From: charlie
Date: 10/19/03
Time: 8:59:39 AM
Remote Name: 209.240.198.63
Jean, The early teaching helps. It makes all the difference sometimes--no matter what family or wat race.
What happens with the Head Start kids is that the help (extra) help dries up and as they go thru school there is nobody at home helping them or pushing them or perhaps even encouraging them. Or perhaps there is nobody at home who can help them.
Even in the BEST schools (which I taught at one), the sub-division kids didn't do well if there was nobody at home teaching them or helping them with the things that they weren't "getting" during school.
A lot of it is expectations at home.
I also had a white boy who was from Eastern Ky. in my class. He was very much like Marcus (of the Black Bitch t-shirt). He did nothing!
BUT in his case, he told me he didn't have to, he was just marking time til he was 16 because his father had already told him (he was in the 5th grade at the time) that he didn't have to go past 16. AT 10 years old--he couldn't WAIT to be 16 and quit school. And it wasn't important to learn anything while he was "marking" time.
charlie