Cultural Notions of Success

In my lit. circle we are reading the book Con Respeto: Bridging the Gap Between Culturally Diverse Families and Schools. In taking a look at the lives of 10 Mexican immigrant families near the U.S.- Mexico border the author presents the idea that often in these families education, while important on some level, is not the number one priority we assume it to be in American culture. Parents own abilities about being a good parent are not tied up in their children's educational success and while these families have come to realize that it is important for children in the U.S. to finish school, and often the norm for them to go on to higher education, family life and loyalty is still the most important goal. The introduction states, "Still, family values and school values remain at odds" (xi). Gualdalupe Valdes writes of the Mexicano families, "...when talking about their dreams, most parents spoke of honest and hardworking sons, virtuous daughters, close families, and having todo lo necessario (the basic necessities of life). They did not think in terms of job titles, prestige, or power. What they wanted was for their children to grow up right, to find ways of making an honest living, to marry someone who cared about them, and to find a way of settling somewhere close to the people they loved" (8). She continues, "They came face to face, instead, with the industrialized "first world" in which... educational development is conceived as "a universal form of progress consistent with all human aspirations regardless of ideology or culture" (8).

I want to mention that the data in this study was collected in the 1980's and the book itself published in the 1990's. While I wonder if these notions are generally culturally relevent, true across locations, or vary over time I am going to assume the position that they are widely held in present day for the purpose of exploring my dilemma. Part of the books message is that we assume, as educators, that there are solutions and as you've heard me say before to assume there is a solution is to assume there is a problem. How do we as teachers reconcile the pressure to have "no child left behind" and yet be culturally sensitive to the fact that not all cultures value education as the number one most important, life consuming thing, that this is not a "problem". Do these families understand the importance of education in the U.S. system and if they did would it change their priorities? Is it part of our job to help them understand this significance? Is it them who needs to change if they want to "succeed" in this country? If their idea of success is different than typical American culture and they don't require their child to do his homework (assuming they are aware of it) how do I react when there is pressure for me to have a class of test passers? What does it look like for me as an educator to push my students to "succeed," to fulfill local, state, or federal expectations of student achievement, and yet to remain culturally sensitive to different ideas about the priority level of education?

I just feel on some level like there is a catch 22 here. I understand that all situations, with each individual child and family, require sensitivity of all kinds, that no two situations will be alike and that we cannot make assumptions of what a person of any race, culture, age, gender, sexuality believes or values. However, the catch is this. If we (the country, the educational system, teachers, etc.) don't offer "help" to immigrants (which often means forms of system navigation and/or assimilation) we are prejudice and leaving them out of the loop (keeping them outside the culture of power)and perhaps helping to ensure they don't succeed, but if we do we are in some ways being culturally insensitive and condescending in assuming that they need help, that they need to become more like us, that they need to change, and that changing to be like us is right and better. It is such a fine line to walk to both act as a resource and yet to let immigrants "become American at their own pace and in their own way" (Valdes, 1996, 205).

A last thought from Valdes: "We can either advocate that Mexican communities and individuals be helped to make whatever changes are necessary to achieve success, or we can argue that there are already successes among the population in question and that it is the majority society that must change its perspective about human values and achievement" (205).