After watching the video today, many things came to my mind about people's different social classes and how that will affect us as teachers, and our classrooms. I was wondering what everybody else thought about the different situations shown?

I thought the situation with Tammy and her embarrassed son was one typical of possible situations teachers in rural areas might face. Tammy, bless her heart, simply seemed too ignorant to realize that anything was wrong with her situation. Not only is she too impoverished to do anything about it, but she doesn't seem to have a great support network. Her oldest only realizes how disadvantaged he is by comparison to his schoolmates and thus sees his mom as an inferior person, I felt. I'm not sure how I'd deal with a situation like this without some prior knowledge or understanding of what home is like. I think we have to be able to look unashamedly at where we come from, but at the same time look at how others live without prejudice. I may see alot of students with mothers like this and it will be a challenge to work with them when I'm so very used to things being far and above Tammy's situation. For the higher end folks, they sorta intimidate me so I'll save that for someone else...

I enjoyed the WASP guy who was commenting about the fact that you had to be born into that social class. Because earlier in that video we also saw that one blond-haired woman being trained to act like she was part of this higher social class. She was just the kind of person that the WASP fellow would look at at a party and make rude comments about.

Social class is actually something I have not really dealt with in my life. I went to a private school from 3-year pre-school until I graduated there from high school. I sometimes don't like telling people that I went to a private school because they automatically think that I am spoiled and that my family is rich and what not, when this is actually not the case at all. I know that when I start teaching there are probably going to be differing degrees of classes and income, but I am going to try and not pre-judge or judge my students at all based on that. I know it will be different for me since I grew up in a school my whole life where everyone was in pretty much the same class. However, my goal is to treat my students equally and not hold them to their particular social class. I believe that each child has potential and that one should not be looked down or looked high upon based on their family income.

I agree with Jennifer. No matter where we come from or what kind of back ground we have, as teachers it is our job to make sure all students are seen as equals, especially in our eyes. I think that it is our responsibility as a teacher to try and help the different students to see what the world is like and introduce them to knew culture and class. For many of them this may be the only way that they know what can or can not become of them. By treating all students as equals and showing them that you care about their needs and concerns it will make it much easier for them to talk to you and learn from you as their teacher.

Social class is something that we as teachers will definitely face during our time teaching. I personally think it would be hard to set aside opinions on the student's social class. I would be miserable if I worked in a school that was made up of WASP families because the children might act like they did not have to work for anything and that is totally different than how I live. I would rather teach students who are from middle or lower class families because I personally feel like they are more appreciative. My heart just broke seeing Tammy walk in the rain to only work in fast food restaurant cleaning the bathroom.

I think it is a sometimes difficult, but very important thing to treat all of our students as equals regardless of their social class. Many students may feel that they are better or worse than others because of what they see and hear at home. I feel that if I can treat them as equals at school, it may change the perspective that their parents have possibly given them.

I thought much like alot of yall did. In some situations, I saw people I knew and in some I did not. Also some people in the movie, I felt more comfortable with because they were more like me and some I did not. Either way we all know that social class in an active part of the Americans everyday life and the real question is how are we going to deal with it in our classrooms? I feel that ask long as everyone has an awareness and sense of feeling about each social class then kids and teachers will be able to relate to all different students no matter if they are poor or rich or in between!

I agree with Katie Gray in that we will definitely encounter all of the different social classes in our classroom. Personally, looking at the documentary today gave me even more of an incite into how people from different social classes think and react to different situations. This will help us think in our students' terms and how we can teach and "reach" them better.

The video we watched definitely showed a variety of social classes. On one hand you had the WASP guy who talked about being priviledged and how you had to born into that situation, and on the other you had Tammy who had to walk 10 miles each way to a job where she cleaned the bathroom in a fast food restaurant. There were definitely people on the video that I could relate to and some that I couldn't.

I think the most important thing to do is try to treat all of our students as equally as possible even though it will be hard at times. It would be hard to deal with a WASP student that thought they were entitled to everything but for me it may also be hard not to pay more attention to the students who come from homes where they don't get the necessary help or attention. I would just try my hardest to treat all my students the same.