Thank you for sharing your story. I am not from your class background, but the year I spent teaching working class kids in my hometown high school opened my eyes to the working class experience. I taught the cruelly-misnamed "College Prep" classes (only 9/39 actually went on to college, some were semi-literate) while the kids of my fello…
I am not from your class background, but the year I spent teaching working class kids in my hometown high school opened my eyes to the working class experience. I taught the cruelly-misnamed "College Prep" classes (only 9/39 actually went on to college, some were semi-literate) while the kids of my fellow professionals contended with higher order ideas in Honors down the hall. One of my students is now homeless, another committed suicide, the sharpest mind works at a gas station, and the only one who attended a private, four-year school is now a single mother on disability with $40,000 in college debt left to pay off. There is no neat political approach that would fix all these problems. There is no pro or anti-government fix. What's lacking first and foremost is empathy, which begins with seeing. My former students and their families are invisible here.
Thank you for sharing your story.
I am not from your class background, but the year I spent teaching working class kids in my hometown high school opened my eyes to the working class experience. I taught the cruelly-misnamed "College Prep" classes (only 9/39 actually went on to college, some were semi-literate) while the kids of my fellow professionals contended with higher order ideas in Honors down the hall. One of my students is now homeless, another committed suicide, the sharpest mind works at a gas station, and the only one who attended a private, four-year school is now a single mother on disability with $40,000 in college debt left to pay off. There is no neat political approach that would fix all these problems. There is no pro or anti-government fix. What's lacking first and foremost is empathy, which begins with seeing. My former students and their families are invisible here.