From the discussions I had in class, I personally think that the statistics that I looked at were very wrong, but since the statistics were based on surveys, it really isn't favoring anybody on purpose. There were a few statistics that surprised me a lot, such as: high school graduates often live longer than high school dropouts, and that most Black and Latino students are at least three grade level behind Asian and White student by the time they reach fourth grade. Though there is one data that stands out to me the most, and it seems to annoy me a lot as well: it is White and Asian student always get better grades than Black and Latino student. This is annoying because it allows a stereotype that was once popular, though now disapproved, to remain convincing among many families. It is that people of different colors are born with different brains! I think this belief is simply ridiculous, because from what I know, this belief has been clarified by modern scientists to be fictitious. So I think that the black and Latino student's academical inferiority has other causes.
I believe that parent is the main influential cause for black and Latino students' inferiority in school. Because when the black and Latino students were still young, they most likely look up to their parent as role models all the time, and learn all of their old and stupid stereotype beliefs, and give up on themselves. So as they grow up, they all become a duplication of the old generation.
-Kevin He
I agree with you on some of the statistics be a little odd. With the one about high school graduates living longer than people who did not graduate could be true because there are a lot of factors that have to be put in like, are there diseases in there family, where they live or the way they spent there life after graduating or not graduating high school. If someone dropped out of school because the profession they wanted to pursue involved traveling or took up too much time for them to be able to keep up with their studies. It could also be that they barely graduated high school and choose to stop their eduction there and they end up in the same position or worse than someone who didn't graduate.IT is also important about the type of people who do or do not graduate from high school. For example if a person decided to choose the life of crime or things that will most likely get you hurt(e.g. being in a gang, having to steal to support yourself or just because you want to, taking drugs, doing things that are illegal for your own and the people around you from becoming unsafe or hurting others) might cut your life span similar to a saw slowly cutting a tree.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting conversation. I think statistics lead to a lot of questions and not always to answers. However, I don't think any of these statistics are saying that one race is smarter than the other. I think they are trying to get us to ask why, in general, is there an achievement gap between different groups of people based on race and economic class. Of course, there are many people who fall outside of these statistics. I wonder if there has been a study done about them?
ReplyDelete