Latinos and Education

Latinos have come a long way when it comes to school and furthering their education in America. Not only have Latinos come so far, but our history of knowledge and seeking answers is described in history books, and even stories told by our elders. It is not a well-known fact but the contributions that Latino ancestors have made to this world in terms of mathematics and astrology is outstanding. For example the decimal mathematical system widely used today around the world in schools and accredited by online MBA programs originated by counting with the fingers a person has. This system of counting with the fingers and toes started the Maya vigesimal system which can be understood more at http://www.mayacalendar.com/f-mayamath.html. The fact that Latinos have given so much to this world does not negate the fact that we are not finishing school, let alone going to school. Even though dropout rates have decreased over the years we still are in a cycle were we do not value education as much as we should. We continue to argue that our white counter parts are oppressing us, yet as a people we do nothing about it, we don’t want to strive to better ourselves as individuals or as a people. According to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_sde.asp in 2010 it was recorded that drop-out rates for Latinos born in the U.S was higher than Asians and Whites and there were no differences found between the rates of U.S.-born Latinos and Blacks in the U.S. It is important for us to advance ourselves as a people; we need to understand that our children are the ones who need to be better; they need to enrich and continue our heritage and culture. Our children are our future, and if we do not want to better ourselves now then how could we expect them to want to do the same in the future. As older Latinos we need to teach our younger Latino generation, the reason our people are not gaining anything is because we cannot relate to our administrators. I am not saying that they cannot learn anything from a white teacher, but it would help a lot more if you were learning from someone who looks like you, talks like you, and can relate to who you are. We continue to avoid education as if it was a taboo but in reality we should look forward to embracing education because only with that can we truly succeed in life. But it all starts with high school; if we can’t even finish that then how can we even imagine college. One out of four Latinos does not finish high school, and that number will continue to drop if we can’t change the mentality of our younger generations. Our history has shown us that we are a proud people and it should not be a question of if we continue our education, but when and how we will pass down our knowledge to our children. As César Chavez said “You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore”, We should not be afraid of education, we should embrace it.