Just From Experience
In my first post, I mentioned that the most predominant obstacles blocking the path to quality education, with the environment surround the school a close second. I think it would make more sense to say that they go hand in hand to create the best education that can be offer to students of all ages.
Before I begin, I just want to say this post will be my personal experience with the school system, how each school I’d attend differ from one another despite being within the same city. I will be reflecting on these experiences as objectively as possible without much biased.
I went to three different elementary schools, though I will only be talking about two of them. I attended P.S. 149 from first through third grade. The school was located in a highly Hispanic populated area. Being one of the few Asians, and despite being young, I felt somewhat out of place. I still had very good friends but it was a bilingual school. I could never pick up any Spanish in the three years I attended and my education was stunted to a degree as I felt demoralized. But school work aside, thinking back now, the school offered quite a lot of afterschool programs as well as some in the mornings. There was an entire afterschool program called “Beacon” which encompassed quite a few activities. From tutoring students, to group activities, to movie nights, this program required extensive resources and required a lot of teachers willing to stay as it was available for all grades. My grades were still terrible, but at least it was a fun experience while attending the school as they had enjoyable programs for students to participate in.
Fourth and Fifth grade I spent at P.S. 213. The area the school was in was very nice, a lot less buildings, being predominantly houses. There was a lot more trees and greenery which made me feel a sense of bliss at the time. Before even attending school, I already liked the area much better due to the environment. It may sound biased, but I felt as if my grades went up due to the friends I made while attending. While the education I got was clearly superior to my first school, this school clearly lacked money. The amount of afterschool programs was very limited. The school had something called “Elective courses” where we get to from classes such as baking, robotics, calligraphy and etc. My second and final year at the school, the program was cut. Music class was also discontinued as the teacher had to be a homeroom teacher.
My experiences led me to conclude that while funding is very essential to students getting an quality education, the environment near or of the school rightfully deserves to be acknowledged as an important factor. The neighborhood of the school dictates the kids that will be attending the same school as you, and I firmly believe that if your peers are hard working, you will be influenced and have similar mindsets. While these are very vague accounts of my experience, each school had had something the other school lacked. If P.S.213 had more funding, on top of a better education, students could had more options to choose from to spend their time after school instead of going home. The chance to have both a quality classroom experience and multitude of extra curricular to choose from a young age, is what I believe, to be the most important factor when motivating and progressing a child’s education.
Of course the funding schools get ultimately is the deciding factor, as the more funds they receive the more resources they have to be able to spend on teachers and programs alike. A snowball effect can happen with more funding. It leads to a better school, which can lead to the neighborhood property value to go up, leading the area to have more higher income family. While it may sound cheesy, money really is the solution in our materialistic world.
