same. Getting an Ivy League education if one is from the inner city may be a real challenge, greater than for someone from a very wealthy family, but the problem in Detroit is not that there are not enough Yale graduates, but that people can not read! The comment by a previous poster attributing the disaster that is Detroit to greed and racism may have some validity but just as valid is the fact that people make choices and if those are bad choices than the result is....Detroit. Edited September 24, 2011 by pqr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YLVD Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 You have absolutely no idea what I do or do not have a clue about. What I do know is that hard work and a desire for education makes a huge difference and that sitting back and blaming others for one's predicament fixes nothing. You are the proof that hard work makes a difference. Your Father learned to read and worked hard why do the 47% who are apparently illiterate not do the same. The comment by a previous poster attributing the disaster that is Detroit to greed and racism may have some validity but just as valid is the fact that people make choices and if those are bad choices than the result is....Detroit. He did not become a real, fluent reader until his 40s. He's now an amazing reader. Had he had the opportunity, he could have been anything because he picks everything up so quickly. The reason he was able to start learning it is because all of the hard work he did killed his body. Just as with others in his shoes, there are not always choices, period. My dad did the best that he could in a really bad situation. He sacrificed himself for us and to insinuate that he, or that others like him, have that choice is insulting at best. I'm not saying that no one makes poor choices. I'm saying that the vast majority are a product of their circumstances. I do not know you or where you live or grew up, but I have a feeling it wasn't in an inner city. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pqr Posted September 24, 2011 Author Share Posted September 24, 2011 He did not become a real, fluent reader until his 40s. He's now an amazing reader. Had he had the opportunity, he could have been anything because he picks everything up so quickly. The reason he was able to start learning it is because all of the hard work he did killed his body. Just as with others in his shoes, there are not always choices, period. My dad did the best that he could in a really bad situation. He sacrificed himself for us and to insinuate that he, or that others like him, have that choice is insulting at best. I'm not saying that no one makes poor choices. I'm saying that the vast majority are a product of their circumstances. I do not know you or where you live or grew up, but I have a feeling it wasn't in an inner city. You keep making my point for me. He sacrificed, he worked, he did what he needed to do to provide for his family, he made something of himself. He made a choice to better himself. This does not appear to be the situation in Detroit today. There is no deliberate insult intended but anyone who does not seize the opportunity to learn to read is making a bad choice, no insult simply fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 (edited) You are the proof that hard work makes a difference. Your Father learned to read and worked hard why do the 47% who are apparently illiterate not do the same. Sight words. It truly makes a difference. If you aren't taught to read with phonics, a certain number of people are not going to be able to read. In well off areas, people can make up the difference with tutoring. In the areas where I have lived where 100% whole word methods were used, there is about a 60% failure rate. Where sight words and phonics are combined, about 30% to 40% will have problems, more if there are heavy whole word influences in the school teaching methods. I actually have had more success remediating inner city children of homeless parents than those that have spent more time in school--it takes much longer to undo the guessing habits from sight words and teach correct L to R phonics reading habits than to just teach phonics to children of formerly homeless parents who have not spent much time in school. Edited September 24, 2011 by ElizabethB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twoforjoy Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 The comment by a previous poster attributing the disaster that is Detroit to greed and racism may have some validity but just as valid is the fact that people make choices and if those are bad choices than the result is....Detroit. Nice. Black people are lazy, make bad choices, and are always just getting offended, huh? Because let's not pretend that people's negative feelings about Detroit aren't highly tied to the fact that it is the city with the highest percentage of black residents in the nation. Our feelings about Detroit, I've found, reflect in large part our feelings about black people. I just spend a wonderful afternoon watching a community art installation put up near by home. (It's got a picture of my new baby and I photo I took of a boy in the neighborhood.) Detroit isn't the result of bad choices. There are lots of people here making really good choices and doing interesting, innovative things. Urban agriculture is huge in my neighborhood; I never would have imagined I'd learn about farming in Detroit! We've got a number of different arts programs reaching out to young people who are doing amazing things, and there are some really innovative schools here that are either growing or getting started. A friend of mine has been working on opening up a charter using a community-based education model for about four years now, and it's set to open in the fall. We're at least going to consider sending DS there. The library also recently had a " " to promote reading and literacy awareness. It's not like people here are unaware that illiteracy is an issue or just don't care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CourtneyMI Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 Not hard to believe at all. The Detroit public school system is in the process of "selling" off a bunch of their schools to private corps who will turn them into charter schools and hopefully turn them around. Even in my area of MI, the illiteracy rate is not so hot in the city schools. The test scores are downright frightening. But with the city schools, there is a HUGE turnover rate every year. In our last house, the local elementary school had a 50% turnover rate every year. It was that transient. My BIL graduated from the high school we would have used and only 60% of the kids who started there as Freshmen made it to graduation. A 40% drop out rate is staggering IMO. You must live near me. At my freshman orientation, the principal told us to look around. 50% of us wouldn't be there for graduation. It was actually worse than that, We started out with 450 freshman and graduted about 175. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twoforjoy Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 Our neighborhood elementary school was one of the schools that was sold off and turned into a charter. My son's best friend goes there. He seems very happy with the cosmetic and policy changes. The school looks great. They really got it into good shape. And, it does seem like they have so far been pretty good about consistently enforcing discipline policies. But, education-wise, I have no idea. I asked him how things have been going, and they seem to only be doing reading and math (this is for fifth grade). They have no gym, no recess, no art, no music. They aren't doing history at all, and do science on occasion. If this was because the school thinks that the kids need a really solid background in the basics before they can move on, I might agree, but I would wager that they are doing it because that's what the kids will be tested on. In general, I'm a bit baffled by how schools here (and my friends who teach in the suburbs tell me this happens all over Michigan) run things. Teachers seemed to be switched from grade-to-grade and school-to-school every year. I don't get it. It seems to me that students are better off with a teacher who is familiar with the material; in my experience, a not-so-great teacher presenting material they are familiar with and lessons they've done before often does a better job than a really good teacher presenting material for the very first time. This constant shuffling around of teachers seems like it would only do a disservice to students. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pqr Posted September 24, 2011 Author Share Posted September 24, 2011 Nice. Black people are lazy, make bad choices, and are always just getting offended, huh? Because let's not pretend that people's negative feelings about Detroit aren't highly tied to the fact that it is the city with the highest percentage of black residents in the nation. Our feelings about Detroit, I've found, reflect in large part our feelings about black people. . I don't know who you associate with but poor choices have nothing to do with race, I had no idea about the specific details of the racial makeup of Detroit and frankly I do not care. The fact that illiteracy is apparently 47% is what I found hard to believe and (as numerous posters have validated the numbers) that is what generates any negative feelings that I may have. Why do you keep trying to make this a discussion about race? ...it is not....it is about illiteracy and bad decisions....race has nothing to do with it. These are individual choices, I can no more force someone in Detroit to read than I can stop them, that is their choice and it is not based on race. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YLVD Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 You keep making my point for me. He sacrificed, he worked, he did what he needed to do to provide for his family, he made something of himself. He made a choice to better himself. This does not appear to be the situation in Detroit today. There is no deliberate insult intended but anyone who does not seize the opportunity to learn to read is making a bad choice, no insult simply fact. Edited because I'm wasting time even trying here . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YLVD Posted September 24, 2011 Share Posted September 24, 2011 Absolutely. Ive heard too many stories about Detroit in which the person seems to be enjoying telling gruesome tales of inner cities. Detroit is certainly an easy target these days. Jonathan Kozol has excellent books on education in inner cities such as Detroit; I know I learned such a lot from him, though it really had me depressed for the children there. To blame kids-and we ARE talking about young children- for not learning how to read seems like an unspeakable thing to me. The "Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" lingo is becoming to sound trite, imo. Anyway--It's wonderful to hear 'the other side of the story' from you. I'm glad more innovative schools and centers are beginning to thrive there, because it's way overdue. :iagree: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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