Cycle Two: Schooling, Cultural Assimilation, and Social Mobility

          Reading Hunger for Memory brought back so many feelings and memories from my own childhood. I remember feeling as though I was going to school in a completely different place than I was coming home to, embarrassment over my parents’ accents when speaking English in public, and my family’s views of public and private life. I also thought I knew exactly where I stood on affirmative action and my reasons behind my stance but this book has questioned that for me. This book has made me question many thoughts and ideas I once held with such concrete belief.

            From the first couple pages of this book, I found myself saying, “Yup, yea, I remember that feeling” to so many of the things Rodriguez mentions of his childhood. “We were the people with the noisy dog. We were the people who raised pigeons and chickens. We were the foreigners on the block.” (1982, p. 11) My family didn’t have a dog or raise chickens but we were the only ones who hung our laundry on lines in the backyard to dry. Even our undergarments were hung on the line for neighbors to see. I was in middle school and mortified. When I asked my mom and grandma why we had to do this they would respond that that is how they dried their clothes in India and why did I have to be so embarrassed of my culture. Our house was the one that smelled like spices all the way down the driveway. “Why does your house smell like that?” my friends would ask. I would mumble an answer and change the subject. I would get embarrassed when my parents would play Hindi music too loudly. Why can’t we listen to American music I would ask, in which I would get the response, “why are you embarrassed by our culture?”

            My mom has always spoken English well, with a slight Indian accent. My dad has a stronger accent and still sometimes struggles with the pronunciation of certain English words. It doesn’t bother me even for a second now, but I didn’t always feel that way. “It was more troubling to hear my parents speak in public…-it was unsettling to hear my parents struggle with English…In adulthood, I am embarrassed by childhood fears.” (1982, p. 11) I am ashamed now by my actions as a child. I am so proud of my parents and all the have accomplished coming to this country without family, friends, insight into American culture, food, or language. My dad’s first job in country was as a dishwasher in a restaurant making $3 an hour. Then he moved on to a factory job where he worked for years until he got two of his fingers chopped off by a faulty machine. (Thankfully, the doctors were able to take the skin from his forearm and reattach both fingers.) It makes me sick to think that I was embarrassed by my parents accents and the fact that we were different from everyone else, but when you are a teenager, all you want to do so desperately is be part of the crowd, not stick out of it.

            I once heard a Chinese-American comedian say that she felt as though as went to school in America and came home to China. I could not agree more. I felt the same way, except I was coming home to India. My grandmother came to live with us when I was seven years old. That is when started learning Gujarati, a North Indian language. So, unlike Rodriguez, I learned to speak English first. I was never an ELL student. My grandmother was appalled that I could not speak the language of my family so when she came to live with us, it was only Gujarati in the house was I came home after school. Why didn’t my parents teach me their language? Same reason that Rodriguez’s parents decided they would start talking English in the house when the nuns asked them to, “What would they not do for their child’s well-being?” (1982, p. 20). Education came first. They wanted me to do well in school so they taught me the language that I would need to use there. They wanted me to get a good education and have opportunities that they did not have. Because of my grandma, I became fluent in Gujarati and am now teaching it to my son.

            All while reading this book, I kept thinking what did Rodriguez’s parents and siblings think when they read his book? He is giving away so many secrets of his family; shelling out so many intimate details of feeling divided from his parents and feeling like education separated him from his culture. His parents must have been hurt, confused and, probably angry. One thing I think many ethnic cultures have in common is you do not tell your private family life to “outsiders”. “No matter how friendly they are in public, no matter how firm their smiles, my parents never forget when they are in public. My mother must use a high-pitched voice when she addresses people who are not relatives. It is a tone of voice I have all my life heard her use away from the house.” (1982, p. 191). I could have written these words. All my life I have heard my parents and grandmother tell me that our private affairs stay private. All the disagreements, fights, yelling, sibling bickering; none of it leaves the household. I am never supposed to talk about it with my friends or anyone else. My mom used to come home from work and tell us about the troubles her co-workers teenagers would get into, who got suspended from school, who got pregnant from her gas station working boyfriend, etc. “Why would you want to tell people that” she would ask my dad? Why would you tell strangers about the bad things happening in your family’s lives? My mom has been working at the same place, with the same people for the past 17 years and she still only tells them certain things. My heart actually hurt a little when Rodriguez’s mother asked him to write about something else other than their family, “please”, because I understand the thinking behind that request.

            I have always been a proponent of affirmative action. My reason behind it was that it is not that easy for a child from a socially disadvantaged area to do well in school. I think back to my students in Detroit. Even in second grade, they were battling parents with drug abuse problems, one or more parents being incarcerated, violence in their homes and neighborhoods, issues of having enough food to eat on a daily basis and so much more. For them to make it all the way through grade school and graduated from college is an amazing feat. Kids in the suburbs do not have those issues, for the most part (there are always exceptions). But even though students from socially disadvantaged areas graduate, they still have no chance when compared to a student from a suburban school that graduates high school with a higher GPA, AP classes, and membership and leadership roles in school committees. They need someone to give them a break. But then Rodriguez brought to light what affirmative action is really missing. “The strategy of affirmative action, finally, did not take seriously the educational dilemma of disadvantaged students. They need good early schooling!” (1982, p. 162). Affirmative action was allowing students into colleges that they were not prepared for! Because of that, they were struggling in their classes, dropping out, or even worse, having mental breakdowns. The biggest problem is not that colleges and universities do not have enough diversity on campus or on staff but that our educational system is not preparing all students equally for colleges and universities. Reading that and coming to that realization was like a light bulb turning on in my head. You can accept as many “minorities” into your colleges but it is not going to help if they are not prepared for the curriculum.

            This book brought back so many feelings and emotions that I had not thought about in a long time. It is comforting to know that there are other people that went through some of the same issues with identity and culture as I did. It brings to light that our educational system still has such a long way to go in making education an equal opportunity for all students. I feel proud that Richard Rodriguez was able to become so successful in his life when he entered school only knowing 50 English words, but I feel sad that in doing so, he lost some of his culture in the process.

Cycle One: Resources

http://www.earlychildhoodeducationzone.com/best-playgrounds-in-america/

As I was searching for adventure playgrounds in the United States, I came across this site which lists 50 best playgrounds in the America. They are all claiming to be adventure playgrounds that stretch the creativity and imagination of kids but the majority of them are still just playgrounds - except they are new and the play structures are huge. The only real adventure playgrounds seem to be the Berkeley Adventure Playground in California and Ithaca's Children Garden in Ithaca, New York.

Cycle One: The Culture of Childhood

     Out of the two articles and the book reading for the week, the one that made the most impact on me was The Overprotected Kid from The Atlantic. In reading just the first paragraph I was already having negative thoughts about The Land; muddy spots, a steep slope by a creek, an old boat? Big, red danger signs were flashing in my head. No way would I let my three old son play there! It only got worse; a fire in the corner, broken chairs, inappropriate music, filthy mattresses, a rope where you may or may not make it over the creek? What kind of place is this? Why are there no parents here and why hasn’t this death trap been shut down? Then I kept reading and realized I may have been too quick to judge. An adventure playground with loose parts that kids can manipulate and create their own structures; how amazing is that? Clearly, it is almost unheard of here in the United States. I thought immediately of my first and second grade boys. They would lose their minds over a rope they could swing on, tires that they could roll and move around, and mattresses they could jump on. I thought of all the kids in school settings that could benefit from this brilliant idea instead of the normal swinging, sliding or monkey bar choices. Especially as more and more research comes out about how students need multiple 10 to 15 minute “brain breaks” a day, what an incredible brain break this could be for them. I can just picture a group of my girls walking in a boat, pretending to look for mermaids as they set sail on the ocean. Although, I still don’t see why the chairs have to be broken or the mattresses filthy. They can still manipulate and use their imaginations with clean things! And definitely no fires! That just isn’t safe!

Parents in my generation, myself included, are very cautious about their children’s play. We want to make sure that what they are doing is safe and we try to foresee all the horrible things that could go wrong and create rules to prevent them from happening. It is different than even when I was a child in the ‘80’s. I walked to and from the bus stop by myself when I was in first grade. I rode my bike to school by myself starting in third grade. I came home and immediately played out in the streets, riding bikes, playing kickball, going further from the house than I was allowed to and I never got caught because there were never any parents around! Kids played outside by themselves without constant parent supervision. We only went inside when our parents came out on the front porch and yelled that it was dinner time. It is so different now. A child’s day is so scheduled, regimented and everything is supervised. My classroom has a set schedule which I rarely stray from; reading and writing in the room and math, science, and social studies in the afternoon. A child’s after school time is structured; snack, homework, tv time, dinner, bath, bed and any extracurricular or sports activities. Play dates are scheduled as opposed to when I was young and I just walked over to a friend’s house to see if they could play. Times have definitely changed.

I think that regardless of what generation kids were brought up in, parents always had the best intentions in mind. So much of what parents do is based on what the “experts” tell them to do. My parents and my friends’ parents didn’t let us play outside by ourselves because they were being careless, they did it because that is what all parents did and it’s probably what pediatricians told them to do – let your kids play outside! Just as now, we generally tend to monitor our kids when they are playing. Why? Because it is what most parents do and pediatricians tell us to monitor our kids during play time to assure their safety. When I had my son three years ago, my parents and I used to argue about his crib situation all the time. They would tell me he needed to be sleeping on his stomach, with a thick crib liner and a blanket on him to keep him warm and comfortable. I used to groan and tell them he needed to be on his back, with no crib liner and no blankets or toys or stuffed animals. I used to roll my eyes at them and tell them they are lucky I survived my infancy! But why did they do those things? Because it’s what all the parents were doing and…what the pediatricians were tell them to do at the time. Same as now – we were doing what the pediatrician and the books of the time were telling us was the right thing to do. Now, my parents, aunts and uncles get together and talk about how strict all of us (my cousins and I) are with our babies and children. “They don’t put salt or sugar in their babies’ food, they have to be asleep at 7:30, they let their babies fall asleep on their own, they won’t let their little ones eat cookies, etc. Every time, I have to stop and remind myself of that what the “experts” might be saying when I’m blessed enough to be a grandparent. I will give my children advice on how I did things with them when they were babies and they will inevitably roll their eyes at me and tell me how lucky I am that they survived through their infancy!

Introductory Post

Hi, my name is Neesha Mattison. I received by Bachelor’s degree from Oakland University in 2006. I worked as a bilingual paraprofessional for two years before I got my first classroom teaching position. My first teaching position was as a second grade teacher in the Detroit Public Schools. I worked there for two years. Then I got a job with Farmington Public Schools. I have worked at Lanigan Elementary School for the past four years. I did three years in first grade and one year in second grade. My current position for the following school year is at a different elementary school within Farmington teaching Kindergarten, which I don’t have too much experience with! I am hoping that I will be able to return to Lanigan, but that is all a numbers game based on enrollment! I love working at Lanigan Elementary School because it has a diverse population. We are at about 60% free and reduced breakfast and lunch population. Our school is made up of affluent families and families that need financial assistance. We have many ELL students and after a couple years of pleading for more bilingual help, we finally got a full time bilingual teacher assigned to our building this past year! I started my Master’s classes at a different online university but switched to MSU’s MATC program to better fit the needs of my program and satisfy the requirements needed for my professional teacher certificate. I have three more classes to take after the two that I am currently taking!

I have been married for six years and I have a three year old son, Nikhil. He takes up a lot of our time as he is an incredibly active child. His latest fun developments are crawling on EVERYTHING and learning how to take off the plastic knob covers on doors and unlocking them. When we’re not busy trying to keep our child safe and alive, we love being outdoors, especially in the summertime. We enjoy visiting the Detroit Zoo, Stoney Creek Park and various splash pads in our area. I love cooking and reading. The latest book I’m reading just for fun is Toddlers are a**holes and it’s not your fault. I highly recommend it to any parents of young ones!

When thinking about a show or movie portraying teaching and school, one show popped into my head immediately. It’s definitely not on the list of highly intellectual shows but one that’s dear to me…Boy Meets World. I think Mr. Feeny is what most new teachers entering the profession wish to be to their students. He is the perfect teacher. He is a constant, positive, guiding figure in the lives of Cory, Shawn and Tapanga. He is able to follow them from elementary school through college, always providing guidance in their academic lives and personal lives. Mr. Feeny is what we hope to be to our students; someone that makes such a positive and ever-lasting impact in the lives of his students. One of my favorite movies about teaching and schooling is Mona Lisa Smile. I love that Julie Robert’s character comes into this small, conservative school and starts to shake things up. I love that at the beginning of the movie, even her students don’t like her progressive teaching style and ideals but by the end it changes the lives of some of her most difficult, stubborn students.  She helps these young women see that they have more going for them then becoming a housewife and having dinner ready by the time their husbands get home from work. She broadens their mind through arts and academics but also in life. And even though she is only there for a year, her impact at that school will be felt for years to come.