Frames of Reference: Urban Schools

As a student who grew up in one of the largest and busiest cities in the world, you would expect me to have attended the “typical” urban school. Nevertheless I did not; all my life my parents sent me to private schools because in Mexico City public schools are sadly a synonym of bad education. I believe failures in its Public School System can tell you a lot about a country. In this case Mexico undergoes a vicious cycle that starts off wrong in the schooling of its coming generations, it is as unfair as it gets: if you come from a wealthy family you go to a private school, if you have no money, what’s left is public education or no education at all.
Although a focus in American urban schools is what we are looking to understand today,
I want to use Mexico as an example, not only because it is the place where I grew up in, but also because just as the USA, it faces huge differences in education that are interesting to address.
Keep in mind while you read through my post, that I did not grow up in this country as I mentioned before, so please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. My knowledge about American Public School System is derived from the media, as well as from relatives and friends who grew up in this country and went to public schools. So the following are my very own personal beliefs about urban education in this country.

Let’s try this analogy that comes to my mind when I try to separate urban from suburban education. I will compare Mexico’s public schools system with USA’s urban education, and Mexico’s private schools with USA’s suburban schools. While this may make some people cringe, it is not so far from the reality. Suburbs are mostly resided by people with a higher economic status than most of the people who live in big cities. Higher economic status will bring more financial support and parents will feel comfortable sending their kids to their local public school. People in the big cities with a low economic status will have no other choice but to send their kids to urban public schools. In some cases suburban schools have such financial support that they could be compared to a private school, especially when studied next to low funding urban schools. In the end, it seems as if I am saying: Suburban schools = good, urban schools = bad education.

But I believe the above statement is not necessarily true in every case, and this positive and hopeful take has been influenced in me mostly by the media (think “Dangerous Minds”). For the most part it depends on the financial situation of the city; the more money, the better funded schools are. Schools with a larger budget are able to get all sorts of special programs, materials, tools, and “better” teachers. And I say “better” sort of meaning “happier” or truly more positive. Because it takes a lot of passion and dedication to want to work under difficult conditions and low salaries, as it is the case in urban education.

There are diverse social issues that affect most urban schools causing a lot of stress on students, teachers, and parents. Cities live a very fast paced life, in order to make more money some parents (or single parents!) may take more than one job or extra hours in their regular job, making it hard to spend time with their children. These children then grow up with less support and supervision and many end up with drug problems or in gangs. Having grown up in a different kind of environment, some teachers will feel alienated and uncomfortable and will therefore work there only temporarily, making it hard for the school to have a strong group of educators. Nevertheless, some teachers who may have grown up in big cities or even some suburban teachers may think of urban education as an interesting and challenging place where they can help to make a difference in urban students’ lives, they may have to work extra and make less money, put a lot of dedication and deal with student apathy. For these reasons, being an urban teacher is some times though of as superior from suburban education. I don’t agree with this because I believe that suburban education has its own challenges. But as long as teachers are happy in their own environment they will most likely end up becoming good teachers.

A very positive characteristic of inner city schools is diversity in students and teachers as well. Even though this may also create many social problems, it can be looked at from a positive point of view. Diversity is like traveling without having to get out of the country. It is something I didn’t grow up having and now that I am surrounded by people from different nationalities, my take on the world and its different issues has changed positively. If teachers help students interact between different ethnicities and they learn to respect each other and they exchange cultural information from each other, they will become more aware of what the world has to offer and there is a sense of self awareness as well by doing so.

When concentrating about all these different issues about urban vs. suburban education, it makes me think about myself as a teacher and what I want to achieve no matter where I decide to teach in the future. I have a passion for studying different cultures, which makes me think I would consider working in a big and diverse city.

I consider that growing up in a different county may bring some different ways of teaching in me. But I understand that adapting to the society that surrounds the school where you teach is crucial. I strongly believe that having a positive outlook facilitates any kind of issue and that you can truly make a difference in a student’s life!