My first day in a local Public School…

As my friends and I started to drive into the urban area we knew we were going into a new environment. Things were definitely different from other schools that I have had a chance to visit, but nothing completely new for me.
I was trying to gauge what is the difference between the urban school teacher and suburban school teacher. From what I gathered from my interaction with the schools’ teachers in the urban school was that there wasn't that much difference. Both urban and suburban have the same ideology or definition of what a good teacher is. The only difference I felt was the parents’ lack of involvement. I understand that that is a huge issue within these schools, but I feel that that can happen even in the suburbs. My parents were never involved because they didn’t understand the language. The same could be said for most of my friends within my circle in suburban school. The parents were too busy to attend back to school night because they worked long hours and had business trips. Granted, this is just a small amount of kids that I knew from the entire school and cannot reflect the entire suburban school system. I think I’m beginning to understand what they mean by… the parents don’t get involved. What they meant is that this isn’t an isolated figure, but most of the school demonstrates the lack of parent involvement.
The other thing that I noticed was some of the programs that they had implemented for the students. One of which helped teach the children the various drugs that are out there and how they affect you and others around you. The children who are in this program are referred to by there teacher, parents, or other students. The reason why they are in this program is not because they are doing drugs, rather one of their family members has a serious problem with a narcotic and the child is exposed to this behavior.
My short interaction with the kids demonstrated that they are learning a lot about how bad drugs are to themselves, family, friends, and society through gruesome pictures of deteriorating organs. Still, I found no difference in drug use in the family from suburban and urban schools. In my previous post, the numbers were identical.
The other main difference I thought was the notion of gang affiliation in these schools. Our guide for the day told us that each year they have a police officer come in the school to talk about gangs and how detrimental they are to everyone. They would show pictures of the negative affects of being in a gang and tell the children how bad it is to become a gang member. Still, the one thing that came out from this experience is that these children have a different experience that most privileged suburban students take for granted. It seems that across the board inner city schools have problems that can exist in suburban schools, but are more prevalent in urban schools. Still, all these children are capable of being the best students that they can be with the right outlet and safe space away from the inner city environment that they are surround with.