Jill Brothwell - Blog 7

For this reading response I have chosen to focus on the section pertaining to family structure. Robson explains that, “One basic family characteristic that has been shown to impact on a variety of life outcomes (including education) is the structure of the family” (198).  The structure of a family has changed greatly in the last 50 years. Many of the “traditional norms” are merely a thing of the past. The chapter discusses the many things that affect the structure of a family: divorce, single-parent families, stepfamilies, and same-sex parents (199 – 202). As a child, my family structure was influenced by divorce—my family was one of the 37% of Canadian marriages that ended before the 30^th anniversary (199). And as much as this section speaks negatively on divorce it also states that most children who are the product of divorce do not experience serious developmental or psychological problems. And that has to be the case of my whole grade 7 class would have been a mess. When I was in grade 5 there were 9 of us in my grade (I went to a small school) and 4 of our parents were divorced, by grade 7, seven of the nine were divorced and since then the other 2 students parents have both divorced as well. All of us took divorce completely different. I was 6 when my parents split up, and felt I was old enough to understand what was occurring, but young enough to bounce back and not resent my parents. I actually look at divorce in my case as a positive thing because rather then having two unhappy parents who fought all the time I got two parents who were both equally involved in my life and were both happy. I think the line “stay together for the kids” is a load of **** and does not does not benefit anyone. Now I have a different outlook on divorce then some people, because even though my parents did not live together they were both equally involved in my life and I lived with both of them part time. Children who are a product of divorce that results in lone-parent families, is a different story. The chapter explains that single-parent children from single parent families are worse off (in life) then children in intact families (199), as much as this may be statically proven, it is not always the case. There are some damn good mothers out there who provide a better life for their children then many “intact” families. But this section definitely does depict how important the family structure is and how much the structure of a family can impact a child.

Teachers definitely need to be aware of family structures and understand how these different structures can influence children, but they also need to remove biases and realize that children are not a “statistic” and just because something is common it is not always true.. example teacher sees that Sarah is always tired at school, finds out her mom is a single mom and assumes its because she much be cooking and cleaning and doing so much around the house as her mom must work all the time.. later finds out it is because Sarah is tired because of all the activities she is enrolled in, and nothing to do with her mom being a single parent.

Discussion question:  How can you as a teacher be aware of the children’s situation but also operate in a way that removes biases?