Home Environment

As educators, one should always look at every aspect of a situation when dealing with children before making an assumption or generalization about the child. There are several causes that may influence the way a child learns and behaves in a classroom setting. Home environment is one of the top contributors in a child's performance in the classroom today. Webster defines home as "one's principal place of residence" and environment as " the surrounding conditions, influences, or forces that influence or modify" (Gave, 1993, p.760 & 1082). This states that the home environment is the place where one resides and receives their biggest influences. There are several contributing factors that make up ones home environment: being a minority family, one parent families, socioeconomic status, teenage parents and culture all influence a child's performance in the classroom setting.

The academic performance statistics for African American students are very low compared to European American students.

English: Capitola Dickerson (third from right) pla...

This graph shows the percentages of wealth in the ...

This graph shows the differences in income between...

African-American student's suspension rates are as twice the rate of European Americans, and at least 20 percent if not more are likely to drop out before graduation (Hurn, 1993; Nielson, 1991). Minority children are often thought to lack an achievement orientation. What is the reason for the discrepancy between the two? Does it lie solely on their upbringing, or does the fault lie on a system of education that refuses to make accommodations for the differences among students? This deficiency approach to the education of African American students ignores the first tenet of constructivist philosophy, which is to teach from the knowledge base of the learner (Ladson-Billings, 1992 ). Most African American students are brought up in low to middle class families where only one parent is present, and most children are lacking when it comes to being educated at home because the one parent they do...