When I was a young professor, I quickly realized that historically privileged groups would as for exception, but this was not true for the underprivileged. The clearest example is not from my classroom, but a large science lecture. Outside the final, a faculty member, not the lecturer, found one of his students, an immigrant, looking distressed. Her brother had died the night before, and she had come to the final with her sister to support the sister as she took the final. Neither had considered askig for an exception.
Since many, many students donāt feel entitled, I always spell out clear procedures for asking for exceptions. In truth, I hate exceptions because they are commonly abused by some entitled kids, but I do see them as necessary.
Can someone from that background explain why, precisely, itās felt one couldnāt āask an authorityā for an exception (again, done nicely, respectfully and so forth)? WHY is that apparently a ālower SESā norm?
donāt think itās āentitlementā to ask nicely if an exception can be made in a given circumstance and accept the response graciously. The worst that happens is someone says no. Itās only entitlement if itās assumed or demanded.
If thatās an upper middle class norm that needs to be taught, then so be it.
Find it amazing how so much time on here is spent on finding a good āfitā, but when a kid is thrown into a world they have never had any experience with, they are just suppose to suck it up.
So what solutions would you propose @laralei? I like Contrerasās approach of starting groups on campus that provide a common starting point for students who may be struggling with a new environment.
Pg, Iāll take a stab. As a Hispanic whose parents went only to sixth (dad) and eighth (mom) grades, I saw how my parents often didnāt ask for things that would seem like no big deal to others and/or do things because of poor experiences with authority. The most obvious example is not teaching their kids Spanish. They were yelled at by authorities and punished in school for speaking Spanish, and they didnāt want their kids to experience that. My parents tried like hell to make me right-handed because they didnāt want me to be ādifferentā in any way.
When the girl in the video said that she didnāt want to be too much trouble for her profs, I totally got it. I can remember being put in positions with which I had no experience and not knowing what to do or who to ask for help. In my case, this wasnāt so much in college but situations that I would encounter during my first professional job while still in college. One quick example: I had just turned 20 when, because of weather, my employer put me up in the fanciest hotel I had ever been in as the roads were too dangerous for travel. In fact, Iād only ever stayed in a motel. This hotel was a boutique kind of place with plush robes and a radiator I didnāt know how to turn on. I had no idea that I could call the front desk and ask for help. And even if I did, Iām not sure I would have because I didnāt want to look stupid. I changed into the robe and froze my ass off that night.
I donāt think that ānot asking for thingsā is a function of background at all, and it may be more cultural than anything. My D had a suite mate who was a Questbridge scholarā¦this girl felt comfortable asking for anything. Sheād borrow everyone elseās clothes, makeup, accessoriesā¦sheād literally go āshoppingā in my Dās closet and ask her if she could have this or that if she wasnāt wearing it anymore. All of the girls were accommodating, but it got to a point that she would ask to wear things my D hadnāt even worn yet, and D had to start saying no.
On the other hand, my own privileged kids loathe to ask to anything from anyone, and weāve had to stress the importance of standing up for oneās self and asking for what is reasonableā¦Iām happy to see them stand up for themselves.
@Pizzagirl what you fail to realize is that from a cultural perspective, such things, while considered by segments of society to be just assertive and the norm, in other cultures, are considered to presumptuous and failing to recognize both authority and eldersā¦different strokes.
Also, when whole generations have never has access to existing paradigms of power and autonomy, these type of seemingly ordinary, at least from your obvious perspective, are not only foreign, but also diametrically opposed to some cultural practices and didactics.
I had forgotten about the exemptions. Whether it is a cultural or SES phenomenon, I saw that too, in college. The better off and more privileged felt freer to ask for extensions or special treatment. It was a new concept to me that you could ask a professor for more time on a paper.
"If thatās an upper middle class norm that needs to be taught, then so be it.
Find it amazing how so much time on here is spent on finding a good āfitā, but when a kid is thrown into a world they have never had any experience with, they are just suppose to suck it up."
Except thatās not what I said. I didnāt say they should suck it up. I said the upper class cultural norm of asking for exceptions if relevant should be taught.
I fail to see the difference between accepting a scholarship at an elite pre prep school and financial aid at college. The student will be among peers that value a quality education.
A bright student from a poor family, given the chance to attend college, may later do nothing explicitly charitable. But if s/he succeeds in some sort of innovative business or such, the benefits of such are often shared by the rest of society. For example, would you have iPhones available to buy if all of the San Jose State alumni from poor families working at Apple did not go to college at all because there were no affordable colleges for them to attend?
Also, if that student is now earning a high income, s/he will be paying a lot more in various taxes and spending a lot more money into the economy than if she never went to college at all, working in a lower pay job (or worse, putting his/her talents to use in criminal pursuits and later costing taxpayers a huge amount in police, court, and prison costs).
Members of the lower classes are typically socialized to be deferential to authority. Think of routine, non-creative jobs that require little independent judgement, but where obedience to either a higher ranking employee and/or a set of rules to follow is required. Compare to typical jobs held by members of the upper classes, where there is a high level of discretion involved in doing the job, and where one often is the authority figure whom others obey and defer to. Rules in such jobs are often just guidelines, and exceptions are common.
Outside of work, there may be differing interactions with authority figures between the lower class and upper class. For example, consider what people think of police. Law abiding upper class people might ask the police for help in various matters relevant to police (lost dog running around the neighborhood, etc.). Law abiding lower class people might want to avoid any contact with the police, since they may know people who attracted the wrong kind of police attention even though they were not breaking the law.
^^There is a big difference. First, my kids could go to a school for free (public school) or a low priced catholic school. At either other school, they wouldnāt be the poorest or the only students who couldnāt afford ballet or horseback riding, who didnāt belong to a private swim club, who didnāt have a grandfather who was President - of the UNITED STATES! (yes, she flew a group of kids to her birthday party at the White House). I actually discussed the ākeeping up with the Joneseā with the admissions director and she admitted that it was an issue. She said they did everything they could to make things equal at school but there just wasnāt anything they could do to prevent the social inequity. I understood. We had other options I was happy with and I just thought this social inequity was too high of a price to pay.
Iām not sure it is different from accepting a full need based scholarship in college, except that I believe almost all schools have more of a range of incomes represented, not a few full scholarship students and 95% full pay.
It was a personal choice. And my kids qualified for NO need based financial aid at first in college (thus putting them in the āno beer moneyā but full pay group of students). Changed circumstances.
This reminds me of this: A friend of mine once told me that he believes there are many things in the world that are not easily taught; each individual needs to experience it in his/her own life, sometimes through painful experiences before he or she can really learn it.
I notice my own child hesitates to ask for help unless absolutely needed, just like us. I am not sure if it was because of us (i.e., behavior inheritance.) I think we have not tried to pass too much of our ācultural heritageā to him. (e.g., he could not read or write the language of our first language. I actually do not think he could speak it very well (he definitely can speak some because he has always been very close to his mother and he has never been a kid raised by the daycare.)
Now we live in California and notice that many families raise their kids differently in this area. Many of them would send their young offsprings to ālanguageā schools in their preschool age. (We took our kid to the public library to listen to stories for preschoolers, to learn spoken English so that he would not be too ābehindā when he started elementary school.) Maybe it was because we have not lived in big cities on either coast till now?
I think the last president who had grandchildren while holding office was George H.W. Bush who ended his term in 1993, which is 22 years ago. So how did your 2 children who started college last year attend school with his grandchildren? They would not have been born during his tenure as president.
There is a huge difference between full-pay and 1%ers. In my experience 8-year-oldās donāt notice the differences in SES , donāt care, or their parents have taught them some truth about life.
But I do see more SES groups in college. I think itās due to early education and experiences.