Sunday, January 1, 2017
Marita's Bargain: Cultural Legacy & Success
In the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, he focuses on why some people succeed more than others do. This chapter is mainly focused on tying in all the elements of success, hard work, opportunities, and talent. Gladwell reiterates the importance of cultural legacy and how it can change lives drastically. He mentions KIPP, a public school in New York that is mainly focused on academics and achievements. The school is known for helping students from low-income families become successful. Students who attend KIPP attend school from 7:25 am to 7:00 pm on weekdays and from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm on Saturdays. The students get a lot of attention from their teachers and the discipline academic codes ensure that their students become successful. The students at KIPP get a head start to achieve something in their lives despite 80% of them coming from poor homes. Gladwell notes that there is a gap between children from wealthy families and kids from poorer families; this gap was only after the summer vacation. This means that while the rich kids strengthen their academic skills during the summer, the poorer kids relapsed. I feel that it isn’t fair how the smarter kids come from wealthy families. They are only educated better because their parents have money to enroll them into programs and extra help and high and mighty private schools with fancy classrooms. Kids from the city who have no choice but to go to public school don’t have the same advantage as the wealthy kids. It’s a sad truth that will be persisted throughout the lives of kids with low-income families. Schools like KIPP are trying to make an effort to help these kids succeed with extended hours and programs. Even in high school, income plays a large factor in which college a student goes to. Wealthier kids can go to prestigious colleges while some kids have no choice but to go to a college they can afford because sometimes the scholarships they might get aren’t enough. Some kids have the potential to be something great or even an outlier but they just aren’t available to opportunities that can help them get there.
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I agree with you, Ameera. It's sad to know that kids from wealthy families have more of an advantage over low-income students due to the programs and resources that their parents could give them have access to. I praise schools like KIPP, because they strive to enhance the skills of those who are not as advantageous, and allow them to achieve success academically and intellectually. I hope that more schools being to focus on the success of low-income students and offer them opportunities to achieve something great and become outliers of their own.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that it is unfair that students of lower income families are placed at a huge disadvantage than those who are of higher income families. Reading about the KIPP school also reminded me a lot of what our school dynamic is like. Our school gives us a ton of opportunities and programs that allow us to raise even higher in the ranks and be able to actually compete with kids who are in private schools and fancy classrooms. These types of school are exactly what we need in inner city school that receive less than private schools.
ReplyDeleteI agree as well and I think that some low income families have become conformed to the idea of being unsuccessful. Many of the times these families come from places where they were always denied the access to an education, therefore, when they are told about different opportunities they don't have the self assurance and confidence of achieving anything. And I agree with Samantha that our school is great for giving us the opportunities that they do to help us be successful.
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