E02: Role of School and Government in Equal Opportunity in Education (USA)

Transcription by audio.com The speaker discusses the importance of learning from students' struggles, advocating for student empowerment in education, and challenging hierarchical power structures in schools. They highlight disparities in resources and support, such as property tax funding, physical resources like technology, and lack of human support. The speaker also mentions the unique cultural dynamics of the Brookline community and issues like access to free school lunch. One of the things that you talked about was, like, you need to learn from the students. Like, they would tell you, like, what they're, like, struggling with. That was interesting, because, you know, like, when you see the relation between the teacher and student, from the Paolo's here, the pedagogy of oppress, and the problem-posing education, it kind of feels like you're, like, into the problem-posing. You're, like, letting students, and you're also, like, learning from them, like, what they need, and they're, like, helping with that. Yeah, well, I mean, I think a big part of school, especially public school in the United States, is there is a power hierarchy. There's a natural power hierarchy, and students are disempowered. You can give them some sort of illusion of choice, but they know they're prisoners. They have to go, or someone will come to their home and say, why aren't you in school? They don't have autonomy. I don't know. We all kind of have been there, and I think there's, like, a reason that people who haven't had much struggles in their life will, like, go back to being, like, oh, well, when I was in school, like, you know, because everybody has a hard time in school, because you're not powered, and then, you know, the teacher is underneath the admin, who is underneath the school. Like, it's a very hierarchical power structure. So, any sort of, like, personal connection directly threatens that structure, which is important to me. Yeah. Maybe they, like, feel if they know, like, you're, like, very much comfortable with that, you're, like, being there for more things. Yeah, I think if they feel like you're on their side, because it is a very, like, prison, inner, like, prison guard relationship, that they're, you're able to do a little bit more advocacy. I also think it's really important to understand the relationships between, like, what's going on in your classroom from multiple perspectives, and not trust that your vision of it is the only way things are happening. Like, it's really easy to start to trust your experience as the experience, and you have, like, 25 other little people in the room with you who all have their own thing going on. Yeah. Like, how would you describe school's philosophy or its, like, mission about, you know, like, equal opportunity? So, I think the first thing is, like, would there be, what kind of population, like, students, how was the population of students? Were they, like, coming from different backgrounds or things like that? So, Brookline's a really interesting place, because it's a very wealthy group of kids, and many of them are transient, which is interesting, because you have a lot of people who come, well, not, probably not anymore with this administration, but come in and out for, like, medical research and working at the hospitals and stuff, and, you know, so they also have very highly educated parents. Then you have the METCO program, which is this program that buses kids in from, like, historically black communities, like, Roxbury and Mattapan, and they get brought up to Brookline, and it takes, like, an hour-long bus ride, right? And all the other kids just walk to school. And that's your population. So, you've got a really, really competitive group of people, you've got a lot of litigious parents, so, like, parents who want to sue the school if something happens. Sue their child? Yeah, I tutor a lot of kids that I used to work with, now that I am not working at the school system. And one of them once said to me, you know, it's, like, so weird, the rich kids didn't get punished as much as I did. Oh. And she had an awareness of it, and I was like, yeah. That happens. Yeah, it happens, because there are certain parents that really create a whole fuss, and the school doesn't want to deal with it, and it's top-down. So, what the administration says, the administration will disseminate, and you must do the thing. So, it's really interesting. It's, like, kind of a scary community. A little bit about the resources. What kind of resources do, like, resources like technology, does the school provide, or, like, does the state provide? Like, how is the dynamics of other resources? It's funny you say the state, because schools in the United States are, like, I think the only public service that is funded mostly by property taxes. So, if you have big houses, expensive property in your community, you will have more money for your school. And so, Brookline is an expensive community. They have a lot of money. But, yeah, the resources tend to be physical. It tends to be a lot of computers. I'm sure, since AI has become a thing, that they have some sort of contract. I'm sure they have some AI tutor that's, like, named Sparky that, you know, teaches you how to add or something. You know, they're really at the forefront of education. We were, like, a pilot program when I was classroom teaching for a new interactive digital curriculum that was really experimental. And so, I think, I don't know, Brookline has, like, a history of being, I don't know, we have, like, the only, I found this out that there was, like, a group of researchers, like, teacher researchers in the 80s who kind of made that, like, a thing. I don't know. Brookline is very, if you go on their website, progressive on their face. Like, you know, equity, inclusion, stuff. Yeah, and a ton of physical resources. But I didn't feel like we had the human support. You know, like, there was still huge class sizes, or large class sizes. Not huge, but, like, 20, 25 kids, you know. Not, I don't know, but we felt, like, as far as schools go, we had a school psychologist in our school. That's huge here, like, a K-8 school to have that. And we had, like, three guidance counselors. So, like, I mean, it's really sad to feel unsupported and to know that you have more resources than most other schools. It's a really sad feeling. Yeah. Yeah, it's also, I think, communities kind of have their own, like, culture. And Brookline just had a very strange culture. So, I don't know if resources could solve their issues. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, Brookline, I mean, they don't even pay for lunch. So, that's a big thing in public schools in the United States, is, like, they're free. But most public schools, you have to pay for lunch. So, if you don't have the money, you are going to not eat lunch, or you're going to bring something crappy to eat, or whatever. I mean, the school lunch was miserable that they served them. It was, like, really bad. And I had to pay for it, which was really interesting. Every once in a while, I would ask a kid, like, oh, like, you're not going to, you brought lunch today. Can you just get me a lunch? Because, like, I can't, I had to pay for it, which is not, probably not a moral thing to do. But, yeah, like, they, it's a right. They get to go to school. It is paid for by the community and a lot of the, by the taxes. A lot of the extracurriculars are funded as well.