School Demographics
I teach at Armstrong High School in Richmond, VA. The majority of my students come from a low socioeconomic background and lives on public assistance. Armstrong high school is the community school for the residents living in the east end of the city of Richmond. The student population is 98% African-American, 1% Caucasian, and 1% other. The school has a poverty rate of 86% among its 1,050 students. The school is going into its second year of federal improvement due to its low graduation rate of 59%. The school has partnered with Edison Learning Company to help improve its graduation rate.
Armstrong High School is the oldest freedman's bureau school in continuous use in the United States. It was started by Union General Samuel Armstrong in 1870. The school population has always been predominantly African-American. Throughout the years, it has been one of the leading high schools for African-Americans in the state of Virginia. It boast famous alumni, such as Douglas L. Wilder, the first elected African-American governor in United States History. However, like most urban school systems, it has fallen victim to urban problems such as crime, drugs, and poverty. In 2004, it merged with John F. Kennedy High School due to declining enrollment in the city schools. Since the merger, the school has suffered from instability in administration, high teacher turnover, and neighborhood gang problems.
The students face all the other problems that come along with this situation such as crime, lack of parental involvement, poverty, drug and sexual abuse. The majority of them come from home environments that are not supportive of learning. Therefore, it is important that I make my class as exciting and fun as possible to maximize student learning during the 90 minutes the students are in my class, semi-daily.
One advantage I have is that we are in Richmond, VA. I don't think there is a more historic city in the United States. From its role as one of the largest slave trading ports in the world to being the capital of the Confederacy, and to being one of the leading areas in the country against the Brown V Board of Education ruling, Richmond has always been a leading U.S. city. My students experience this history everyday on their way to school but do not understand how it has shaped and molded the very neighborhood in which they live. For example, six blocks down the street from the school is St. John's Baptist Church. This is the church where Patrick Henry made his famous "give me liberty or give me death speech". It is also the place where Jefferson Davis was worshipping when Confederate soldiers told him that Grant was about to take over the city. I want my students to actually understand and feel the history they pass on the way to school everyday.
My students are also products of the Hip Hop generation. They understand the world in terms of hip hop expression such as spoken word poetry, rap lyrics, and street art (some call it graffiti). Their clothing, walk, and entertainment are all based on hip hop. These students are the second generation of hip hop culture.
Comments: