“I Want to Be a Waitress Just Like My Mom”

In this thoughtful article in Educational Researcher, Stephanie Jones (University of Georgia) and Mark Vagle (University of Minnesota) quote the following exchange between a 

young girl and her teacher:

Student: When I grow up I want to be a waitress just like my mom.

Teacher: Oh, you can do so much better than that!

Jones and Vagle flinch at the teacher’s words. The idea that poor and working-class youth should always aspire to upward mobility is “founded on misunderstandings of work, lived experiences of social class, and the broader social and economic context of the United States and the world,” they say. “Educators may unwittingly alienate the very students they hope to inspire…” 

So what would “social class-sensitive pedagogy” suggest that the teacher’s response should be? Jones and Vagle propose the following:

Student: When I grow up I want to be a waitress just like my mom.

Teacher: Tell me more about that. I’d love to hear about your mother and the work she 

does as a waitress.

“Living Contradictions and Working for Change: Toward a Theory of Social Class-Sensitive Pedagogy” by Stephanie Jones and Mark Vagle in Educational Researcher, April 2013 (Vol. 42, #3, p. 129-141), http://edr.sagepub.com/content/42/3/129.abstract; the authors can be reached at sjones1@uga.edu and vagl0006@umn.edu. 

From the Marshall Memo #484