If you would like to take advantage of the extra credit opportunity to earn credit for a missing classwork grade, post a reaction to the film American Promise we watched in Periods 2 and 6. If you are in periods 3 and 5 and still want to take advantage of this opportunity, you may post a comment in response to the discussion that relates someone's post to your own experience or opinion. You may also want to consider this article Debunking Myths About Educating Black Men in your response (for further bonus points). Some questions to consider are below:
- What struggles did the boys face as they grew older?
- How did their views of Dalton, school in general, and education change as they transitioned from childhood to adolescence? What might have caused this change?
- Consider the impact race and social class had on the two boys. Which factor contributed more to their educational outcomes?
- Do you think the school unfairly targeted Idris and Seun or were there legitimate reasons they were singled-out and disciplined/placed on academic watch?
- Is it better for students to learn in a racially diverse environment or a homogeneous one such as the environment the principal at Baneker advocates for?
- Post your own questions/comments!
Well I don't know of the film or article that you are referencing, but I would like to answer the second to last question.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to learn in a diverse environment. The reason being that the real world is a diverse place. Attending a school full of people who look just like you is going to be completely different than work places where there are either a multitude of ethnicities or a majority to a minority of ethnicities. Lack of exposure to such things at an appropriate age will surely cause confusion and possibly fear in the future. This will thusly impair people's ability to adjust to new environments or work with people unlike themselves.
Some struggles that the boys faced as they grew up was that they had bad habits with studying and doing their work. Through out the movie Dalton struggled with handed in his homework and completing assignments. When he would get an assignment he would just push it away and not complete which affected his homework grade and also his grade in that specific class. This affected him in the long run because when it was time for him to graduate and figure out if he was going to attend college or not , he wasn't able to do so because he had so much backed up work that he did not complete and he had to handle that first so that he could graduate.
ReplyDeleteI think that the Dalton School did target Idris and Seun by having a more academic concerned for them since, they were the only African-American students at Dalton. I think Dalton wanted to keep its image of an outstanding and presidigious school, so therefore any person who could put that in jeopardy was excluded.And since Dalton is a dominantly white school, Idris and Seun seem to not live up to it's academic standards. Even Idris's and Seun's parents felt that their kids weren't being served justice because, instead of them associating with their friends and getting a fair education they were singled out by being the only two, privately tutored. And even in the movie, the parents talk about how their kids : Idris and Seun are facing other disabilities such as deslexia snd AD/HD that are a negative impact towards their eduacation at Dalton. Now if we look at it from a different perspective, you have two African-American boys who are arleady placed in a school that seems to have racial disadvantages and they are both kids who are struggling with a disability. For the school of Dalton, that is way too much for them to handle. They would rather handle two African-American boys who do not have any academic weaknesses, or even two Caucasian boys who fit there ideal standards. Honestly when I saw the film I thought it was very smart for the parents of both Seun and Idris to create a film that marks the progress of both their sons and has allowed us to take a journey with them.But I also believed that the documentary of the "American Promise" serves as a message to other families who are only fixated with taking their kids to the best schools in order to receive a proper education, and letting them know that they need to be more worried about how their child will best fit at a certain school. For example, in the film we saw how Idris going to the best school such as Dalton made him face a lot of pressure when it came to fitting in and finding his own path, whereas Seun who transferred and along the way of his brother dying and facing confusion in his life, he was able to find himself. And to tell you the truth I thought that with Idris going to Dalton he would get into the best Ivy Leagues and colleges just because he went to a presdigious school. But , I realized that's not the case, sometimes it better to go to a school that might not be the best in the country but has the resources and pushes it's students to be the best they can be.
ReplyDeleteThe impact that race an social class had on the boys was major due to the fact that they grew up n a Black community going to a white school. As they grew up they began to realize and feel as though they didn't belong. Social class was a strong contributor because they began to see that that were treated way different then the white students such as getting in trouble more and being placed under academic watch due to their social class, the teachers think that they are suppose to be getting in trouble more so they treat them differently. In the article Black Education Statistics it's says that Americans age 15 to 25, there are 3.9 million fewer white males now than in 1970 and 2.5 million more black males, showing that black males are a dying breed and put the two boys in that category of dying breeds.
ReplyDelete