Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [107]
INTERVENING IN SCHOOL: EARLY AND OFTEN
Unlike working-class and poor parents, who may, for example, stand their ground with the landlord but silently accept the pronouncements of a classroom teacher, Ms. Marshall takes the same quiet yet assertive approach with all representatives of the many institutions and organizations that affect her daughters’ lives. For example, the school Stacey and Fern attend has a gifted-and-talented program that draws an elite group of students and provides them with an enriched, challenging curriculum. Ms. Marshall viewed her daughters’ inclusion in the program as a clear advantage; thus, when the girls just missed the IQ score cutoff (Stacey’s score of 128 was 2 points shy of the 130 needed), their mother took prompt action.5 Using informal advice from educators in the school, tips from friends in other districts, the family’s substantial economic resources, and her own vast supply of determination, Ms. Marshall learned the guidelines for appealing a decision and followed them. She arranged to have her daughters tested privately (to the tune of $200 per child) and was able to get both girls admitted to the program.
Much as getting Stacey enrolled in the private gymnastics class was only the first in a long series of interventions, so too with the gifted-and-talented program. Ms. Marshall remained in close contact with the consultant for the program, overseeing the selection of teachers for her children and complaining when the math teacher did not inform her (per the policy of the gifted program) of a looming “C” in math. In addition, she consistently drew educators’ attention to her daughter’s slow, careful, and methodical learning style. These habits often resulted in Stacey not finishing all of the work assigned in the time allotted (e.g., she might finish only about half of the math problems on an exam). In formal testing situations, Stacey did not do as well as she might have, were the test not timed. Ms. Marshall did not pressure her daughter to hurry or insist that she learn new strategies for working faster. Instead, this mother sought to make sure that all key personnel were aware of her daughter’s special circumstances. Her clear expectation was that once notified of Stacey’s learning style, the teachers would adjust what they required her to accomplish.
Ms. Marshall’s belief that she has the right and the responsibility to intervene in the classroom is widely shared by middle-class parents, mothers particularly. At Swan, the middle-class, predominately white suburban school where the research assistants and I carried out classroom observations, the teachers noted that parents frequently came barging into school to complain about minor matters. For example, a scheduling conflict that resulted in some third-graders not getting a chance to perform a skit for their peers in the other third-grade classrooms prompted three different mothers to come in to school the very next morning to let the teacher know how disappointed their children were and to inquire into exactly why some children had gotten the opportunity to perform and others had not. More generally, parents of Swan students did not hesitate to criticize teachers’ choice of projects, book report assignments, homework levels, or classroom arrangements. Some mothers had a much more aggressive style than did Ms. Marshall. At Swan School, for example, Mr. and Mrs. Kaplan circulated a petition (with limited success) demanding that a song with the lyric “come let us bow and worship Him now” be removed from the multicultural holiday program. The Kaplans then wrote a letter to the superintendent charging it was a “violation of the separation of church and state.” (Over the choir teacher’s objections, the song was ultimately removed; the district also instituted a review of policy on the matter.) Yet, despite these differences in style, it was nonetheless the same approach: these middle-class families were engaged in a pattern of concerted cultivation with a close monitoring of their children’s institutional experiences.