Diversity in Education Success

What is meant by the myth of education and its empowerment is the time-honored philosophy of working hard to get what you deserve by merit and credit. In Stephen Cruz's "Studs Terkel" Cruz found that his hard work is not exactly what gained him his success. After getting and engineering degree accepted a high paying secure job only to discover that the reason why he got the position was because he was Hispanic. After this realization he refused to "fall in line" and quit the position; he choose not to sell his soul to the superficial corporate world of quotas and image.

We first learned about school's tracking in John Gatto's "The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher." A student is not an individual person, rather they are a number which is tracked by test grades, IQ tests, and placement tests. Students are also tracked by hall and bathroom passes. Students are treated like juvenile drones who need constant supervision and can't be left to their own divices. Students are not given any freedom or human decency.

The way preference and privilege is given to affluent whites stems back to Tannen's "The Roots of Debate in Education…" where the whole educational system in America is based on the standards and traditions of white Europeans. That system continues today in the form of tests like the SATs. The SATs are racially biased towards white America and away from minority groups by the language used in the exams.

We learned violation of cultural norms can be seen in Richard Rodriguez's "The Achievement of Desire" because growing up Mexican American he was taught values about family, however, when he started advancing in school he had to forget those values. He said he felt as though his home life and school life were completely different. The value he placed on his education was something that was foreign to his parents and he had to deal with that on his own.

Rodriguez's experience is also an example of alienation of the student from his family. As he became more educated he became more of an elitist. He couldn't relate to his family any more and as a result he became cynical about life and education. Richard felt separate of his family and ended up resenting the people who had raised him. This alienation is a conflict he had to deal with his entire academic career and continues to this day.

We see encouragement of diverse groups in Claude Steele's "Thin Ice…" where we see the encouragement of African American students. Steele advocates that more improvements on college campus's are needed like changing the racially biased curriculum and adding more ethnic culture to the campus. The most important that Steele advocates is that changes can be made to help all students such as having teachers set high standards, set rules, and giving tests that are racially fair.
We learn about education benefits and personal empowerment in Malcolm X's "Learning to Read."

When Malcolm was imprisoned he began to teach himself how to read. As a result he learned about historic intellectual African Americans and the world through the books he read. As a result he empowered himself to become a powerful leader. He was such a powerful leader that he was assassinated because of it. Even though he unfairly died, he lived a full life, rather than a wasted life of crime.