Hi. Welcome to the blog for my IB English B class at Jur Hronec High School in Bratislava, Slovakia. Below you will find links to other websites and discussion questions. My students are required to comment on one of these postings every month and also respond to each other's comments. Feel free to add your two bits, but be aware that all comments are monitored before being posted.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Are poverty and ignorance becoming synonymous?
This article gives several explanations as to why the educational gap between poor and rich students is growing. Do they seem convincing to you? Do you think the same trend is happening in Slovakia? Should something be done about this, or is it inevitable, or even perhaps not entirely negative? (Be sure to read both "pages" of the article.)
I found this article really interesting.In my opinion, this article is absolutely right.It shows modern society and the current life style.All data and information in this article are mainly about foreign students. However,I can clearly see the same situation here,in Slovakia.
ReplyDeleteIn the past,there were significant differences in education for white and black students.Nowadays,this gap is being significantly reduced.Every eastern university has photos of students of different races in their prospectuses.Asians,Africans,Europeans, there’re equal rights for them to entry the university or high school.However,is it the same for poor and rich child?Can a poor child from Tužina attend IBD? Are his parents able to pay for travel fees, accommodation fees or even scholar fees?If this child wants to do ballet,learn Spanish in language school or play tennis,are his parents able to pay for it?In my opinion,it’s really hard for this child to do these things.However,why is it like this?
Looking back to the past, we can clearly see that there weren't such huge differences between rich and poor children.This can be caused due to communism.Everybody was equal to everybody.Rich child, poor child,it does not matter.Both were studying at the same school in the same class with the same teachers.Both could attend basketball club,summer camp or dance competition.However,neither after revolution there were huge differences between poor and rich children.According to this, democracy is not a cause of deteriorating education for poor children.The main cause of this problem is the modern awareness of society.Reforms,changes and new systems are causing these differences.Let's have a look at reform of education in Slovakia.What was the main idea of this reform?The ministers consider students to be very busy by school affairs.They made a simple process.They’ve cut out some topics of study at primary and at high schools.No Pythagoras theorem at primary school,no entropy at high school.The public education seems to be deteriorating from year to year.However,some people,mainly ministers,do not follow this opinion.They claim that the public education is growing.I need to agree with them in certain points. The way they see it is simple.Students are not so bothered with school affairs and so they can improve their own skills (can attend specialized courses, own lessons or variety of camps). They can attend interesting sessions (BratMUN, EYP), play variety of instruments or play variety of sports. Everybody can do what he wants to. However, there’s a huge obstacle which is invisible for misters. It’s the income of ordinary people. Students need to pay for everything, from BratMUN to dance competition. What if student’s parents are both teachers? Can he attend events like these? I don’t think so. However, what if this student is ambitious and wants to attend Harvard? He has almost no chance if he’s compared to a child from rich family, who could have attended variety of camps, courses or even private school. And this is the cause why there’s a huge gap between children from rich and poor families.
Our society has been completely changed. Children are divided due to the income of their parents. Rich parents will pay for extra lessons, expensive books or even for private school. Poor parents will not. We’re following the BRAVE NEW WORLD. According to this book, the sport is only about economic transactions. Let’s think about our education. About what is it? More money you have, better education will you receive. The whole education and events connected with the development of human personalities (sports, competitions,curses,sessions, camps) are now only economic transaction.Everything depends on your income.Wanna have educated,healthy children?Pay for it.
If we want to survive, we need to adapt to this trend.There’s a large number of people who appreciate this type of society.Everything depends on money.Maybe I am old-fashioned,but I do not agree with this at all.In my opinion,certain things in our lives shouldn’t be about money.
At the beginning, the article seems to be rather straightforward. It is quite obvious that the children of the rich have more opportunities than the poor ones. They are offered high-level education and tons of extra-curricula, such as sports or camps. Nowadays, these are unaffordable for the parents with lower incomes. In the past, it used to be either cheaper or government granted. Ironically, it is these activities what is being looked at by universities or colleges, while higher education is a prerequisite to a better paid job. However, as Mr. Besharov said, the problem is more puzzling.
ReplyDeleteI agree with James Heckman’s explanation that not just income, but also parenting plays a big role in forming a child’s personality and skills. The emphasis should be primarily put on the parenting in the pre-school years. The parents should work with their children on daily basis, improving their abilities. They might not be affluent, but they could still practice through activities that are not so financially demanding, i.e. arts or reading. To support the idea, I would use the survey data introduced by Meredith Phillips. Even though, it does not deal with parenting as such, it shows how important the years before school are. The high-income children are more likely to success, because they spend much more time in literacy activities before school.
However, it looks like a never-ending circle sometimes, and the way out of it is really problematic. Poor parents are not able to support their children, who then become poor as well. Culture just made its way into this, so that the poor people marry the poor ones, while the rich marry the rich ones. There are exceptions when a kid from a poor family gains success, but these are fairly rare. In my opinion, the way out of this is the government’s support of the kids in the pre-school and early school years. Afterwards, they might continue to support the most talented ones. In consequence, the kids would be extremely motivated to learn and study.
It is told that one of the most precious things in our world is education. It is highly valued since ages ago and its “price” is only increasing. Unfortunately, costs associated with it as well. A few years ago, a university was a grant for a good job regardless of a degree, though nowadays Bachelor’s degree is oftentimes not enough.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is much more complicated then it seems. It is very true that most of the time, we are looking for someone to blame on this whole thing. Is it the government for lack of concern? Is it the politicians for not being able to create effective reforms? Is it the teachers who are not motivating enough, or is it the parents who’s lack of interest in their own children and in their education, causes the kids to take a bad example from them? Well, it is none of the above and yet all of them. According to my own opinion, the first, the most important factor of success are parents. They are with you during the times of your growth and development, and they are your very first examples. Unless you are not independent enough to think on your own, they have a great influence on you. Similarly, the environment in which you grow up cannot be marginalized. It makes the difference to be somewhere on the street, hanging out with people uninterested in their future, or being somewhere, developing one’s creativity e.g. playing sports or musical instruments. Continually, do the teachers care about and blow the spark incited by your parents, or they just stomp on it, and never let you express yourself? Lastly, what about the state? Does it provide you with opportunities, or its system throws logs under your feet at every possible step you could do to move forward? These are all questions essential to the education. If the education should be again a society equalizer then it needs to be supported, and cared for from all these sides. Not just from one. As James J. Heckman argues that parenting matters as much as, if not more than, income in forming a child’s cognitive ability and personality …. I agree, but I feel obliged to add that other things matter as much as well, and not just in the pre-school years.
It was a great article. It pointed out that by simply dividing students into rich and poor is not going to help us. The idea of culture clearly stands out, and it also includes all of the points I have proposed as well. As Charles Murray said, we will see that when the economy recovers, all the problems will persist and prove that they have little to do with income (even though it has to be said that economy is also one of the determinants of the education, but probably better visible in the broader spectrum i.e. state) and much to do with culture, and the social issues which are much harder to solve, because they are not defined by money.
I need to admit, I really like Michal's comment. He has mentioned real facts, which influence the quality of education, such as government. However, the most interesting idea of his comment is dealing with parent's influence. It's true that parents are responsible to a great extent for our education. It's up to them which school they choose for us in our early years. It's their duty to pay attention to our endless questions and sometimes unwise acts. Kids ask about almost everything and parents should be able to explain these phenomena. When children get older, parents are persons, who should help them with homework from mathematics. It's also very important to develop children's passion for variety of activities, such as sports or playing the musical instruments. Children should spend their free time actively, with their parents and friends. And this is the cause of our modern civilization problem. Parents are very busy by making living. They do not have enough time to spend their time with their children. Fewer and fewer children are seen outside cycling with their parents. I remember, when I was young, I used to go to a playground called Dracik. It was full of playing children. Now, most of time, it's almost empty. Children are at home playing video games and parents do not know what to do first. As Michal has mentioned, there’s lots of factors which cause this situation. It’s a kind of vicious circle. But, we can simply said, it’s our modern life style, which harms ourselves. Education is being totally changed. It’s being more about self-study and income abilities. It’s up to us whether we will adapt to it, or we will swim against the stream.
DeleteMichal, I have to say that I agree with your opinion that parents are one of the most influential factors throughout a person’s childhood; however I do think that friends and people you spend time with have an equal if not greater effect.
DeleteI, myself can say that my friends have had a great influence on me. As my parents had to travel a lot due to their line of work, I had to move with them. During our long-term stay in various places like Africa and the middle-east I have met plenty of people, these people had different backgrounds and education and each of them had a certain influence on me. In order to further explain what I mean I will use an example: Imagine you went to a country where you would meet a group of people which you would have to spend time with, this group would be rather lazy, unwilling to learn and rude. The thing is, if you spend time with a certain group of people, their manners will stick onto you whether you like it or not. Now this group would convince you not to go to school and hang out with them, after a certain period of time you will start getting worse marks in school and if it persists might even completely change your life-style. Now imagine another scenario in which you would meet a group of smart and polite people, they would have the exact opposite effect on you; encourage you and help you with school work and impel you to use polite manners. What I tried to explain with these examples is that the groups of people you spend most time with have great influence over you. They influence you by their history and manners.
@Andy
DeleteI completely agree with you Andy, in fact, I am personally convinced that at least half the development of a child is directly affected by such factor, but I believe I have put an emphasis on the environment, and the people with which the children come into contact as well. It is probably my mistake that I did not write about it more so it was not apparent. Your examples are very well presenting the different influence the environment may have. I would, however, add two things. Some people which we come in contact just occasionally, or even only once, have the power to greatly change our way of thinking, or show us another point of view, which will lead us to some kind of realization. I love such meetings and highly appreciate these moments, when I can challenge my believes and reorganize my thoughts. The next thing is that whatever the environment may be, the parents have the potential to ease the negative or support the positive consequences of the encounter. I know it seems as if I was neglecting myself, but this case, when parents understand this and take an advantage of that, happens very rarely. Otherwise it is as I have said before.
This article provides many reasons why the gap between rich and poor people increased, though, these reasons are quite obvious, to be honest I never though of such possible gap that could have been cause by these reasons which are seen almost everyday.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the reasons are quite convincing because if I think over it again, it is really so that especially the rich people put their children into better schools and „invest more time and Money than ever before into their children – weekend sports, music lessons, subject tutors“ Though I also think that it is in some ways unfair. All people should have the rights and opportunities to do and study what they want. To the question that weather it is the same here in Slovakia, there is a straightforward answer yes. People behave the same all over the world. Usually if people have money, obviously there are also expectations, they look down on people if they are less educated which isn’t good. It takes always much of self-esteem and is really not respectful. However, when I lived in Hungary or Czech Republic people behaved the same way. This gap can be compared to a simple example from childhood which is based on the same principal. When new mobile phones came up the richer children had them, the ones which couldn’t afford them were a bit jealous obviously, but the way the rich children behaved was not respectful at all it was moreover arrogant. It is the same with the gap unfortunately. It is really hard to do something against it because the rich people have their Money and can afford things, while poor people can hardly survive. It is not a fact that can be changed by people or individuals; it should be consulted in government or in the upper class. Though, I think that it will never happen that there won’t be any gap between rich and poor people in education.
@ Sabi:
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with Sabi on the opinion of gaps between rich and poor people being convincing. Furthermore, it has been proved by case studies that gaps between the two socially and financially different classes are getting bigger with increasing time. As Simon already mentioned, the obvious reason for the gap being so big, is due to the huge opportunities rich people have. They have money to invest into their educational development, books and literature, and also they may afford private schools and prestigious education programs. Moreover, I share Sabi’s opinion on the problem between poor and rich people being also in Slovakia. However I think that in Slovakia there still are differences between educations of different races. For instance, the Roma people in Slovakia are unlikely to have excellent education. Furthermore, a part of them don’t attend school at all, and most Roma people have problems with finding jobs. A factor contributing to this situation in Slovakia is definitely caused by the issue of discrimination of Roma people by Slovaks, therefore it can be argued whether the education in Slovakia differs among races.
I don’t quite agree with Sabi on the issue of most rich people looking down on poor people. More educated people should realize that when one was not raised in the finances as they were, they have a fewer opportunities for education. However, there are cases when people from poor families have attended the most prestigious schools. The system working for every school or university with high credit is the system of scholarships. Scholarship is a grant or payment made by the government to support a student’s education, awarded on the basis of academic or other achievement. This motivation is good enough to make the individual student from a poor family to try and be the best to get the scholarship. Furthermore, I think schools and universities should have more scholarship programs for excellent students that learn hard but can’t afford to pay for the education. This way, more talented and educated students would get their dream education, even though they were raised in modest conditions.