Monday, March 24, 2014

Our Differences Become Deficits

I hear this at least once a week.

"She tries really hard but just doesn't have family support."
"Our XYZ students struggle because so many come from broken homes."
"There's not much you can do when he doesn't have a father at home."

When I was growing up I had many Uncles and Aunties. This Uncle was my dad's friend and this Auntie was really my mom's cousin and I'm not really sure how we knew that Auntie. Some of them were brothers and sisters of my parents. Some were cousins. Some were my parents' friends who were adults. All of them were family.

In the United States, when we think of family, we think of a father, a mother, and 2.5 kids.

When we look at our students, we see a missing father and think this kid doesn't have a family. We think a house with aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents is a sign of poverty. We look down on a mom with eight children and pity her assumed lack of education. We discount the woman who has taken care of all of the neighborhood kids.

Shift your lens for a moment. Imagine we valued an expanded view of family. The old woman who brings over food. The household full of noise and life and love. The neighbor who picks up all of the kids from school. Everyone becomes family. Now who has the deficit? The girl in this household who lacks a father but has the entire community? Or the boy with one sister, two parents, and doesn't know his neighbors?

We assign deficit to our students. There will always be a gap when we allow the ideal to be constructed using dominant norms.

Yes. The systems that imprison and deport the parents of our students need to be dismantled. I agree. But we make the problem worse.

That perceived deficit ends up having real-world consequences. We assume our student is misbehaving because he doesn't have a mother so we ignore it. We never call home because there's no father to call. We accept low scores because his mom has to work and isn't around to help.

We do nothing. We lower our expectations. We don't teach. Our students don't learn. A gap is created. It's not because your student doesn't have a father. It's because we missed the family he does have. To us, it just didn't look like family.

This doesn't stop with just schools and teachers. Invoking Patricia Hill-Collins, we can look at how transfer of wealth, loans, and taxation operate on an ideal of family that is centered on the dominant norm. We can look at our country built around freeways and the conveyances that fit a 2-partner, 2.5-child family so nicely. We can look at who can be a dependent on our health care and can visit us in prisons and hospitals. Even now, folks are becoming less comfortable with deporting a mother but are still fine with deporting the aunt who is the primary wage-earner in the household. Benefits accrue over time for those who fit the dominant norm of family, the system perpetuates itself, and gaps get wider. These systems stretch across our society yet are completely invisible.

We make the mistake of thinking we see deficits when we're really seeing differences. It is our obligation as teachers to de-center ourselves and see the strengths that are already in our students and our communities. Until this happens, we are part of the problem.

4 comments:

  1. This is exactly right. It's high time we recognize the patriarchy and privilege under which our notions of "normal" were formed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes. I agree, and I always appreciate the reminder. However, you seem to focus on the positive impact that a community can have in raising children.

    "Shift your lens for a moment. Imagine we valued an expanded view of family. The old woman who brings over food. The household full of noise and life and love. The neighbor who picks up all of the kids from school. Everyone becomes family. Now who has the deficit? The girl in this household who lacks a father but has the entire community? Or the boy with one sister, two parents, and doesn't know his neighbors?"

    I agree and believe that there was great (and largely forgotten) wisdom in the adage that "it takes a village to raise a child." Of course, that is when my natural tenancy to play the devil's advocate kicks in. If the belief becomes that students with strong community are the ones with a strong upbringing, then the deficit shifts to the students with no community support. That is probably accurate, but it still would leave us to think of some students as disadvantaged while others are not.

    Would it be better to simply ignore the home life of our students and treat them the same, even though we know full well that they are not?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think it's a question of stronger/better but rather of different. Ignoring isn't the answer but rather it's the opposite. Once you commit yourself to understanding the full picture of your student's lives, it is impossible to see any of your students as having a deficit. This TED talk on the danger of a single story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gets at this very well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg

      Delete
    2. Jason, I was going to reply similarly to you.

      It's definitely more of the issue that we just simply can't know based on the setup of the student's family.

      I have students with one parent who had a wonderfully supportive home environment, and students with very dysfunctional "nuclear" families. I have also had students that fit the deficit stereotype. My point is, you can't make a call on the level of support the student receives without getting to know your student's family more.

      Delete