The Role of Community in My Vision of Urban Education and Schools by Adam Rivera

adamsamrivera — 2013-02-08 10:12:09 UTC

I think that community plays an important role in the education system, but when it comes to urban education the community ties become vital. In my own educational history, I was raised by my family, my school, and my church, so I do believe that the entire community has a role to play when it comes to the development of a learner.

adamsamrivera — 2013-02-08 10:12:41 UTC

Over this past Christmas break, I actually saw a movie about the "real Christmas story of Santa Claus". Now don't laugh or roll your eyes, but the reason that I use this example is because the way that he was raised and encouraged. His parents and newborn sister had died in a winter storm on Christmas and he was left in the care of the village. All the members of the village spent the next few years doing their best to raise him, but due to poverty he was shuffled around until he was finally taken in by a peddler that lived nearby. The reason that I use this example is because I believe that the few years he had in the village are iconic of what happens when a community can support the youth in their lives. The people of Santa Claus's village had done much to make him feel accepted, even to the point where he saw many of them as family, and I think that says something drastic about the way that community can make those without the benefit of blood-relations to feel just as accepted to those in their lives.

adamsamrivera — 2013-02-08 10:13:15 UTC

One thing that I loved about my time working at The West Bridgford School in Nottingham, UK was the fact that we weren't plugged in by the school, we were plugged in through a community involvement program. If it isn't apparent by this revelation, then realize that I believe that the ideal role of the community in education should be a form of cooperation that can build off of each other. In a school with resources, there may be school programs where students can turn towards when they need assistance, but I think that some of the ease that resources can bring to the forefront can be easily lost in urban education environment. High Population and Low Funding in environments can cause the education side of things to be the main, or more likely only, emphasis (especially when one considers the way that standardized testing has been emphasized by corporations such as Pearson), and it falls on the community to take over from there.

adamsamrivera — 2013-02-08 10:13:38 UTC

If the community steps up when a school is unable to, then that's a great thing. Parental, Family, and community involvement can do so much on a personal level for these students. So many people think that students need to be producers of school work and be turned into information-processing-and-contributing machines in order for them to be successful academically, but I think that a real teacher realizes that in order for them to be more than academically successful, and to become successful in life takes much more than what we can do alone.

adamsamrivera — 2013-02-08 10:14:24 UTC

That's not to say that we need to separate the work between schools and the community, in fact we need to work together. There's so much out there that tells the tale of schools improving because of an increase in involvement, but we have to build up both sides of the equation. Teachers need to be beacons in the classroom, and the community needs to be the support. Without a teacher there may still be a strong foundation, and without a community, there's potential of a strong structure if the foundation can support it. Together, a Teacher and a Community can go great things in the lives of a student.

adamsamrivera — 2013-02-08 10:14:52 UTC

While I see myself as a success story of Chicago's Urban Education programs, I'm not naïve enough to believe that all stories are like mine: successful. But I have the hope that they can be, and I have the belief that I will help it in that direction. I am also not naïve enough to believe that I can simply do what was done for me in school. I graduated Elementary School in 2003 and High School in 2007. With the amount of technology that Urban students have at their finger tips, now in 2013, or at the very least in their nearest library, compared to six years ago, there's no way that I could expect to claim a class of students and isolate myself from the world. Because while local communities are such a big part of Urban Education, the teacher communities within them need to stay on top of their game as well. I'm not saying that Rural teachers need not change with the times, I'm simply acknowledging that the evolution of knowledge and technology is something that we need to be aware of and keep up with if we really want to excel.

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