Out of the four readings that I read this past week, I have to say the one that really stood out to me as a future educator was the article by Ellen Brantlinger about Who wins and Who loses?: Social Class and Student Identities. I believe our society is sometimes jaded by what people perceive as a low socioeconomic status in terms of race. Many people are quick to judge that only minorities and immigrants suffer, but sometimes forget that all races can be affected by it.  Brantlinger interviewed two different individuals from the same race, one was a white female named Marissa who was consider an elite student and grew up in a very affluent area of Hillsdale while the other one was a white male named Travis who was bought up on the Southside of town in poverty stricken conditions.

Needless to say, Marissa graduate with an MBA and was doing well for herself as Brantlinger stated just given the fact that she was born into privilege. Travis, on the other hand, was plagued from the beginning with poverty and absolutely no hope of getting out of the poverty cycle that unfortunately he came to the conclusion to end his life because he was physically and emotionally drained and hated being targeted at school and in society for his low socioeconomic status. Even at school, teachers were constantly picking on him as were his own peers except for one teacher, Travis’ fifth grade elementary teacher, Mr. E.

I think it’s hard to bridge the gap between kids who are born into wealth and privilege and kids who weren’t and trying to create an empathic atmosphere amongst the two groups in a class setting. I think that will be the most challenging thing to do as an educator is breaking down those barriers and enforcing students to understand that “sometimes you can’t judge a book by its cover.”