Social and Intellectual Barriers in the Classroom Essay -- School Girl

Social and Intellectual Barriers in the Classroom Peggy Orenstein's School Girls is a book about adolescent girls, and how low levels of self-esteem and confidence can hinder a positive self-image and contribute to poor academic performance. Orenstein compares and contrasts the experiences of girls from two different junior high schools, Weston and Audubon, and finds that factors such as family, culture, teacher attitude and social class affect girls differently. By looking at both Audubon and Weston from an academic standpoint, one would find that there are more barriers between Audubon students and education, than there are for students at Weston. Ninety percent of the students at Audubon represent everything but "the white and the wealthy" (136): they are "African-American, Latino, Asian, or Filipino" (137). According to Orenstein, two-thirds of these students are poverty-stricken and come from lower class, and perhaps single parent households. Unlike economically advantaged school districts, lower class students are reminded daily that they will never excel beyond their current status, and will only represent or contribute to a national statistic of academic failure. Not only are the students at Audubon reminded of their race and class status, they are ignored in the classroom. In Mr. Krieger's English class, students are given a license to conduct their own lessons--lessons on conversation skills and classroom chaos: "Within fifteen minutes, however, he has mined that vein to exhaustion, and the class degenerates into chaos†¦one of the boys is stuffing a friend into a supply closet with the assistance of roughly half t he class, while Mr. Krieger sits at the front of the room chatting†¦" (139). An educational environm... ...ool, the students from both schools academically perform in accordance with what is expected of them. Because the students from Audubon come from low-income families, teachers and administrators set minimal expectations for student performance. There are more barriers between Audubon students and education because they are reminded daily that economic constraints equal underachievement; and thus, the students are being deprived of an education. On the other hand, the students at Weston Middle School have every opportunity to learn, and do--they learn how to fulfill gender roles in the classroom. The girls at Weston find passive resistance acceptable behavior because not only do gender biases exist in the classroom, they exist in the home and the workplace. Thus, these girls are taught that it is acceptable to be ignored, overpowered and reduced to just "girls."