DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Ernest Rodriguez' "Impressions," 1960s-1980s | Talk given to the Davenport School Board by John Terronez Page 1

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Ernest Rodriguez' "Impressions," 1960s-1980s

Talk given to the Davenport School Board by John Terronez Page 1

Delivered to the Davenport School Board at an in service meeting by John Telling in my stead Ernest Rodriguez

I want to thank you for this opportunity to be heard and I hope I can contribute some understanding of the problems of our school children in order to close the educational gap between minority children and majority children. I think you will appreciate the fact that I believe so strongly in education that I have taken off work along with my friends to give you what I believe will be an education in human relations. I want to impress upon you the fact that in future programming of our educational system to remember that our American society is not a monolithic society, it is a multi cultural society, it is not a classless society even though we enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, there are economical and cultural class distinctions. You must consider the special problems that these social distinctions pose in the class room and gear teaching methods to meet the particular needs of culturally disadvantaged school children. In order to have equality in education we have to start on a basis of inequality in favor of disadvantaged children. What good is it if you give a child a quart of education when his capacity for leaning is limited to a pint because of his cultural difference disadvantage or a language barrier, in this case Spanish speaking children. If a child is to get his full measure of education you have to remove the obstacle that restrict him from utilizing the full potential of his learning ability. Children of minority groups are victims of discriminatory middle class thinking which has set our social patterns, shaped our educational system, and based scholastic achievement on middle class educational experiences. It is just such a

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Delivered to the Davenport School Board at an in service meeting by John Telling in my stead Ernest Rodriguez I want to thank you for this opportunity to be heard and I hope I can contribute some understanding of the problems of our school children in order to close the educational gap between minority children and majority children. I think you will appreciate the fact that I believe so strongly in education that I have taken off work along with my friends to give you what I believe will be an education in human relations. I want to impress upon you the fact that in future programming of our educational system to remember that our American society is not a monolithic society, it is a multi cultural society, it is not a classless society even though we enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, there are economical and cultural class distinctions. You must consider the special problems that these social distinctions pose in the class room and gear teaching methods to meet the particular needs of culturally disadvantaged school children. In order to have equality in education we have to start on a basis of inequality in favor of disadvantaged children. What good is it if you give a child a quart of education when his capacity for leaning is limited to a pint because of his cultural difference disadvantage or a language barrier, in this case Spanish speaking children. If a child is to get his full measure of education you have to remove the obstacle that restrict him from utilizing the full potential of his learning ability. Children of minority groups are victims of discriminatory middle class thinking which has set our social patterns, shaped our educational system, and based scholastic achievement on middle class educational experiences. It is just such a