Poor People are Stupid

Did that title get you all worked up?  It's pretty alarming ha?  I'm not sure that I think all people are stupid, but I have to say that my biggest bias is toward poor people.  I grew up in a middle class neighborhood, and was very comfortable.  However, my Dad  was a school teacher and sold baby furniture at night in order to provide our middle class upbringing in a nice neighborhood in the Far Northeast Heights.  I was the only Latina kid in the area whose father worked two jobs and whose Spanish speaking grandma lived with them.  I knew I had it pretty good compared to my extended family, but thought I was just like everybody else around.

My dad was the first kid in his family to attend college, later getting his PhD.  As a kid, it was not whether or not I would go to college, but where.  I think I inherited this prejudice from my father, who has contempt for all Latinos who fail to assimilate into "main stream" culture and who fail to get a decent education and work hard.  In his eyes, it's simple ignorance and laziness that prevents his cousins from bettering their circumstances.  I share a little bit of that belief.

In my defense, I don't think I am nearly as prejudice as my father, but it's important to recognize that I do indeed have prejudices.  I sub at a Title I school pretty often.  When some of the families drive up and open their car doors, a huge cloud of smoke errupts from the vehicle, and invariably the kid is not in a car seat.  Well that just pisses me off.  My gosh, who would smoke around their children, and who on earth would put their  kids in a car without a car seat?  These are usually the same parents that are unemployed and look like they were recently incarcerated or are on probation or parole. 

So there it is, I don't like poor people.  More specifically, I hold poor parents in contempt because I view them to have poor parenting abilities.  I feel sorry for their kids, and wonder how they are going to get a decent education when they have such crappy parents who obviously  don't know the importance of education and don't reinforce what they are learning at school.  There is only so much teachers can do. 

Sir Robinson and the Nature Deficit Disorder

Sorry this is such a late post, but kind of playing  catch up this evening.  I have been thinking about Sir Robinson's illustration (which was super creative and fully entertaining), and comparing it to the book I read for class called the Nature Deficit Disorder.  It's true that today's child is completely over stimulated, too plugged in, too distracted etc .  The book definitely referenced a correlation between the rise in electronic devices etc. and ADD and ADHD.    It's funny, last week I blogged about inclusion, and referenced a severely hyperactive child who has been included in my daughter's class for 3 years now.  This little boy is extreme I think.  I know him pretty well as he is our next door neighbor.  This kid is on him x box in the morning before he goes to school, takes an ipod to school and plays with it a recess, has a DX hand held thing, and is just constantly "plugged in".  In addition, he is in a day care program with 100 other kids in the cafeteria one hour before school, and every day after school until 5:30 or 6:00.  I think it's fair to say that an environment like that with a ton of other kids in a loud school cafeteria is an environment which provides a lot of stimulation.  The poor kid never has quite time.  Maybe that's why he has such trouble sitting in a classroom for any period of time.  Certainly, it's not the only factor for this little boy, but I'm sure it's an important one.

Sadly, I think as a society we are headed toward environments that provide yet only more stimulation, not less.  We live in a busy society and are surrounded by every sort of electrical device you could imagine.  The book I read would argue that by unplugging our children, and returning more to the out doors, a therapeutic environment would be provided and behavior would improve.     This is something I certainly practice as a parent, and it seems to be working so far.