further more
So Black History Assemblies are interesting. In fact, all school-wide assemblies that are really just melodramatic PSAs are interesting to me. Why, you might ask? Well, things like these no longer fulfill their purposes. Which also makes me wonder if they EVER fulfilled their purposes, and what their purposes were to begin with? School definitely hasn't changed much in the past 70 years, nor really have the assemblies when it comes down to it. You still have the caste system of
Administrator
Tenured Teacher
New Teacher
Maintenance/Custodial Staff
Good Students
In-between Students
Bad Students
Now it might seem bad that I specified types of students, but let's face it, no matter how hard they try, teachers treat those types of students different, even perceive them differently. It is just human nature to do so, I find. In education it has a title, though, called "self-fulfilling prophecy" I know, it sounds like something out of a Terry Goodkind book, but it basically states that if teachers make assumptions and think that certain students are going to behave a certain way, amount to a certain amount, achieve x amount, then they will do exactly as you expect. And since it is also human nature to make first impressions lasting, you can glean the consequences this has on education. Now, I'm not sure if this is completely true, or if someone just wanted to make teachers feel guilty and not accept the truth, but there it is, "self-fulfilling prophecy."
But I digress.
So the point of yesterday's BHM (black history month) assembly is still kind of shady, I think, or ill-defined, if you will. I asked my 4th hour students what they thought the point of such assemblies are. I was met with mostly silence, as always whenever you really ask your students' opinions of something. Jeez. Tell them not to talk and that's all they wanted to do, ask them some real questions and they clam up. Anyway, once I get them to talk a little they felt it was mostly about awareness. I think part of their silence is that they really were unsure. Does America need to be MORE aware of the atrocities that happened in the 60s. Granted I'm sure if you asked most high school students what decade the civil rights movement happened, they couldn't tell you. Simply educating them is one thing though, packing them in an auditorium and making some people feel, as Kid Rock calls it, "Ashamed of being white" is something else. Even the black students in my class that I asked said that they weren't entirely sure why we had this, and didn't always feel comfortable either.
As I said, it's an interesting beast, PSA Aseemblies. They need to be re-vamped, that is for sure.
Or maybe just done away with.
Administrator
Tenured Teacher
New Teacher
Maintenance/Custodial Staff
Good Students
In-between Students
Bad Students
Now it might seem bad that I specified types of students, but let's face it, no matter how hard they try, teachers treat those types of students different, even perceive them differently. It is just human nature to do so, I find. In education it has a title, though, called "self-fulfilling prophecy" I know, it sounds like something out of a Terry Goodkind book, but it basically states that if teachers make assumptions and think that certain students are going to behave a certain way, amount to a certain amount, achieve x amount, then they will do exactly as you expect. And since it is also human nature to make first impressions lasting, you can glean the consequences this has on education. Now, I'm not sure if this is completely true, or if someone just wanted to make teachers feel guilty and not accept the truth, but there it is, "self-fulfilling prophecy."
But I digress.
So the point of yesterday's BHM (black history month) assembly is still kind of shady, I think, or ill-defined, if you will. I asked my 4th hour students what they thought the point of such assemblies are. I was met with mostly silence, as always whenever you really ask your students' opinions of something. Jeez. Tell them not to talk and that's all they wanted to do, ask them some real questions and they clam up. Anyway, once I get them to talk a little they felt it was mostly about awareness. I think part of their silence is that they really were unsure. Does America need to be MORE aware of the atrocities that happened in the 60s. Granted I'm sure if you asked most high school students what decade the civil rights movement happened, they couldn't tell you. Simply educating them is one thing though, packing them in an auditorium and making some people feel, as Kid Rock calls it, "Ashamed of being white" is something else. Even the black students in my class that I asked said that they weren't entirely sure why we had this, and didn't always feel comfortable either.
As I said, it's an interesting beast, PSA Aseemblies. They need to be re-vamped, that is for sure.
Or maybe just done away with.