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“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” — William Butler Yeats
Q: How does discipline and setting boundaries figure in?
Dalida: Teachers and administrators need to use their power and strictness for good. This doesn't mean letting students walk all over you, but if they combine strictness with some compassion, we'd have a much better relationship. In order for you to run anything, I know, there are times when you have to put your foot down, but when you do it with feeling, you get better results.
Alberto: We need more administrators who, when you explain you are late or something, say, “Alright, just don't do it again,” and then help you work out the problem or circumstances for why you were late. But for this to work, you have to have a close relationship, you have to know what the student is going through so that you can tell if they're lying. I have that kind of relationship with one of the administrators here. When I'm wrong, I don't lie to him—I tell him the truth and I own up to my mistakes.
Q. Anything more?
Shane: I talked with the Commissioner of Education about teachers needing to have a relationship with their students beyond the classroom. It makes a lot of difference, because if you know this teacher as a person, as a friend, then also as a teacher—it's not them and us anymore, it's a partnership, working towards our future. If students knew when they woke up in the morning that they were going to a school where their opinions affected how the school ran, how their teachers acted towards them, and that what they had to say really mattered in what changes were made in the school—they would really come. It wouldn't just be an education that processes them, but one that they could affect and shape to everyone's benefit.
Dalida: There's one teacher that I always say hi to in the hall and who always says hi back. I don't even have him in class, I just learned his name from another kid—if we had more teachers that greeted us every morning when we walked into school, then this would be a much better place to be.
Alberto: I have a teacher that knows a lot of what I'm going through—I'll see her and she'll always ask if I'm alright, or if there's anything she could do for me. She'll put me inside the room, sit me in the back, so that I can do my work and not be distracted. If I'm not paying attention or talking to somebody, she'll have me read something for the class—she shows that she cares. She asks me how I'm doing again as I leave each day.
What kids want is for someone to care for them and about them, especially for kids who don't have anyone to care for them. Myself, for example—I don't have anybody. All I have is my aunt and she already takes care of her two kids. So I just take care of myself. The only person who ever took care of me was my ex-girl. She's the only one that calls me in the morning to make sure I'm awake.
Shane: In a school, everyone is really affected by the leadership. It makes a big difference how boundaries are set and used. They can stop people from learning and teaching more effectively or do the opposite. Too often, people don't want to change a boundary, even if it's doing no good, because they are afraid of losing power
Alberto: Respect has to come from the person, not the position. And the best kind of respect doesn't comes when you're scared of someone, but when you respect them for being a good person.
Q: What impact does it have on you to go to a school that's had a negative reputation?
Shane: The reputation of the school impacts you a lot, because a lot of what goes along with the school is automatically attached to you. It's like a partnership. So, when people ask me, “What school do you go to?” and I say, “Central,” they're like, “Oh yeah—a Central student.” They characterize me—like maybe I'm a troublemaker, or that I fit the reputation that our school had prior to now. As they get to know me, as they talk to me more, I tell them about the kind of things I'm into and the kind of grades I'm pulling, and they say, “Well, maybe you should be in Classical.”
That's the biggest thing, the way people always compare Central to Classical. The schools almost touch. You can hang in the plaza between the schools and see the students mixing. But when the bell rings, we enter separate worlds.
Alberto: We're divided by more than a sidewalk. Just because Classical students pass the big test and get into the “smart” school and keep their nose in the books, it doesn't mean that the students at Central aren't smart too. Our lives are different, you know. They may grow up in a one-family house, all family there. We might live in a single-parent house, or no-parent house, or in a family that's not doing good. So our minds may not be in the book as much as theirs are. But that doesn't mean that we don't have the potential, that given half the chance, we'd be just as smart, or that we aren't smart in other ways.
Chantra: When I applied for a job in the library, I went for an interview and it was going well. Then my friend at Classical, she found out about it at the last minute and she went there to apply. She got the job, and I didn't. I'd been calling all the time, and she only called one time-but she's from Classical, you know. After that I kept asking, “Why didn't I get in?” Because I'm from Central, probably.
Alberto: Another thing. I don't think colleges should put the reputation of the school first. They should look at the students, not the school. They see a student that has straight A's here and a student with B's and C's from the “smart” school—and they pick them over us. If our records show that we never got suspended, never got into a fight, that we've been on the honor roll four years in a row, but they've been in trouble and gotten lower grades, why should the fact that they come from a “better” school give them an advantage? It should be the other way around, if you ask me.
Q: So you have all had that moment where someone asks you where you go to school, and you say, “Central”...
Alberto: And their eyes just light up like Christmas.
Chantra: When it comes to someone your own age, or a student, I don't mind telling them that I go to Central. But if it's an adult, you get embarrassed. With a lot of students, it's like, “Aw—that doesn't matter to me.” With adults, I feel like I'm stupid, or they'll think I'm stupid.
Dalida: It's just bad because our reputation was based on “back then.” Maybe the school was bad back then—but it's changing now. We're becoming smarter, our test scores are going up. They've gotta look at that fact.
Central High School | 70 Fricker St., Providence, RI 02903 | 401.456.9111
Copyright © 2005 |
Yessenia: Hearing other people put down your school puts you down too. It makes you feel low.