Sociological Analysis

Introduction

Throughout my time here at Teachers College, I began to reflect heavily on my educational experiences from elementary to high school. I often ponder the questions of how did I end up here. Was this always the plan or did I deviate from my life’s direction? What sociological concepts and ideas have I already had experience with? Throughout this paper, I will examine the aims and functions of my organized schooling in K-12th grade.

Elementary School My formal introduction to the American education system began just like all of the other little boys and girls in America, in Elementary school. When I entered Elementary school, I was living in an apartment complex called Stonybrook, both my parents worked full-time, and my siblings

Middle school was a confusing time for me; my parents had separated, we had moved to an area that had a tremendous amount of crime, and by my seventh grade year I no longer had an after-school program to attend. The center my brother and I attended lost its funding for teen programming. It wasn’t surprising that all of my core classes my 6th-grade year, were all “advanced.” I was one of two students who graduated my elementary school with all A’s. At the time, I did not fully know what “advanced” meant, but I did understand that I was a cut above the rest. I thought my sixth-grade year went well however when I returned as a 7th grader, most of my core classes were not “advanced.” I no longer had classes with my friends from the previous year. Most of the students in my classes had no respect for the teachers, lacked self-control, and ironically were kids that looked more like me. I found this odd because although we all walked home from school together, I felt like I was more “educated” than them, therefore, I should not be in the same classes with

Similar to the adolescent problem described by Nasaw (1979), what I saw was young black and brown boys who were from less fortunate families being taken to jail for looking for something to keep them busy till their parents came home from work. I felt like no one asked why these young men were getting into trouble with the law. Could it have been because they had nowhere to go afterschool? Or the fact that funding for teen programs had been cut tremendously in our neighborhoods? Most of our parents worked until the evening, so was it there faults for having jobs that required them to get off that late. Right? If was going to become a lawyer, then I was going to be the lawyer for my neighborhood. As middle school came to a close for me, I begin to embody W.E.B Dubois’s idea of the Talented Tenth. From what I could see, my community needed saving and I was going to be the “exceptional” man to “guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst” (Dubois, 1903). However, before I could save my community I had to gain the proper