Posted on 07/25/2013 3:52:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
"I think you should check out the APEX program," my high school counselor Mrs. Workman suggested.
APEX stood for Area Program Enrichment Exchange, and involved several L.A. area high schools, including Fairfax High. Intended for "advanced" students, the program allowed them to take courses not offered at their home school.
In my case, I had exhausted all of the Spanish courses at Crenshaw High, the predominately black inner-city school I attended. But Fairfax, predominately Jewish, had higher-level courses and would accept me.
"It'll be a way for you to continue your Spanish -- where, I see from your transcript, you excel. I'd suggest you do this," she said.
"How does the program work?"
Each morning, she explained, a school bus would pick up the APEX students -- by definition a group of supposedly "high-level, college-bound kids" -- and bus them to their chosen school. We would attend two classes each morning at the APEX school, after which we would be bused back to Crenshaw.
"Where do I sign?"
Mrs. Workman laughed, "I expect you to do well."
About that I had little doubt. After all, I made mostly A's, and did particularly well in Spanish. I ranked sixth or seventh in a class of 250. Of course I would do well.
But I didn't.
I knew I was in for a ride when I walked into class that first day at Fairfax. The teacher greeted me in Spanish. But I noticed that everyone in the class spoke in Spanish. I don't mean the halting way I spoke, with iffy grammar and conjugation. These kids were fluent! I was shocked.
Despite the stack of Spanish course A's I had piled up since middle school, I never really thought achieving fluency in a class setting was possible -- unless you lived in Mexico or Spain or had Spanish-speaking parents.
But it became clear that from the time these Fairfax kids took their first Spanish course -- and, for that matter, every other course -- teachers demanded far more from students than Crenshaw teachers demanded of us. The Fairfax kids also demanded more of themselves. And they were matter-of-fact about the high expectations their parents had for them.
When I came home from that first day at Fairfax, I cried.
"These A's I'd been getting," I told my mom, "were crap. Probably C's at Fairfax. It's as if I'd been playing Little League baseball -- and now I'm playing against the Dodgers."
"You're right," she said, "it's not fair -- but do your best. You'll rise to the occasion."
I got an F on my first test. This was followed by more F's and D's. There was a lot of oral class participation, and the teacher and students were patient as I butchered the language. They felt sorry for me.
The final exam, which accounted for most of the grade, was a written book report on Don Quixote -- also to be given orally, without notes, while standing in front of the class. Holy bleep!
I busted my butt, worked my way through the book, and wrote and memorized my presentation. I checked and rechecked my report. Then I practiced it in front of the bathroom mirror. Never had I worked as hard on anything in school. I vowed not to be embarrassed.
I spoke third. After each student spoke, the no-nonsense teacher immediately critiqued the speech, corrected grammar and syntax, and offered ways to improve.
My turn. The walk to the front of the class took forever. "I'll show them," I said over and over. I cleared my throat and let it rip. I knew I had rocked when, after I finished, no one said anything, not even the teacher. Who was that fluent guy in Larry's body?
"Bien, senor Elder," the teacher finally said. "Muy bien."
I told my mom what happened. She didn't use the word "voucher," but she wondered why parents couldn't choose the school to which they send their kids, rather than the one -- good or bad -- that happens to be the closest.
"Doesn't seem right," said Mom. My Fairfax experience, she said, "shows what happens when kids are pushed. I can't do anything about this. But maybe someday you can."
Hopefully, I just did.
Post #19
I saw a thing on the tube the other day...a documentary on the drug trade there...that said that somewhere around two thirds of Puerto Ricans are on food stamps.If that's even *close* to being accurate that would tend to show your white collar co-workers to be the exception to the rule.Hell,I visited Tanzania some years back as the guest of a physician I worked with in Boston.After that visit I can assure you that although he received medical training in Europe and the US and looked very much like his fellow Tanzanians he didn't live like them...if you catch my drift.
Yes but learning a language should not be a major course of study unless you are going to be a translator. We are far behind in STEM fields, fund that study.
No, they should speak English in this country.
There is opportunity for those willing to look over the top of their rut and see a great world beyond that wants American products
At least partly to be argumentative I’ll present this theory.
I think studying anything with great vigor is helpful. I imagine that a tradition of Talmudic studies in the Jewish subculture encouraged a set of attitudes and abilities that predisposed those immigrants to excel in fields that require academic credentials.
I have often been of the opinion that the education provided in my field (programming or computer science) was of very limited direct help to new employees. Most of what they need to know is taught on the job after they are hired. An intelligent hard working person with no prior experience would be a better new hire than a slow and lazy person with a university degree in IT.
Except for the self selection and lack of objective standards perhaps even Woman’s studies or Ethnic studies would serve.
You are correct but speaking in terms of making you focus of studies on something that will not assist you in gaining a profitable career is a losing proposition at best. I am a supporter of study more things than less, but make sure you concentrate your effort on the one that will afford you to study the others.
I don't think there's a rule, but I'll ask around. Maybe our Executive VP in charge of Manufacturing for North America, one Mr. Corchero, will have an opinion...
I taught science in the inner city for a semester last year. I found out very quickly that the school admin wouldn't back me up if I held the kids to a high standard of learning. Unfortunately, they were coming in at such a low level of literacy, numeracy, and work ethic, that high-school level science was beyond the reach of most of them. The only way for me to survive was to give them a lot of homework for which they received credit. They could pass on 'effort' while failing most of their tests. After a couple of months of beating my head against the wall I realized that the veteran teachers were surviving by giving kids tests a day in advance, by dramatically curving the test results, and by assigning generously graded projects. It's just the academic version of the old Iron Curtain workplace - kids pretend to work and teachers pretend that they're learning.
The problems of these poorly performing schools are very deep. The cumulative damage done by the time kids are in high school is very difficult to address once the youngsters are in the upper grades. With motivation, students can make up a lot of ground, but there has to be a drive and desire to make it happen. Few of them have that drive.
There is a crying need to strengthen the pre-school and early elementary education of our students. That requires stronger home literacy, parents who hold their kids to a high standard, and high-caliber elementary teachers. Not easy. Until people believe that they need an education in order to survive and take care of their families, many of them will be satisfied to coast along in school. Our welfare state is a big part of what is undermining education. I'm not sure that many of our citizens are willing to prune it back enough to re-establish a society with a strong education and work ethic. They would have to watch people struggle with failure and the consequences of irresponsibility. A financial collapse of the welfare state would be painful, but might be the start of re-building our educational system from the ground up.
According to a September 2012 US Census Bureau report,as reported by Wikipedia (a link to which I've included): "in 2010 the median income in Puerto Rico was $19,370, which is just over half that of the poorest state (Mississippi, $37,838) and 37% of the nationwide average ($51,144)".And when considering *those* stats,ask your self "what percentage of Puerto Rico's "national" comes in the form of EBT cards,medicaid,SSDI,Section 8,WIC,etc?"
Maybe our Executive VP in charge of Manufacturing for North America, one Mr. Corchero, will have an opinion...
See above...and below.
what percentage of Puerto Rico’s “national” = what percentage of Puerto Rico’s “national” income
You're making a number of logical leaps in this whole thought process, but since you've decided to double down on your position I'll let it go.
Thanks for hanging in there and so ably defending your original point.
That's a good question.
Or could it be the culture, and they just happen to use Spanish as their langauge? What is your theory?
I don’t have a theory, but it appears that Gay State Conservative does.
You also need to learn how to spell simple words.
(No me duele la cabeza para nada.)
Utter nonsense. You display an alarming lack of logic and critical reasoning skills. I do not question for one moment that there is a level of barbarity in Mexico. Or that there is a huge crime problem in the large cities throughout Latin America not to mention the US and the UK. It is also true that a large number illegal immigrants who are Spanish speaking are involved in violent crimes in the US. Your offensive statement was with respect to the learning of a language per se. It remains a dumb and offensive statement.
Your use of statistics is also totally misleading and the comparisons are silly and naïve. Spain’s GDP per person is higher than New Zealand’s and about the same as Israel. Norway’s GDP is 25% higher that the US (according to the World Bank). Not that it will mean much to someone as prejudiced as you appear to be but they speak Spanish in both Guatemala and Equatorial Guinea!
So far Gay State has only made observations of the current situation.
He positively stated “Spanish is the language of poverty,illiteracy and crime.” If you want to know what he meant by that you’ll have to ask him, not me.
That is amazing, although I would pick living in Argentina any day over Equatorial Guinea. That miserable country's per capita earnings position comes from off shore oil production almost totally run by and operated by European and North American labor. Still, it is an amazing comedown for Argentina, which in the period of 1900 to 1910 was generally thought to have the highest per capita income in the world. The picture of the opulence of Argentina at this time in Hiram Bingham’s ‘Across South America; an account of a journey from Buenos Aires to Lima by way of Potosí, with notes on Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru’ published in 1910 is a stark reminder of what can befall nations whose political and social systems have deeply embedded flaws.
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