For my Blog this week I was asked to analyze the demographics of my

school and make judgments as to why the school I am in is a higher performing

school than others. I was originally not a fan of this question, and truly after
thinking on it for 4 to 5 days I am still not that fond of it. Why do we try to
separate ourselves into groups and label them? Compare them and figure out
why they are different? Even when we know that they arent. The physical
differences are what we are focusing on when it is their cognitive and
developmental abilities we should be concerned about. But I understand why
we look at these labels and compare and contrast them. Its because this is what
we have done for years, decades even and that is all we know. Why is it that
these labels are based on colors when a plethora of different ethnicities and
cultures share the same one, white, while every other ethnicity that looks
different is labeled another color black, brown or even yellow? Even when these
colors are not actual attributes of the race/ethnicity to which the person
belongs. Why do we label people to reflect where they came from, such as
Asian-American, or Mexican-American, but we do not regularly use the same
labels on white ethnicities, such as Russian-America or Australian-American?
I hope the contrast in how we label each other is becoming more apparent. This
is not how I want to look at my classroom. This is not how I want to view the
school I intern or someday teach at. I understand that I will need to understand
other demographics, such as students from lower economic statuses, and
students with disabilities who may need additional supports systems to perform
in class. I understand that I need to know who my gifted students are so that I
can prepare to provide additional challenges within a lesson to further engage
and enrich their learning. These are the things I will focus on as a teacher.
Ethnicities and races are not one of them. I will of course acknowledge the
cultural backgrounds of my students, integrating them into my lessons, in
classroom discussion, and even in how the classroom is decorated. This is being
culturally responsible. Also understanding the backgrounds of different cultures
will help me understand different students home lives better, as well as having
a better understanding of their actions within in the classroom; making sure
that their actions arent also mislabeled. Per NCES, 2010 Native America
students were labeled as having disabilities 14% of the time, African Americans
12%, Hispanic students 9% and white students 5% of the times were labeled as
having a disability. Disabilities are not more or less prevalent in certain
ethnicities. These students were labeled differently because the people
ascertaining their dysfunction knew nothing about the students cultural
backgrounds and saw different behaviors that they may not have understood or
cared to understand, as a deficiency. How does this relate back to my school
being reflected as one that is higher performing? Im not sure. I would like to
look at the school wide demographics to answer that question more accurately.
What I have available to me reflects; 2% of the class is African-American, 30%
of the class is Hispanic, 10% of the class is Multi-cultural or their culture is not
none, and the remaining 58% is Caucasian. This is not reflective of the
community the immediately surrounds the school, as many students are bussed
from a less affluent area. I believe the SE status of the area and the school is a
better determiner of why the school is higher performing than any other
demographic, but that can also tie back to ethnicities within the community as
well.