Question

Write a project on education in slums

Answer 1

Educational Hanicaps of Slum Children

Hope for solving the massive social problems associated with urban poverty appears to center increasingly on improvement in the methods of educating the culturally deprived children of the slums. Educators have long recognized that such children enter school under handicaps not imposed on children of the middle class, that slum children often seem immune to standard instructional programs, and that a relatively large proportion of them quit school early and become misfits and unemployables. Some inevitably drift into delinquency.

Early efforts to increase the less fortunate child's capacity to learn took the form chiefly of remedial classes, of shifting the child from academic to shop or manual training work, and of providing extra services ranging anywhere from free meals to field trips. It is generally realized, however, that the slum child's maladjustment to school is often too deep and too complex to be affected1 by routine or piecemeal palliatives.


New Approaches to Education of Slum Children

The education panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee, representing a national consensus of educational leaders, noted that the slum child “may have verbal virtuosity in the language of his own world, he may have imagination and creativity, yet have slight opportunity to use these attributes in the schools.” The panel was critical of the tendency of schools, even when they get extra money to improve education in the slums, to rely on traditional practices “where maximum expenditure accomplishes minimum results.” It opposed use of “watered-down” versions of the traditional curriculum for disadvantaged children. “Their teachers must understand what these children know and value and must teach in a way that builds on that foundation.” The panel recommended that more stress be put on oral language, “on encouraging children to talk in school rather than constantly admonishing them to listen.” It suggested that some subjects, such as arithmetic and science, “be taught in an intuitive, non-bookish way.”18

Another approach that is gaining support is to have the schools or some other community agency undertake programs that would give slum children, at an early age, experiences of a sort that would put them more nearly on a par with middle-class children when they enter school. According to the U.S. Office of Education, at least 70 school districts, out of more than 30,000 in the country, are already experimenting with pre-kindergarten programs. One of two major experimental projects is being conducted by the Institute for Developmental Studies in New York; another, recently instituted by the Oregon State System of Higher Education, consists of pre-kindergarten programs for children of deprived backgrounds in Portland.

A principal gain from the pre-kindergarten programs is that they reach not only the children but also the parents in a disadvantaged family. Time and again, educators working in this field have been impressed by the signal importance of winning the interest and support of slum parents. In many cases it has been found necessary to overcome suspicion of or hostility toward the school. But usually when parents are brought to see the potential benefits to be derived from encouraging a child to pursue an education, cooperation is forthcoming. The existing parent programs usually involve visits by school counselors, parent-teacher conferences, and meetings and social events in the school.

Efforts to draw parents into closer relationship with schools tie in with the now widely accepted principle that programs to benefit deprived persons become more effective if leaders can be developed from the population group to be helped. Schools have found that a few capable mothers in the neighborhood can be valuable allies in overcoming apathy or antipathy in the neighborhood generally. Eventually some slum mothers become well-enough versed in school affairs to serve effectively as volunteer aides.