The Unraveling the Model Minority book got me thinking about dynamics in the Asian cultures that I had not thought of before. I had honestly never thought that there were such deep and varied separations within the Asian student bodies.
While The idea that Asians would prefer to stick with their own ethnicity, such as was shown to be the case with the Korean students in the book, I never really considered that multiple other groups of "Asian" existed within the broad label. It was interesting to see that there were multiple distinct groups depending on if they identified as Asian, Asian-American, or "new wave."
In terms of teaching, the biggest concern that this book brought up to me is that if Asian students have a stereotype following them that says "you are good at school," I worry that approaching a struggling student may feel as though I think that they can perform better "because I see them as Asian" rather than believe that they as an individual can perform better. Worse, how can I get them to seek out the extra help when some are carrying the perception that needing the help in the first place is something to be ashamed of?
Monday, February 13, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Week 2 - Children of Immigration
Overall, I enjoyed reading the Children of Immigration book this week. The book does an excellent job at bringing up the challenges that immigrant children deal with as they progress through school and life. It gives various perspectives of the children themselves to connect the various statistics to the real world.
The main thing that I found interesting was the statistic that immigrant children and children of immigrants are over represented in both the highest and lowest levels of achievement. It makes me think about the kinds of pressures that those students are put through on a daily basis. Pressures to assimilate compete directly with pressures to maintain the old culture. Combining this with the sometimes dangerous areas that immigrants end up living in, it is amazing that they are able to focus on school work at all.
The book also brought to light the fact that I, as a future teacher, need to be very aware of stereotyping that I may otherwise not notice. Even things that I would not be consciously aware of, can be perceived by the individuals to be negative. Even "good" stereotypes can lead to an overall negative reaction. Not much of the information in the book struck me as counter-intuitive, however I don't think I would otherwise think about the topic as deeply as this book allowed me to, which is extremely important to do from time to time.
The main thing that I found interesting was the statistic that immigrant children and children of immigrants are over represented in both the highest and lowest levels of achievement. It makes me think about the kinds of pressures that those students are put through on a daily basis. Pressures to assimilate compete directly with pressures to maintain the old culture. Combining this with the sometimes dangerous areas that immigrants end up living in, it is amazing that they are able to focus on school work at all.
The book also brought to light the fact that I, as a future teacher, need to be very aware of stereotyping that I may otherwise not notice. Even things that I would not be consciously aware of, can be perceived by the individuals to be negative. Even "good" stereotypes can lead to an overall negative reaction. Not much of the information in the book struck me as counter-intuitive, however I don't think I would otherwise think about the topic as deeply as this book allowed me to, which is extremely important to do from time to time.
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