Ms. Handlon was not alone in trying to be helpful with her children’s schooling but not realizing the advantages she had hoped for. Working-class and poor parents often had that experience, as I show in the following chapters, beginning with the experience of Wendy Driver.
CHAPTER 10
Letting Educators Lead
the Way: Wendy Driver
I don’t want to jump into anything and find out that it’s the wrong thing. (Ms. Driver)
This is Wendy’s work. She spelled “driver” wrong. . . . If it was me, if our roles were reversed [and I were her parent], I’d be beating [the teacher] on the head. (Mr. Tier, Wendy’s fourth-grade teacher, speaking to her mother during a parent-teacher conference)
Across all social classes, parents pay close attention to their children’s education. Working-class and poor parents are no less eager than middle-class parents to see their children succeed in school. They take a different approach to helping them reach that goal, however. As Wendy Driver’s mother indicates in the quote above, working-class and poor parents often fear doing “the wrong thing” in school-related matters. They tend to be much more respectful of educators’ professional expertise than are their middle-class counterparts. Thus, working-class and poor parents typically are deferential rather than demanding toward school personnel; they seek guidance from educators rather than giving advice to them; and they try to maintain a separation between school and home rather than foster an interconnectedness. Ironically, as Wendy’s fourth-grade teacher’s comment suggests, educators often are not happy with this approach. They want parents of their working-class and poor students to be more assertive. Put differently, they wish these parents would engage in forms of concerted cultivation.
The pattern of parental deference to educators is not the result of idiosyncratic differences in parents’ personalities. The same parents we observed silently accepting different teachers’ (sometimes contradictory) assessments of their children were firmly vocal with their cable companies, landlords, and local merchants. Working-class and poor parents are capable of being demanding with other adults. Rather, they do not define this approach as appropriate when dealing with school or medical professionals, perhaps in part because they lack the requisite vocabulary to effectively challenge such individuals. Moreover, these parents view education as the job of educators and thus they expect teachers and school staff to be the ones primarily responsible for seeing that their children learn all that they should.
Finally, there are underlying elements of resistance to the deference working-class and poor parents exhibit toward educators. Mothers who nod in silent agreement during a parent-teacher conference may at home, and within earshot of their children, denounce the educator as unfair, untrustworthy, or mean. Particularly in the area of discipline, working-class and poor parents are likely to regard the school’s approach as inappropriate. Many encourage their children—in direct violation of school rules—to hit peers who harass them, specifically including the advice to take their retaliatory actions “when the teacher isn’t looking.” This undercurrent of resistance is also tinged with hostility. Working-class and poor parents resent the power vested in school personnel to act on behalf of students they identify as abused in their home environments. As Wendy Driver’s mother explains, the fear these parents have that “they” might “come and take your kids away” is real. Complying with educators’ requests, even when they are seen as ridiculous by parents, reduces parents’ risk of intervention by state officials. Still, because parents’ child-rearing strategies are at odds with the approach of concerted cultivation stressed by “the school,” parents such as Wendy Drivers’ parents are openly criticized by educators for not taking more of a leadership role in their children’s schooling.
THE DRIVER FAMILY
Wendy Driver, the focal child, is a friendly and cheerful ten-year-old,1 who is in the fourth grade at Lower Richmond School. She lives in a rented two-story brick house with her older brother, Willie; her baby stepsister, Valerie; her mother, Debbie; Mack Fallon, Debbie’s boyfriend (and Valerie’s father); and two cats, Sweetie and Monster.
Wendy is very thin, with pale skin and big eyes. She often wears colored headbands that pull her long blond hair back from her face. She gives spontaneous hugs to her relatives and other adults, including the field-workers, when they arrive and exit. She often kisses two-month-old Valerie on the head and sometimes (when her mother is out of the room) wakes the baby up to play with her. In an interview, Wendy describes herself this way:
I’m nice. I’m not cocky, I’m not greedy, and I don’t spend that much money on one thing. Like, if I have the money, I’ll take my mom and [Mack] out to dinner . . . I like to play Barbies [and] play cards with my cousins. I like to ride my bike and go roller-skating. I like math.
Small pleasures bring an enthusiastic response as on one spring evening when Wendy, seeing a bolt of lightning, jumps up and down excitedly and says, “Let’s go outside! Let’s go outside!” She is thrilled to watch bolts of lightning from the safety of the front porch.
At school, Wendy is sometimes an assertive leader. During recess and lunch, she and her girlfriends (all white) run around, chase boys, and play various games. One day, we watch as she organizes an attack on the boys’ restroom. She orders two girls to approach the lavatory from the near side (“I told you guys to go! Go around . . . ”) and bang on the door; meanwhile, she and another girl begin advancing from the other side, crouching down, half-hidden, giggling. Wendy seems similarly uninhibited about expressing her many opinions, including this estimation of Ms. Olean, her dance teacher:
This year I’m dancin’ with my cousin Nicole. She goes to dancin’, too. And sometimes Ms. Olean can be a real brat. She always hollers at people. Like yesterday me and my cousin Nicole were dancin’ and we messed up a little . . . and she’s like, “POINT THE TOES! POINT THE TOES!” And she’s like, “DO IT!” She’s a real brat.
Wendy’s parents separated when she was a preschooler; they divorced two years later. Mr. Driver died suddenly during the fall that Wendy started second grade. Her mother began dating Mr. Fallon toward the end of that school year, and about twelve months later, they decided to live together.2 Wendy’s relationship with her mother’s boyfriend is amiable. For example, when she reports, after a camping trip, “Mack, I went horseback riding on my trip,” Mr. Fallon replies teasingly, “Horseback riding? Are you sure it was a horse and not a donkey?” Still, Wendy continues to miss her dad; at night, she sleeps with a doll that he gave her several years earlier.
Like Wendy, twelve-year-old Willie is an animated, talkative child. He enjoys visiting his cousins, riding his bike, watching television, and going fishing and hunting. Although he describes Mr. Fallon as “nice to us,” and notes that Mr. Fallon “drives us places,” Willie, like Wendy, misses his father. He and his mother’s boyfriend often clash. Mr. Fallon criticizes Willie’s ideas, his slowness, and other aspects of his daily behavior. Still, there are pleasurable moments, as when Mr. Fallon and Willie wrestle intently (and quietly, except for grunts) on the living room floor while the rest of the family watches appreciatively.