How can understanding demographics help us better understand teaching and learning?

I believe that understanding communities’ demographics is very helpful for us as educators.  Sometimes educators just pass of a student as a “lost cause” or someone who “will never learn.”  We have to look past these assumptions and stereotypes and take up the challenge of finding ways of teaching that will get through to these students.  The demographics allow us to take up this challenge and, at the same time, view different aspects of our students’ lives that are not always available by conversations with them or their parents.  For example, a student might come from a household that does not greatly care about education because both parents did not graduate from high school.  The student might not care about going to school and may be confrontational when you approach to have a conversation about it.  If you knew the demographics of his neighborhood, then you would probably see that a high percentage of adults dropped out of school.  This would help you take a different approach to teaching the student and allow you to try and enforce some enthusiasm towards his/her education.

Understanding demographics also assist us in building a lesson plan that will get relevant information across to the students.  Since I am a Health and Physical Education major, I would be very intrigued to look over the demographics in the community in order to teach subjects that are strongly affecting my students.  If I were to teach in Newark, in my Sexual Education class, my main focal point would be “AIDS Prevention” because Newark “has the highest AIDS caseload, at 8,021, of New Jersey cities” (Sidney, 2003).  Unfortunately Newark’s sexual education programs are funded by the governments Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage programs so it will difficult for me to properly educate students on the proper ways to prevent the spread of AIDS.  But it is still very important to understand the demographics of the community you teach in because you will be able to positively affect it by educating the students in topics that are currently affecting them and their community.         

What is the Purpose of School?

The purpose of the school is to educate children to be knowledgeable individuals who can properly participate in a democratic society.  To further elaborate, I am trying to state that its purpose should be to educate children in various fields of studies without the enforcement of standardized tests; allow them to strengthen their social skills through interactions with their peers and teachers; and by allowing them to follow their own interests instead of molding their interests into certain “trades.”  Students should be able to learn about various fields (math, science, and athletics) without feeling forced to learn everything, by a certain timeframe, in order to pass a standardized test.  I believe that the “No Child Left Behind Act” has negatively affected the true purpose of education.  Too much emphasis is placed on the standardized tests and not enough is placed on the actual knowledge that is attained by the students.  Too many Americans have believed every bit of information that has been given to them by the media and they have not taken time out to research the statistics that are always shown.  The media is trying to force the public to believe that students should pass more tests instead of learn everything being taught.  This is similar to the following quote from “The Mysterious Fall of the Nacirema,” where the media was trying to force the public to believe that the automobile was an important part of their lives: “We are relatively certain that a specially endowed and highly skilled group of educators was employed to keep the importance of these enclosed mobile devices constantly in the public eye” (pg. 5).    

Another purpose of the school is to teach the students how to socialize with everyone.  The best type of democratic society is one with individuals who will unite with their peers and work towards the common goal of their nation.  This cannot occur if individuals are fearful or envious of each other, because of negative experiences in the classroom (bullying, gossiping, or classification); or if they do not understand the importance of socialization and the benefits that come with it.  John Taylor Gatto made some good points in his essay, “Against School,” but he never emphasized the importance of socialization.  I agree with some of his statements against the school system: “School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently” (pg. 38).  The school should teach students to think critically and independently, but they should also balance that out with socialization.  This will teach students to respect all forms of education and it would erase the “exclusive” mentality (your beliefs are bad, only my beliefs are true) that affects so many people.

A final purpose of the school is to allow the students to follow their own personal interests and no force them to go into certain fields because “that is what is needed in the workforce.”  There are too many instances where students’ interests are shaped by the schools to fit the needs of society.  For example, there has been a commercial, by the New Jersey Education Association, playing for the past few weeks talking about the influence of teachers in New Jersey public schools.  In the commercial they state the great learning opportunities that the students had, but at the end it states: “New Jersey public schools do an excellent job preparing our students for today’s work force.”  This seems similar to the “differentiating function” that Gatto speaks about: “Once their social role has been ‘diagnosed,’ children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits—and not one step further” (pg. 37).  I do not believe that society should “diagnose” the social role of each child because this will not give them the ability to become leaders or critical thinkers.  Once a student learns to think critically or independently, they will be able to find their own interests and positively affect society in that field.