Week 3: Natalie Hill_Section A01

The United States education system serves millions of students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Though I do believe that our public school system most definitely does not fully represent the history of many minority groups in the United States and is largely focused on white, patriarchal history, I do not solely point at the United States education system as being the reason why some ethnic communities do not feel represented in the classroom or as being the reason why some students feel pulled between their ethnic identity and identity as an American. Though I do agree with Mouvangsou’s article, Hmong does not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans, in many respects, I believe the main question we as Asian Americans should be asking is why people within the Hmong community do not test as a high as students from other minority groups. Though Mouvangsou claims that the United States education system forces Hmong students to lose their language and ethnic identity, I question how the entire educational system can be changed to accommodate every ethnic group that feels that they are not represented in the material they are learning or in the classroom itself. This does not mean that I do not want minority groups to be and feel represented in the classroom. In fact, I have often felt that even the small bits of my ethnic history that have been shared in the American classroom setting have been misrepresented through a western lens. My main concern is how and if we can actually create an education system that can cater to the needs of the majority of people in the United States at the K-12 level. If that is indeed possible, then I’d be more than happy to endorse it.

 

Questions: What causes the differences in achievement between even East Asians and Southeast Asians? How can we create an education system that is accessible for all?

References:

Mouavangsou, K. N. (2016). Hmong does not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans. Retrieved October 07, 2017.

Hothi, J. (2017, March 15). Becoming Activists in the Classroom: Understanding ‘Peripheral’ Stories in the Context of an Androcentric Education.

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