Learning to Study an Urban Community: From the Abstract to the Real

Regardless of where one teaches, it is crucial that a prospective teacher learn as much about the community in which s/he will teach. It’s not simply a matter of gaining a basic perspective of “what the community is about.” In many cases, it is a matter of necessity, especially when the community is very different from one’s own.

I think about the first time I started working in Rochester. Before I started teaching, I was involved in a research project with the C.H.A.N.G.E. project, a collaborative that brought together community-based organizations (CBOs), health groups, local businesses and education to better meet the needs of families and students. I spent a year working in a local middle school, interviewing students, teachers, and people from CBOs to better understand the needs of the community and how CHANGE responded. I learned just how diverse the city of Rochester was, and it really helped me to better meet the needs of my students when I became a teacher.

Later, when I began to work with the Teaching and Learning Institute, as part of the Rochester Educational Access Collaborative (REAC), my work with CHANGE really helped. You can read about the TLI program here
(interestingly enough, I worked with the three students mentioned in the article when they were first year students in the program. Even though I am not mentioned, I am a proud momma). Understanding the community helped me to understand why many students joined TLI even though teaching was not necessarily an interest of theirs. The program itself was seen as a safe program for students in a very large school.

Long story short, studying a community is crucial to being an effective educator as member of that community. It’s not enough to claim that the students need a firmer hand, parents should turn off the television, students need to do their homework (or that they can’t), or that schools need to do more. One needs to understand the community to effectively meet the needs of students. This is where the Community Inquiry Project comes into play.
If we start with considering the elements of culture (interesting definitions here) that help to define a community, there are a number elements that we can and must explore in order to understand a community:

Basic demographics
Language
Religion
Economics and employment
Housing
Geography
Food
Norms and values
Politics
Relationship with local geography
Formal Education and level/type of education
Structures and Institutions

And the list goes on. The point is, in order to understand a community, you have to explore the above elements, which coincidentally, are many of the same characteristics that we use to describe a culture. Demographics are descriptive; culture is a lived experience and series of changing relationships between individuals and groups.

While reading Unequal Childhoods (Lareau. A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. Los Angeles: University of California Press), we have been exposed to different children, their families, and their relationships with their local schools. From the portraits of these families, we can glean some basic information about differing communities. While the families should not become stereotypes, they can provide us insight into the different types of families with whom and communities in which we might be working.

At the beginning of the semester, I asked you to take a look at the NJ Real Cost of Living Index (NJRCL) from the Legal Services of New Jersey (LSNJ), which is a very useful piece of research for those of us who live and work in New Jersey. For those who are on the outside looking in, NJ looks like an incredible wealthy state. After all, the median annual salary in NJ is greater than that in the nation. But, NJ is also one of the most expensive places in the nation to live. Granted, the cost of living varies widely from county to county. But, taken as a whole the NJRCL provides a very sobering picture of why so many families in NJ struggle as much as they do.

But the LSNJ's report on living in poverty in NJ, is truly disturbing, as is it's report on the growth of poverty in the economic crunch.
As future urban educators, the reality for many families is one of struggle and hard choices. It makes sense, given the recent economic crisis, to continue our exploration of urban communities by returning to an examination of the demographics and the economic situations of different families with whom we might be working.

We have started in in the abstract and now need to move towards the concrete. It's not that we are not going into the community; rather, we are going to look at the existing data which helps us to consider the bigger picture. Using that data, we will extend our understanding of the families presented in the Lareau text to the communities in which we will work.

Our task:

To make sense of economics, poverty, the impact of class, and families

1. Review the families in Unequal Childhoods, and see if you can create a chart that reflects the following demographic and cultural information:
Race/ethnicity
Language
Religion
Economics and employment
Housing
Geography
Food
Norms and values
Politics
Relationship with local geography
Formal Education and level/type of education
Structures and Institutions
You may not be able to fill out the columns at this time.

2. Turn to the NJRCL report and pay specific attention to the information provided about Essex County, and the concerns, challenges, and recommendations in the report. Review the six families in Unequal Childhoods, and make connections between the NJRCL report and the realities these families might face if they lived in Essex County, NJ.

3. Look at the two reports from the LSNJ on living in poverty. What further information can you glean from the reports regarding the struggles the poor families in Unequal Childhoods might face if they lived in NJ?

4. Finally, turn inward and think about who you are as a budding urban educator. In what ways is this information useful (or not) for you? In terms of better understanding a community? What do you need to learn, or what skills and dispositions (frames of mind) do you need to develop related to demographics and economics to be a successful urban educator?

5. Put it all together. Bring the chart to class next week, and answer 2-4 in the form of an extended blog of about 1000 words (250 words or so per each task). Keep in mind the idea here is to move from the abstract to the practical.