The Wrong Self-Prophecy

856 Words4 Pages
The Wrong Self-Fulfilling Prophecy When the tall blonde woman in the essay, “Hunger” by Nilsa Mariano says, “We’re not raising rocket scientists here,” she means she doesn’t believe these children will be smart enough to succeed at such a major goal or career in life. She clearly believes this as she bases it on the children’s Hispanic-American heritage and social class. She is making a self-fulfilling prophecy as she makes her statement, whereas she should be modeling “Culturally responsive and socially responsible practice,” for students, based on the NCTE’s beliefs. In the essay, Nilsa and Jerry visit a school, in which its beliefs are that the students should focus on the arts, rather than truly succeeding in all learning grounds in the academic courses. The tall blonde woman is wrong in stating the school isn’t raising rocket scientists because she makes a dangerous assumption, leads these kids to feel uncomfortable in their learning environment, and deprives the kids from being proud of who they are and wanting to learn. A teacher making their own decision to focus on art, specifically because they believe it is the only way for these children to succeed is wrong. Most children want to learn and feel like they can achieve anything they desire ranging from a doctor to a pilot. They are hungry to learn and as Nilsa tells stories of animals she states that the kids, “Listened, some with mouths open, as if they were being fed” (Mariano 553). As shown, all these kids want is to learn, learn more of their culture, more of the academics, more of history. But the limits that are put on the children is hard for them to believe they can achieve the best. The limits of only being able to learn art, they aren’t getting all of their basic needs in education including math, English, history, and science. The students clearly show that they want to learn more and
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