The article Long Road to Adulthood is Growing Even Longer provoked some thoughts in me. It mainly talks about how people in their young adulthood refuse to take traditionally believed responsibilities or as the author put it they “did not want to grow up”. In order to talk about this topic, two things should be clarified beforehand. Continue reading Not All Is Too Old to Grow Up-Effy Wang
All posts by Zhuoran Wang-Effy
MVP about “Joaquin’s Dilemma” Understanding the Link between Racial Identity and School-Related Behaviors
The first article from Chapter two “Joaquin’s Dilemma” Understanding the Link between Racial Identity and School-Related Behaviors really provoked some thoughts in me. What makes this article different is how it talks about the stereotypes of certain groups of people determined not just by race, but also gender, academic achievement could all be problems for adolescent students since they are developing an identity in this society and need acceptance from people around them. It is hard enough for adolescents to try to be approved both by adults by studying hard and by their peers or group members by trying to be “cool” or “tough”. Whichever group they belong to, everybody suffers at some point because of being different.
What’s important is what we as educators should do to help students with such problems. The author proposed some very useful suggestions and what I would like to add is that we should try to be able to identify the problems but believe it deeply in our hearts that everybody is equal at the same time; to try to break the stereotypes but also believe that they are false at the same time; to try to distinguish students as their individual selves but also know that everybody is the same whatever color their skin might be, whichever social class they come from, or whichever gender they are. We must believe as the author mentioned that all students need a healthy relationship with a supporting adult no matter what they may appear to be and never stop trying to help them.
Thank you very much for your time!
MVP about Poor, Black, Learning Disabled, and Graduating
I have to say that I find this article to be more than informative and educational. Coming from a country with people of the same race, I never realize how difficult it could be for African-American Students to develop under so much pressure from all aspects of thier lives.
This article talks about the challenges they meet as underpriviliged students in a somewhat hostile school environment and most importantly, how us educators could help them as much as we can from different perspectives. Teachers should be understanding, persistent, committing, demanding but supporting, and strict but caring. And these, in my opinion, does not just apply to underpriviliged students but also to all students of similar age group because they all need support at some point and it is our responsibility to provide that in order to help them to develop to their full potetial. In my opinion, this article could be a wake-up call to all educators that we should try to understand our students from thier perspectives because sometimes thier situations could be really chanllenging and they could really need our help to get on the right track.
Thank you very much for your time!
Zhuoran Wang
Effy