Image: Oyster class visit Teacher Appreciation 287 from FLICKR, CC BY 2.0
On this page, we will discuss public schools in the United States, specifically zooming in on those in Indiana. We are exploring how children in public schools are affected by their backgrounds. This page also includes a deep dive through the lens of Ian Manuel and his personal experience with freedom. Although, he is not from Indiana, our class was able to see him speak in September 2021 when he visited Butler University. His speech, his books, and our study of his experience are prevalent in Indiana through his need of returning to help educate the students here.
IAN MANUELIan Manuel is an author and poet. His life showcases how education and types of education can make or break someone’s freedoms. When Manuel was 14, he was sentenced to life in prison. He then spent 18 years in solitary confinement until the Equal Justice Initiative appealed his sentence and fought to give him a second chance at life. His book, My Time Will Come, illustrates his story as well as the lessons that he learned along the way, which he wished he had known as a child. Manuel went to public school growing up and his experience shows many people of color's experience with school in America today. In school, he fell in with the "wrong" crowd. He was never one of the children whose teachers paid attention to, which could be for multiple reasons, a primary one being his race. Because of the lack of authoritative attention at school and at home, this led Manuel to believe that using force against others is the only way to prove to the group of boys he was hanging with that he doesn’t get scared easily. This desire to show his strength ultimately led to him being put into jail.
Education is a direct link to freedom. While growing in the school system, children learn our social norms, the shared standards of behavior deemed acceptable by the society we live in. Due to Manuel’s lack of education and aid from teachers, his freedom was ultimately lost for the rest of his childhood and well into the formative years of his adulthood. |
Manuel, I. (n.d.). Ian Manuel Cover Photo. Facebook. Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.facebook.com/MrIanManuel/.
|
LINKING TO FREEDOM
Education plays a key role in having freedom and creating success for oneself in the future. Without education in our society today, one cannot find a well paying job and will not make a live-able wage. Ian Manuel was a quick learner and for this he was lucky. He was able to earn his GED because he could pick up the skills he should have learned in elementary school fast while in prison without the freedom to learn. Within the school system, individualized attention from teachers, whether positive or negative, impacts future success; however this attention can often be biased based on race and socioeconomic status.
![](http://www.weebly.com/weebly/images/file_icons/wav.png)
Indiana Public Schools | |
File Size: | 293 kb |
File Type: | m4a |
HOW THIS RELATES TO INDIANA
Looking at the statistics in Indiana, 12.25% of students in public schools are Black. This is a huge minority. This can present bias from peers and teachers. The impact from these biases often stays with a child for the rest of their life and will factor into how they view themselves as they continue to grow. Their treatment in schools can also affect the freedoms they believe they possess or deserve, as well as the freedoms that they can easily attain within society.