Believing in education

Antero Garcia, an English teacher at Manual Arts High, writes:

After the assignment was suggested by a colleague nearly a year ago, I finally asked my 12th-graders to write “This I Believe” essays, based on the NPR project. The results, like much of my students’ creative writing, amazed me. 

Students connected personal experiences to contemporary issues of immigration, discrimination and violence. Below is one student’s discussion of Sudanese and American educational opportunities. Berhanu aptly captures the dearth of educational equity in the United States through an outsider’s lens.

This I Believe –- By Berhanu

I believe that any human on the Earth deserves to have the right to get access to a free education or affordable education.

I was born in Sudan. In Sudan, to get citizenship, one of your parents must be Sudanese and my parents were Ethiopian; therefore, I did not get citizenship. The bad thing about it is that you don’t get a free education unless you’re Sudanese. People like us have to pay for school. It is very hard to get a high school diploma in Sudan. The students in Sudan have to do community hours and take the exit exam. In Sudan, the community hours are to serve in the army. Students get their diploma after serving in the army for about two years. Most of the poor students end up going to serve at war, but the students with the wealthy families serve their community hours in the city. In addition, most of the time the student with the poor family ends up in the army for their entire lives, but the student with the wealthy family continues and goes to college.

When I was in Sudan, I was one of the smartest students and all of my teachers loved me. After my mom came to the U.S., I started to work at night to pay for my education, but I was not strong enough and I couldn’t handle it. Therefore, I dropped out of school even though I didn’t like to. There was nothing I could do. I started to work full time and I started to help my brother with our bills. After three years, I was able to come to the U.S., where I found another chance to get a free education. My first day of school, I was so excited because I thought that I would go to the same school with the people who would be biologists, chemists or doctors in the future. When I got into my first period, I was shocked after I saw the way the students acted in class. I asked myself, are those the people who would become biologists, chemists and doctors?

I had big expectations of the students, but after my first day, I asked my sister about what was wrong with the people in my school. She told me that the people I expected to see go to different schools and I asked why hadn’t she taken me there? She took the time to explain.

The first thing she asked me was: “Do you think segregation is only in Sudan?” I said no, but I don’t think there is segregation in the U.S.

She asked me, “Why?” I told her that the people in the U.S. are educated and more open-minded than the people in Sudan. She tried to let me know that there is segregation in the U.S., but I didn’t want to believe that. After a year or so, I saw that it was normal.

Segregation in the U.S. uses a different style, which they say is not based on your color, but it is based on your social class. The rich people get the better education and get the better teachers. Also, they get the easy access to college because they have good knowledge.

I don’t think they should get full scholarships because their parents are capable of paying for them.

Anyway, that’s how life goes. It doesn’t give a chance for the ones who really want it. The bad thing is that racism still exists. It could be by color or social class, but the U.S. is better than Sudan because in the U.S., everyone has the chance to get a free education. 

This I believe.

Comments

[ms. rogers]

Thanks for sharing that Mr. Garcia.

[Sarah Quezada]

The dearth of educational equity happens all over the world, in some places worst than other like the way your student explained it happens in Sudan. I was raised in Mexico and we have low and high income public schools too like here in the U.S. the difference is that a huge number of low income kids dropout school because they have to work, they can’t afford their uniforms, notebooks and pencils. Social status and race inequities do not happen only at the education level and those are not the only ones that happen at that level either. In this country every student has the opportunity to go school; they have transportation, lunch, pencils, paper, especial education services, etc. Of course the system is not perfect there are cultural and language barriers, special services are sometimes insufficient, wealthiest neighborhoods have better schools and so on but they still have the chance to go to school and we as teachers have to teach them the passion to learn. The more passion we have for teaching the more passion we pass on to our students. If we want our students to have passion for learning, we have to show and infect them with our own passion for teaching and learning from them. In Mexico we will celebrate Benito Juarez’s 202 anniversary. He was a full-blooded indigenous, at the age of 12 he was illiterate and could not speak Spanish, only Zapotec, he became a lawyer, a judge, a governor and president of Mexico, he is Mexico's greatest and most beloved leader. How did that happen? His life was full of inequities at the social and educational level, he was pour, he was indigenous and he didn’t speak the language. We can find thousands of stories like that one, we can also find millions the opposite way, but who do we need to question? Do we need to question ourselves as teachers, the social and educational system or our students? Is it really only an equity issue?

[Sergio Maldonado]

To have the privilege to be able to help students like Berhanu get to college and accomplish their goals, is the reason why I am striving to become a teacher. I am currently doing some observation work for USC's Rossier School of Education at Manual Arts, and I hope, sometime in the near future, I will have the opportunity to be able to help these students achieve in the classroom and in life.

Thank you for sharing Mr. Garcia.