American Educator

Four times a year, American Educator, A Quarterly Journal of Educational Research and Ideas, comes to my house.  It is put together by the AFT union and when Dr. J started teaching for the University this was one of the perks.  The first few, I threw in the trash.  Feeling overwhelmed by the junk mail paper clutter and especially bitter toward the grad school union my husband was forced into joining I felt irritated by it's arrival.  Then one day an article on the cover caught my eye.  Since then I've been an avid reader.  It focuses on a education, a topic that with a first grader and two almost in preschool it constantly on my mind.  I remember when I was struggling with helping Captain E with his handwriting.  In popped an article not only stressing how strong the correlation was between a student's strength in handwriting to their strength in story telling and information sharing but it also included a link to a program to help kids improve their writing.  It was a eureka moment.  I love reading this journal.  It reminds me of being in school although the topic is far more applicable to my current life and the information easier to access then the science journals of my past.  The Spring 2011 issue was focused on Equal Opportunity.  Several months ago Dr. J and I watched some PBS special on education.  They mentioned that in the equal rights movement the forefront issue has become education.  This issue was great at pointing out what that actually means for everyone.  Two parts of the issue that really stood out to me, first a collection of pictures students in inner city schools took of their schools and secondly a graph showing the income gap of black males to white males with similar educational backgrounds.  I think it is human nature to put our heads in the sand essentially become compliant but this stuff really is shocking.  Check out the article, Being Poor, Black, and American: The Impact of Political, Economic, and Cultural Forces.