Notes - Handbook of Urban Education - Introduction

Handbook of Urban Education

Is UE a discipline or a subfield? Education developed and practice in urban schools.

Education is not the only area that has failed to define and conceptualize “urban”. Identity challenges in the conceptualization or urban are prevalent in other domains like sociology, anthropology, public policy, economics,… (Frey & Zimmer, 2001)

Following aspects in the definition and conceptualizing urban education:

1)      The size of the city in which schools are located: dense, large, metropolitan areas,

2)      The students in the schools: a range of student diversity, including racial, ethnic, religious, language, and socioeconomic;

3)      And the resources: the amount and number of resources available in a school, such as technology and financial structures through federal programs as well as property taxes.

Due to structural and systemic inequities (Anyon, 2005), the 6.9 million students (Council of the Great City Schools, 2013) in urban environments are the most underserved in the United States. We see structural and systemic inequities, as well as other challenges in urban education associated with the underperformance of students as those practitioners and policy makers, must address and solve but also as ones that researchers and theorists should be on the front lines of interrogating to inform practice.

• Challenges in urban schools (Milner, 2013)

Factors both inside of the school:

·       Inadequate teaching practices,

·       Inadequate funding,

·       Poor administrative decisions,

·       Underveloped counseling and psychological services

·       Curricular opportunities that are unchallenging for and unresponsive to students

 Outside-of-school factors that seem to play a role in students´ experiences inside of school:

·       Family income

·       Parental educational level

·       Family structure

·       Student home living conditions

Some characteristics of students in urban education schools:

·       First language is not English

·       Poverty (pervasive social problems that can have a lasting influence on students in urban communities and schools.

·       Children of color disproportionately receive and experience the most disturbing educational experiences

Low-income families by race adapted from Munin (2012), Simms, Fortuny, and Henderson (2009)

Race                                   % of low-income families                           % of US population

White                                42%                                                                65.6%

Black                                  22%                                                                12.2%

Hispanic                            30%                                                                15.4%

Total % for B and H         52%                                                                27.6%

Rather than perceiving students and their families as inferior or deficient because of their poverty, the point is to identify, study, and address structural forms of inequity that do not serve students well in education and beyond.

The decisions conceived as:

·       A sporadic, disconnected, multidimensional knowledge base in urban education;

·       An absence of a coherent assessment of needs, challenges, problems, and solutions in urban education;

·       The nonexistence of a consistent definition or conceptualization of the concept, urban education;

·       An underdevelopment of research and theoretical tools to analyze and improve urban education; and

·       A significant disconnect between research and practice in urban education.

Crisis

At least two levels of crisis are prevalent in urban education:

1)      Micro-level practices and programs that inadequately address the needs of students in urban schools, affecting factors like:

a.        teaching (including teacher professional development, attitudes, qualifications, and more (Delpit, 2012).

b.       The leadership of principals (Wallace Foundation, 2013)

c.       Student characteristics and needs, including factors like family background and student motivation.

2)      Failure of research, theory, and policy to make significant strides in impacting urban schools.

a.       Areas:

                                                               i.      School choice,

                                                             ii.      Common core standards,

                                                           iii.      Alternative routes into teaching,

                                                           iv.      Scripted curriculum mandates

                                                             v.      Pay for performance

List of areas that need further exploration to advance urban education:

• -          Psychology, Health, and Human Development:

o   What psychological factors shape the experiences and practices of students and teachers in urban environments?

o   In what ways might human development intersect with student learning, motivation and interactions in urban schools?

• -          Sociological Perspectives:

o   How do societal factors contribute to -or detract from- efforts to educate students in urban schools?

o   How do social forces support and/or hinder student resilience inside and outside of school?

• -          Families and Communities

o   What is the role of families and communities in enabling English-language learners to be successful in urban schools?

• -          Teacher Education and Special Education
• -          Leadership, Administration and Leaders
• -          Curriculum and Instruction
• -          Policy and Reform

• Absence of Critical Assessment

Little effort has been made in exploring the successes that have been achieved in some urban schools to determine the applicability and transferability of those strategies in other urban contexts. Critical assessment opens the door for additional exploratory as well as theory-testing studies looking at the applicability of these best practices and much more. Research and theory related to urban education in the areas outlined above have provided important insights. However, the overall body of work is disparate at best; this volume provides a critical assessment of what is available.

• Conceptualizing “GAPS”

Several gaps exist in urban educations to be addressed:

-          Definitional Gap: lack of a comprehensive, uniform definition of urban education.

-          Historical Gap: Researchers rarely provide a historical context in urban education scholarship and practice. There is not a concrete historical storyline of scholarly work and practice in urban education.

-          Methodological Gap: Replicating studies can assist us in generalizing and transferring findings through consistent, rigorous methods.

Questions

What are your thoughts regarding the 2 components of the urban ed identity crisis discussed on p xvi?

I coincide with Marwa in the way the author divided into different categories the challenges in urban education schools: inside and outside the school, and the relation between each other, even I started to create a list of them but because of a technological problem I lost the file. It is funny the “repetition” of some factors of the crisis like how dealing with poverty, diversity, and the professional development of teachers, educators and school staff in this communities. And of course the lack of literature in this field, or at least the inconsistency in research in urban education as well as the educational policies to create programs for the schools in this setting and their components: diversity in population (race), equity in socio-economic and cultural opportunities, resources and materials, developing a better participation of all the members of the urban school community, for instance.

Would you add any research ?´s or theme to those listed on pp xvii and xviii?

According to my experience in some schools in Houston ISD, I would add the research of language development in low-income Latino children during their early stages of education, as well as dual language learning methods and strategies that can be extended to home as well in a way to facilitate instruction from home too and making them more active during their learning process.

Another important topic to be listed is pedagogy, personalized learning and educational strategies to deal with diversity in classroom, since the fact that one curriculum for everyone is not working anymore. Innovation in teaching could include technology too, since according to research most of the low socioeconomic status families have smartphones and other devices like computers or tablets.

Other important topics could be professional development for teachers about dealing with diversity in classroom, providing schools and administrators with new strategies to encourage family involvement and participation.

What do you think about the gaps listed? (We have talked about some of this)?

I think that every urban school has its own characteristics, although it shares some shared characteristics like poverty and diverse population (Hispanics, Africa-American,… students), but some of them have learned how to deal with them in a positive and successful way, or even the districts provide some schools with some resources and materials, included Human ones, like specialists and teachers who were well trained or formed in a domain like “Las Americas” school in HISD. This school hosts refugees and other “newcomers” from different countries that are well assisted by teachers and educators, and even their families are welcome to participate and collaborate in the school community.

Maybe I would like to have a list by the lawmakers for every urban school and, like rubrics or standards, to fill them according to what they need, in this way they would be able to invest money wisely and addressing to their current and future needs.

Chapter 2

The title of ch2 2 suggests that urban ed should be for human freedom. Thoughts?

I agree with Roseline when she states about the complex term of “freedom”. Education provides us with tools to make us successful in life, but what happens with other fields like the beliefs and ideas of society, the cultural shocks and impositions, and who can escape from the influence of mass and social media?

Along the Human story we saw many episodes like this, the “other”, and the way education and other fields tried and, currently, try to give them/us (I included myself here since I´m part of “the others” in the American society since I´m an immigrant) opportunities and help us overcome the challenges we have to face.

What are your ideas/comments about deficit approaches discussed in ch 2 as the primary approach in urban ed today?

This is related to what we read in one of the chapters of the 19 questions of urban education and the need of a curriculum based or centered on the students and their characteristics. I remember that one of them wanted to focus on their strengths instead of their weakness, their resilience. Standardized tests don´t help students to learn and even less if they are not proficient in English. And as an extension to this point: are the policy makers aware of this need? Are they offering tools and resources to help urban schools to deal with diversity? Are they offering administrators and teachers professional development and formation?

Perhaps, as our society is in continuous change and motion, it is difficult to have a consistency in finding solutions or answers to all and new challenges that urban schools are facing every day.

Reflections on Urban experiences in Houston

Diversity & Culture of Houston

Discussion Questions

Dear Classmates,

It was a delight to see the turn out in spite of the weather condition, as an additional follow up on our community experience, please view the following links

https://www.houstoniamag.com/articles/2017/6/21/street-art-graffiti-houston

https://sacredhearthouston.org/contextual-history

https://www.discoverygreen.com/1532203

https://www.meetup.com/ladies_just_want_to_have_fun/events/254761195/

And for reflection possibilities, we will appreciate your response to the following questions:

1. What parts of the history of the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart stood out to you the most and why?

First, thank you for this amazing experience! We enjoyed our walk over the streets of Houston. This is my fourth year in Houston and I have never visited the cathedral before, I have always seen it from the I-45 and with details when traffic jams happened.

As I was more interested in finding more information about it, I found a website: https://2008remodel.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/houstons-new-co-cathedral/ There I could see the design of its architectural plan, and it does not have the traditional cross like other Catholic churches. Moreover, talking about images, if you visit its official website: http://www.sacredhearthouston.org/, on the top, you can find a timeline and you can navigate on what was offered since its very beginning.

As my classmates said, the accolades and awards by the contractor company impressed me too because I have never imagined that this work (the construction of a cathedral) called the attention of many people in the 21^st Century, I could understand it centuries ago, maybe I can understand it as a way to support the Catholic community in the city. Another thing that impressed me was the existence of more than one cathedral for the Galveston-Houston archdiocese because there is usually only one, but I can understand the need to attend all the population in Houston. In addition, what impressed me the most was the cost of the co-cathedral: $49,000.000 (Rivas, Elissa (3 April 2008). "Dedication of the co-cathedral". KTRK-TV News. Retrieved from https://abc13.com/archive/6053988/.) since there are many more things in the world to assist and support, although it is magnificent and outstanding.

 

  

2. Analysis/ Critique of the public art

I really like your tour in the city because we were exposed to many artistic expressions and many different as well. First, in a classic way, by visiting a co-cathedral as a religious topic, because the windows and the rosette windows of the cathedral are beautiful. They are a modernistic version of the ones that you can find in the ancient Catholic churches and cathedrals in Europe. Then, the graffiti and murals are amazing, I love the way painters use art to manifest their concerns, to make society aware of what is happening to certain social groups. Later, the third visit to Discovery Green, a more modernistic version of public art with huge spheres with light and music, to spend an enjoyable evening with your family.

I like cities because of the exposure to art, to culture in general, and the way both of them blends with the society like dancing a subtle melody. A melody that is pleasant for some people and not so much for others, but it is a melody that everybody dances.

3. Do you think graffiti art murals are easily accepted as public art? Why or why not? Should it be?

In an urban setting, yes, they are easily accepted. Graffiti started long time ago and it changed into more “artistic”, I mean, the style of their pictures and composition is professional-like. This is a result of “legal” permissions as well before most of them were illegal and the painters had to create them with no light and with the restriction of time because someone could report them. Their acceptance, maybe, depends on the ideals of the citizens as well, if you are more tolerant and empathetic with the problems of people you can understand them, but there are other people, more conservative, who do not approve this kind of “art” since they associate it with crime and vandalism.

I remember when I was in school; students were invited to participate in a contest to paint “murals” in the outside walls of the school. One of my friend’s design won it and we participated in the painting. Obviously, I did not know if it was planned by the teacher to do an activity with the school community and the acceptance of graffiti, but it helped to see its artistic approach.

4. What issue/ ideas/ social connections did the public graffiti art murals express?

As we could see in one of them, the one like a photo, it was full of words appealing social justice, some others represent parts of the culture of Houston like a “funny” Buda, Selena, the University of Houston, for example.

5. What types of cultural experiences did you observe during the Moonscape experience? Why do you think this was created for display in this way?

It was a cultural family-friendly experience since we could see many different people –different ages too- enjoying that experience. Some cultural activities like that one are good to work “inclusion” since it welcomes everybody, there is no limitation. Besides, the company offers a free tour guide, and for children, milk and cookies are served, on October 5, celebrity readers will share the beloved children’s book in the languages of Houston. It is dealing with diversity in a positive way at the price of $0, amazing!

6. Which of the three locations was your favorite? Why?

All the three locations offer something unique, the cathedral offers help and support to the community aside from the religious services; the graffiti and murals offer an artistic “voice” to the ones that want social justice, for example; the Moonscape experience offers a free-open activity to everyone that includes more activities like reading in different languages, dance different music styles, the opportunity to see the stars with a telescope at night,… for free. As I am a teacher and I could see many activities for children with their families, my favorite one in the Moonscape experience because it is a family-friendly experience dealing with diversity in Houston.

This is the official website of Moongarden at Discovery Green with all the activities: https://www.discoverygreen.com/moongarden, maybe you are interested. Enjoy it!

Urban Education - week 5

Reflections

How do the ideas and issues presented in chapter 9 link with ideas and themes from the Fotofest experience?

Both texts, chapter 9 and India curriculum in Fototest, develop innovative ideas to deal with students and their diversity. Both texts highlights the importance of the “history” and the “story”, that is, what people have to tell or communicate to others, what they see and what is familiar to them. Connections what their own experiences are another link, even if they can not speak English fluently they have a tool to express themselves. Moreover, the language development is an important key as well since they talk about developing language, in the chapter 9 we read about immigrants who struggle with English, pictures and visual resources can help them learn more vocabulary and grammar structures. Besides, as I said in the reflection activity for Fotofest experience, pictures give students and teachers new opportunities for communication. This is another link with chapter 9 since many teachers supported the idea of a democratic classroom focused on the previous knowledge and experiences of the students.

Many times, when educators think about the communicative learning of immigrants, they -teachers- have some urgency for technical aspects, which are important, and they -immigrant students- are going to need them a lot, however those educators can forget about some questions: do they have something to say? or are they interested in recognizing what is said to them? Basically, this attitude and motivation to say something or participate is the engine of its integration and learning, too. Both texts -chapter 9 and curriculum- deal with the motivational aspect too.

What are your thoughts regarding  integrating multiple literacies in education (knowledge, skills, and dispositions Included)?

As we read in the chapter, many teachers and educators have a strong idea of literacy as a simple action of coding and decoding: reading and writing. Most of them they miss “meaning” and the purpose of writing. As a dual-language teacher I am in favor with the integration of multiple literacies in education. In my classrooms I give them more time to talk, I invite them to share their experiences, and even to their families through the use of social media, since every one has a different way of seeing and interpreting things. If they share their perspectives everyone will add more value to their learning, and as extension to their lives as well. Including the fact that I promote multilingualism and multiculturalism, maybe it´s part of my origins, I´m from Europe and there we value “diversity”, for us knowing different languages is a plus.

As an educator who cares of the diversity in my classroom I use different tools and resources to teach my students since I understand how important the motivation in the learning process is. If I don´t implement a good method of teaching that covers all my students I won´t be successful neither my students. Of course, I ensure myself that every student understood what they are learning through conversation and dialogs with them, besides of the adaptations to cover their needs.

I like the references to Carroll whose theory of learning-acquisition are linked to Krashen´s theory of learning a second language. Krashen states the need of the comprehensible input to learn a language. A comprehensible input is the language you are exposed to, that is adapted to your level but one step further in difficulty. This challenge will help you develop skills for understanding the language by leaning on the context, situation and your world knowledge, for example. That´s the link with the cognitive model by Carroll whose understanding and assimilation of the input relies on the long-term memory that depends on your motivation, repetition, and other skills.

HISD Multilingual department offer us, teachers and educator, lots of professional development trainings to implement sheltered instruction, accommodations, uses of cognates, content-language integration skills, among many others that help us improve our teaching daily.

For example, in my blog you can find many posts about multilingualism and methods to teach-learn foreign or second languages in your classroom like this one about CLIL method: http://maestrousero.blogspot.com/2017/04/clil-and-goals-multilingual-education.html

What are sims and diffs between urban, rural and suburban education?

The main difference we can find is geography since urban schools are located in cities, suburban schools are located in the outskirts or far neighborhoods of cities or belong to small cities and rural schools that are not placed in cities.

Another difference is the diversity of the students, in urban schools, mainly, the population of students are diverse since in the other types of schools the population is more homogenous.

In relation to the former difference, diversity, urban schools face issues and challenges different from the suburban and rural schools. Urban school educators and staff are or should be prepared to deal with multicultural/multilingual situations, provided with several tools-skills-knowledge to deal with situations.

As a consequence, the rate of family engagement in urban schools, especially those with a majority of immigrant students, is low, compared to the suburban and rural schools.

Another difference: vocational education, despite of the myth of rural schools because of the lack of career opportunities, this type of education is much more likely to be found in urban and suburban schools.

Another difference or similarity, depending on the glass through you can see this issue, students in urban schools live in the city, inside the district area as well as the suburban school students, on the contrary, many rural students do not live near a school. In cities, because of the traffic situation students can struggle to get school on time or sometimes they spend a lot of time on their way.

As similarities we can mention that they share a “common core” standards or curriculum. There are not big differences in the school structure and the roles of the school staff: principal, counselor, nurse, teachers, students, janitors,… Another similarity is the methods, usually teachers teach, although in urban schools teachers should act more like a facilitator or guide, but many current professional practices don´t correspond to their ideal roles.

Another similarity the student-teacher ratio, urban school classrooms are considered to be overcrowded, compared to suburban and rural school classrooms that are shorter in size and number, however the NCES numbers show that they are so similar, the only difference is the size of schools. Rural schools are smaller.

Some similarities are the number of violent crimes in both urban and suburban settings that are so similar, as well as the tax support that are high for rural and urban schools.

What are your thoughts about the arguments in chapter 18?

 I can understand the myths of rural schools and education as a possible “solution” for what´s happening. I think that, as well as we read in other previous chapters, the need of stability persists on the ideal setting of rural schools as the right answer for the issues in urban education. On the other hand, what is happening in urban education is a parallelism to our current world: global connections, and as a loyal reflection of our western societies urban education is going through the same processes and challenges.

  

Concepts used to describe education in 21st century US are multidimentional, complex, intercultural... thoughts?

As I answered in the former question, I agree. Our urban schools reflects what our societies are living and experiencing in a global connected world. Urban schools have students from many different places and countries with their own diversity. This diversity is a challenge not only to urban schools but to our societies and its with education where we start providing answers to issues like speaking different languages, using different tools, adapting new technologies and innovation among many others, and at the same time the administrators are learning as well and trying to provide formation to educators and teachers to how to deal with all these new challenges, their improving the workforce with the tools they have. Many times the situation changes so rapidly that teachers, administrators and policy-makers are not ready to face them and they need more time to embrace everyone and their diversity. Even the beliefs and ideas that the whole society has about them, they need to understand that diversity is something that adds value to their societies, beneficial instead of thinking of the disadvantages as we can hear in our districts about bilingual education programs, that struggle to have native students because their parents still think about the loss of knowledge or language, but not about the future better opportunities for their children´s lives.

The policy of Assimilation, the predominant in the US during the last decades, does not provide space in any academic program or classroom practices of L1, its proposal is the rapid and mandatory learning of the local language in all spaces. Fortunately, US policies changed, and they are investing in other programs in favor of multiculturalism. Another example of change, Europe, which had also shared the idea of ​​Assimilation, changed its attitude in some of its areas. Multiculturalism, which is a way of acquiring the L2 but keeping the L1 (on request and in the first years) in the academic formation, and respecting its use and within the school environment, is seen as an alternative of a fair integration, less dramatic and appropriate for content learning. For example, Sweden considers within its curriculum the teaching of Swedish and the language of origin (this is given on demand, that is, number of students) or that example of Australia or the United Kingdom that have accommodated other languages ​​in education, are examples of the possibility of working an inclusive policy.

The community, the school, the teacher, the teaching method, ethnicity, good results in what is done, etcetera act on our way of thinking (about oneself and others) and react towards the willingness to learn. In a kind of reciprocal relationship, our internal part is transformed according to manifestations from outside, and the outside also perceives my response and feeds it back. For example, if we are not involved - we are taken into account - because we do not know the language, my affective filter goes up, we start to lack motivation and think about the causes of the "discrimination" (Theory of attribution), and these students simply give up their process of learning. On the contrary, if the environment values them, sees them as someone who can contribute, and who cares about the others, then the affective filter is turned off and their attitude changes completely.

Reference:

Castles, Stephen, and Mark J. Miller (2003): The Age of Migration: International Population Movements, in the Modern World, Third edition. New York: Guilford Press.

Urban education reflections - week 4

Last week, the meeting was really interesting because they showed us different ways of dealing with urban education issues. Both of them shared something: activism. I think that this part is very important to make an impact in our societies, professionals with a great heart full of compassion for others, giving them a voice, the most unprotected people in our society: poor, immigrant and refugees. In relation to this point I want to share with you this article:

Pakistani Nobel Laureate Malala visited Mexico, she was invited by the Mexican university to talk about review the importance of education and culture in the development of the society. Malala also referred to the educational issue, stating that "without education we can not move forward" and showing outrage at the treatment of some nations in this basic human right. "I do not understand why some world leaders do not understand yet how important it is to invest in education," said the Pakistani activist. "When you educate a child you give him resources, you help him grow", she concluded.

In recent decades, interpretations of disparities in education have changed from a one-dimensional approach to a multidimensional and interactive one. It is widely observed that the social and cultural differences of the students condition their educational progress and the results they obtain. The OECD report (1995) on students at risk points out seven predictors of low-academically-performance schools that are closely related to social disadvantage: poverty, belonging to an ethnic minority, immigrant families or without adequate housing, ignorance of the majority language, type of school, geographical place in which they live and lack of social support. However, the report states that there is no strict correspondence between social and educational disparities. There are other factors, such as the family, the education system and the school itself that can increase or decrease these inequalities.

Then, according to the Education that was set by the industrial era the educational model created responded to the needs of society. In the industrial era, schools were designed as economic engines to supply professionals to an industrial society, based on production and mass consumption. The educational system assumed the typical values ​​of industrial organization: hierarchy, planning, control and standardization. In essence, students were trained to do what they were told to do. They spent several years memorizing the greatest possible body of knowledge to exploit it later, throughout their professional stage.

There were many attempts to change the ‘industrial’ concept of education but there are many other factors in education that prevent the change. The stability in the school structure, that is the roles of students and teachers, and families of course; others factors of stability are the contents of the curriculum (in 100 years they have not changed) they added some new tools like technology but there are no great changes because they are reinforced by the textbooks and the standardized tests. According to Eisner in his article “Who decides what schools teach?” he analyzed all those factors and they reflected the conservatism and the need of stability that most part of society expects of education.

UNESCO published The fight against exclusion in education that is a guidance for teachers to deal with inclusion and attending diversity in classrooms. There are some important factors that help us understand the inclusive education:

• -          Attention to diversity. Each student is “diverse” and has specific and individual characteristics and needs that are to be attended from an educational perspective. Diversity is understood as the opportunity to learn, as a mutual benefit to all the members of the educational community.
• -          Flexibility: diversity leads us to personalized or individualized learning which focuses on the individual characteristics of the students (their weaknesses and strengths). Their learning must be open and flexible to give them opportunities for learning.
• -          Support: providing the resources and tools that each student needs to learn. The support has to come from the classroom with the students and teachers as well as from the school community with the help of other professionals.
• -          Teachers: their role is like a guide or facilitator of knowledge, opportunities, supporter, bridge between student-family-school, who enhances values like tolerance, respect,…
• -          Participation and collaboration: a pro-active participation of all the members of the community is necessary to be successful in education. It is very important to create a sense of belonging and commitment.

There are more points that help to understand diversity in education, inclusion and its reflection, but I’ve summed up the ones in relation to students’ learning and the roles of teachers since in our task we are asked to answer as “an urban teacher”. I believe in an education that help all the students to be successful as well as the understanding of their families. Nowadays with the use of technology like the digital devices and social media is easier to connect with everyone and call them for participation. As an urban teacher I did it and the results were awesome, indeed the school where I was working before is still working with social media to engage families.

   

    To get a good participation I faced lots of “obstacles”. There are some obstacles coming from the school staff, other teachers and bureaucracy of the district: some of the teachers couldn’t understand how social media could use for engaging families and improving the participation in the school, the administrators were more focused on numbers and they didn’t want to know anything but results, many times the school staff didn’t provide the information so it was difficult to provide exact and precise information.

     

     Other obstacles came from the families, many of them thought about social media like something bad because they were convinced by the news on TV about the risks of social media and its exposure. For some parents, as well as for school staff and administrators, to deliver information through digital devices were not enough, they needed a hard copy of the same information. Most of parents were not familiar with educational apps. To find some solutions I invited them to an open house session where I trained them how to use “Facebook” app for educational purposes and showed them all the possibilities of improvement in communication: easy and fast communication, photos and videos,…

Immigration and Education: one event at Childrenatrisk.org - Houston, TX

Today I attended one conference with a relevant current topics for our urban school communities: Immigration and Education.

https://childrenatrisk.org/event/immigration-and-education-enforcement-and-impact/

Migration represents an important part of human nature. It is a phenomenon that through the years, has adopted very complex ways. Direction of migrations has been determined by the need of adequate resources, tools and places for the development of human beings. However, in further phases, migrations were influenced by territorial expansion and also economic and political interests, which are characteristic of the latest migration movements.

Among the main causes that promote migration both internationally and internally (inside one country) according to the United Nations (2012) are:

• The search for a better life for oneself and one's family;

• Solving disparities between different regions and within the same region;

• The labor (work) and migratory policies of the countries of origin and destination;

• Political conflicts (which promote cross-border migration, as well as movements within the same country);

• The degradation of the environment, including the loss of farmland, forests and grasslands (environmental refugees, for the most part, go to cities instead of migrating abroad);

• The migration of professionals, the most educated young people to fill the gaps in the workforce of industrialized countries.

As can be seen in the causes that promote migration are of economic aspect above all but also, environmental and professional improvement, we could also add that migrations occur as a result of wars, nuclear tests carried out by developed countries ", the elaboration of migratory policies as it is the case of the government of the United States of America.

Recently, the construction of barriers complemented by the use of sophisticated security technologies -of exclusive military use- emerges as the most used migratory control provision ... These barriers serve to satisfy the interests of certain social and political sectors of the North, through the exacerbation of nationalist and chauvinist and xenophobic feelings. Far from stopping migration, the construction of walls on the borders of receiving countries such as the United States and other countries, generates high costs, both material and social, for the populations and communities on both sides, as well as for migrants to travel on new ways that are very dangerous routes.

Immigration and Education

Districts and schools, given their important function, from the educational point of view, are spaces that provide children with the necessary tools and resources for life. Therefore, the districts and particularly the school (and school community) presents a great importance for the development of children at a cognitive and a fully integrated level, which will affect throughout their lives and will depend largely on the strengths and weaknesses, as well as their ideas presented by future those men and women. In this sense, a challenge for education is presented, given the increase in migratory flows and their respective consequences for children who leave their places of origin and for those who remain "alone" as a result of the migration of parents, for such reasons, the role that teachers and educators must play in the care and treatment is very important. 

It´s the responsibility of our society and their educational institutions, as well as those with social services to help to facilitate the "participation of different identities" that is, deal with the multi-diversity (we understood "multi-diversity as the social, economical, linguistic, cultural diversity among others), contributing to its development, for this inter/multicultural education must play a fundamental role from a broad conception of curricular design and development, to ensure that children can best accept diversity on the one hand; On the other hand, teachers must be formed and, consequently, adopt the necessary strategies to cover other types of problems such as school performance, interpersonal relationships, the different learning problems of each child to achieve the most harmonious integration possible.

Teachers are the true agents of transformation and educational change, who can directly and actively interfere in the achievement of an adequate integration of the immigrant population, as well as those children who remain abandoned in places of origin.

Talking about teachers, I was there, at the conference and no many teachers were found in the room. At least two people wanted to share their tips and experiences:

After researching about this topic and that conference, my questions and doubts are:

HISD has a school for newcomers "Las Americas", but what about the rest of schools, do they have resources? are their teachers prepared and formed to deal with diversity? 

There was one surprise, when the presenters asked for teachers in the room, nobody answered. WOW! Do districts and the system consider teachers as relevant tranformational agents of our societies?  Why don´t teachers attend events like this: immigration and education? Knowing that Houston has a high percentage of immigration. We learned that in Houston there are more than 600,000 undocumented immigrants.

Why don´t districts and other educational institution offer more professional development trainings/courses to help teachers understand diversity better and provide them with strategies? 

Do other social and political powers do enough to give answers to this issue: immigration and education? Why don´t they do more partnerships and networking? 

Reflections - week 3 - Urban Education

The assignments are:

1. choose 2 - 3 unique features listed on pages 4 - 8 of ch 1. Reflect on your ideas and issues with these features. What are your personal experiences and implications for urban education in the 21st century. 

2. See pp. 32 - 34, etc. How do the concepts of cultural competence, critical literacy, and critical consciousness connect with ideas and issues in urban education? What are possible practical contexts regarding these ideas? 

3. See the last paragragh on ch 2 - pp 38 and 39. How does this statement link to your thoughts regarding urban education? 

1. The features that I chose are the following: 

- Urban areas and urban schools have a higher rate of ethnic, racial, and religious diversity. 

“The frustration of such teachers and staff members is exacerbated by the perception that few care about the well-being and the success of these students”. 

- Urban schools serve higher immigrant populations

“Along with these voluntary immigrants, urban schools serve students whose ancestors were involuntary immigrants who share a history of discrimination and injustice. Each of these groups experiences problems unique to its background, and urban educators need to understand and know how to address these concerns". 

- Urban schools are characterized by linguistic diversity.

“Because of their large immigrant populations, urban schools have more students speaking different languages." 

I chose these three unique features because they are related to diversity: cultural, socioeconomical, linguistic and others. I found an article “Immigrant Children” by Child Trends.org that is related to this idea of diversity that shows the number of first- and second-generation immigrant children in the United States. This number grew more than the double in less than 20 years. 

“The population of first- and second-generation immigrant children in the United States grew by 51 percent between 1995 and 2014, to 18.7 million, or one-quarter of all U.S. children.” 

Urban school students are unique, it means that every student has a special background (I want to clarify the use of "special", this adjective in this sentence has the meaning of something that is not usual or common, and it does not imply something negative). As for me, diversity is something positive, something that adds more value to what we have since this value lies on the little pieces that form that specific part of our urban society: their language, their culture, their interaction with others. Putting all these ingredients together they are creating a new “culture” with different things. 

On page 9 we can read the last paragraph about the “context of hope”, giving a new “label” to those students “at risk”: “of resilience”. There is a positive approach that tries to formulate programs that focus on their strengths instead of their deficits. Besides, urban teachers can work to connect students to unique urban resources such as museums and other sociocultural spaces in the city that can be part of the learning resources to improve the lives of poor urban students. 

One of our classmates once shared an article about the formation of teachers dealing with diversity. Are they really prepared to face diversity in schools? According to the most recent studies, white teachers are predominant in our classrooms… 

What kind of teachers are necessary for an inclusive society in the 21st century urban school? 

What are the essential skills or knowledge of an urban school teacher in inclusive education? 

What values ​​and areas of competence should be developed within their professional development? 

Although inclusion can be promoted by public authorities through legal prescription, it is the teachers' attitudes, perceptions and practices that respond to the needs of their students, the essential dimensions to determine the success of inclusion in their classes in urban schools. 

But if we ask an urban teacher about all the work that they have to do is the same: long hours working on papers, lack of resources, lack of support by the educational institutions, lack of participation in the school community, among other answers. Despite all that, in general, urban educators have a positive thinking about school inclusion. 

Consequently, a thorough analysis of the educational practices themselves is necessary. Knowing that some factors are effectively outside the scope of the urban school teacher such as poor materials or lack of them, large classes..., however many others are found in the organization of urban school classrooms: decontextualized curriculum, poorly prepared lessons, use of a very scientific language, prejudices… 

Changing the perspective, if we work on the gap between the reality and the “ideal” expectations, that is, with the characteristics of the reality that the school intends to prepare the students and the one that actually expects. For Ainscow, it is about recognizing existing practices and knowledge as starting points for a process that considers differences as opportunities for the overall improvement of education, which will benefit the whole school community. 

By analyzing those practices, a good urban school can identify and share good practices, identify the barriers to the participation and learning of some students, and reflect on all this and search for solutions. 

Therefore, it is necessary to recognize the teachers´ mindset about the school and inclusion of diversity, identify the different forms of relationship established by teachers with multi-diverse children, and review teachers' attitudes towards those children. The ideas and beliefs that the teacher has in relation to those “multi-diverse” students will be reflected in the attitude that evidences their classroom management and teaching work. In this way, the role of teachers in the urban school setting is seen as essential in this process. The personalized attention, the permanent support, the motivation that is offered to the child and the challenging activities are indispensable to foster a positive self-esteem and the achievement of learning by those students. 

After that we can identify three basic elements that good teachers have, in urban schools: 

- Behaviors and values. 

- Knowledge and understanding. 

- Skills and abilities 

This approach is based by Ryan´s idea of “multidimensional traits” (2009), but especially in Shulman (2007), which describes professional learning as a learning of: 

The head (knowledge), The hands (skills or practices), and the heart (behaviors and beliefs). 

http://meridianschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/infographic-HeadHandHeart.gif

According to these criteria, the professional development of urban school teachers should include: 

- Continuous formation and innovations in pedagogy: Variety of methods and resources, new ways and formulas of evaluation. The curriculum is not ended or limited to the classroom setting, but extended to the whole community and neighborhood. Flexibility in programming. 

- Education in values: Ethical principle of research and work in the classroom that improve inclusion processes and procedures 

- Technology as a support of family-school relationships: improvement of the communication with students´ families. Democratic school: take into account the interests and opinions of students and their families. 

- Proactive attitude: Be involved in school management, problem-solution skills. 

- Facilitator: Promote autonomous student work. Teamwork: Cooperation and disciplinary integration 

- Learning opportunities seeker: Create situations in which students can not escape without learning and develop cooperative work environments. Significant learning: Use knowledge as motivation, not as a goal 

If they can receive this kind of formation, the urban schools can: 

- Improve teacher education systems, 

- Ensure the quality of teacher educators 

- Improve the skills of teacher educators 

- Promote professional values ​​and behaviors 

- Improve the quality and quantity of continuous professional development 

By doing so, we will be able to find a different profile of urban school teachers such as: 

- Social change agent: It assumes and defends the need for educational and social change. 

- Critical professional. 

- Solidarity and cooperative: Expert in energizing groups and teamwork. 

-Initiative and voluntariness. 

- Good communicator (Confidence, reliability, respect, tolerance). 

- Academically well-formed and updated. 

- Dedication. 

Future Urban school teachers must understand the complexity of teaching and learning in urban schools and the multiple factors that affect them. They must recognize that they should not be passive consumers of a defined curricular content. In a way, these ideas seem very simple, but they imply a powerful and complex message for all the people involved in the educational endeavor of urban schools. Teaching can not be reduced to a list of demonstrable skills or knowledge that can be acquired through “standardized” tests. 

References: 

Ainscow, M. (2013) From exclusion to inclusion: ways of responding in schools to students with special educational needs. CfBT Education Trust. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED546818.pdf

Crosnoe, R. (2013) Preparing the Children of Immigrants for Early Academic Success. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Retrieved from https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/preparing-children-immigrants-early-academic-success

Ainscow, M. & West, M. (eds) (2006) Improving urban schools: leadership and collaboration. Buckingham: Open University Press

Soojin, S.O., North, C. (2011) Immigration, Youth, and Education. Harvard Educational Review. Retrieved from http://hepg.org/her-home/issues/harvard-educational-review-volume-81-number-3/herarticle/editors%E2%80%99-introduction_826

Schaffer, Connie, "Urban immersion: Working to dispel the myths of urban schools and preparing teachers to work with diverse and economically disadvantaged students" (2012). Teacher Education Faculty Publications. 69. https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/tedfacpub/69

Ahram, R., Stembridge, A., Fergus, E., Noguera, P. (2016) Framing Urban School Challenges: The Problem when Implementing Response to Intervention. RtI Action Network. Retrieved from http://www.rtinetwork.org/learn/diversity/urban-school-challenges