Running head: NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

Neighborhood Study:
Lea Elementary School and the West Philadelphia Community
Anna Mia Arsenault
University of Pennsylvania

NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

I began by walking every block in the catchment area since I wanted to gain a sense of
the Lea community by talking to people on the street. The third person that I approached
suggested that I join the Clark Park Tot Lot and West Philly Coalition for Neighborhood Schools
Google groups. I posted on their discussion boards to see if anyone in the community would
allow me to interview them. I interviewed Michelle Smith, a mother who lives in the Lea
Community and Teresa Brown, the Chair of the Garden Court Community Association Education
Committee. I also corresponded with Steven Wood, an active parent at Lea, and Aalayah
Rodgers, a retired Lea tutor, who both responded to my post via email.
One asset in the Lea Community that came up in all of my conversations was the Garden
Court Community Association. Garden Court spans from 45th to 52nd Street and from Locust
Street to Cedar Avenue. This local civic organization provides a reading tutor program as well as
a Book Choosing day at Lea Elementary School. Teresa Brown explained that each tutor reads
with two second or third grade students (personal communication, July 20, 2014).
Since everyone suggested that reading tutoring and giving children books are valuable, I
believe they place value on Bourdieus (1986) social and cultural capital, specifically since
Bourdieu considers books to be forms of objectified cultural capital (p. 243). It is interesting to
note that three of the four community members who identified the Garden Court Community
Association as an asset do not have children at Lea. Even though Michelle Smith was
knowledgeable about Lea, she admitted that she was undecided about whether she would send
her child there. One possible explanation for her hesitation is because she values Bourdieus
social and cultural capital and believes that her son would not acquire enough of this at Lea.
I believe these people support this initiative because they are looking through a deficitoriented lens. As Teresa Brown explained, the reading program formed in response to a first

NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

grade parent noticing that some children stayed at the same place during the 100 Book
Challenge unless someone in the classroom read with them. She took this to mean no one was
reading at home with some of the children (Teresa Brown, personal communication, July 20,
2014). The members of the organization recognized that some children come from families who
cannot afford books and cannot devote time to reading with their children.
It is good that Garden Court came in where support was asked for or wanted and that
they had people on the inside telling them that they wanted a tutoring program (Teresa Brown,
personal communication, July 20, 2014). However, since they did not have information about
why reading was not happening at home, the organization assumed that the best way to remedy
this was to provide the services that the students were lacking. They took this approach
instead of using an understanding of the situation to help parents take control. Since Garden
Court is an outside organization, they do not know why students are not reading at home.
Teachers, however, are in a position to inquire about this. It is in everyones best interest to
figure out why certain students are not reading. It is possible that the parents are not reading
with students because they have multiple jobs or long hours to support their family. In this case,
parents may provide their child with aspirational capital, because the child sees her parents
effort in the face of adversity, at the expense of providing cultural capital. Schools value cultural
capital over aspirational capital (Yosso, 2005).
The Garden Court Community Association also organizes a Book Choosing for first
grade students. The organization purchases books and volunteers read with the children. The
students choose books they like and customize them with a stamp saying, This is the property of
[student name] (Steven Wood, personal communication, July 20, 2014). This event is important
to the students because it is often the foundation for their own home library. In an effort to

NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

acknowledge the linguistic capital that Lea families posses, Garden Court could purchase books
written in different languages to ensure that children own books in a language that their parents
are comfortable speaking (Yosso, 2005).
Although many people identified community organizations as assets, they did not directly
identify the University of Pennsylvania as an asset. However, the people that I spoke with
mentioned ways that Penn has provided resources to community organizations or to the school
itself. For example, three people mentioned Chris Wilson as an asset. Chris retired from library
services at Penn this year and was asked by Penn to be a community librarian for the students at
Lea Elementary school (Aalayah Rodgers, personal communication, July 20, 2014).
Teresa Brown, who organizes the reading tutor program, mentioned that a woman from
the Graduate School of Education organized workshops to provide the reading tutors with
professional development. She also talked about how Lucy Peters, an Assistant Dean at Penn,
started an after-school music program. While she discussed the difficulty of being an
organization outside the official school structure, she identified the Penn liaison as someone who
was helpful because the Garden Court Community Association went through her to get
permission from Lea to carry out its activities (personal communication, July 20, 2014).
When Teresa Brown talked about how this community has an enormous amount of
talent she said that there are artists, teachers, scientists, a lot of people, its not only Penn
people. She later admitted, there are a lot of Penn people (personal communication, July 20,
2014). Even though it seemed like Teresa Brown did not want to identify Penn as an asset,
various comments made it appear otherwise. One of the last things she said was, I think its up
to Penn now to make the larger area successful (personal communication, July 20, 2014).

NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

Seeing all of the Penn connections, suggests that the University of Pennsylvania is
providing the community with a form of Bourdieus social capital (MacLeod, 2009). All of these
resources are being extended to Lea through an elite social network. Although the people
affiliated with Penn may feel like they are having a positive impact, they are reinforcing the idea
that the community is missing certain resources that can only be provided by people who live
outside of the community. This is not to say that I believe Penn should not share its resources
and social network, but perhaps a more effective way to do this would be to work with the
community to leverage the resources and community cultural wealth to help students (Yosso,
2005). One way to accomplish this could be to encourage community members or parents to
read with students in their home language in the classroom as opposed to bringing in Penn
students and retired people who do not live in the community. Teresa Brown and Aalayah
Rodgers mentioned as a point of pride that State Representative James Roebuck is a reading tutor
(personal and electronic communication, July 20, 2014).
The biggest asset to the community are not community organizations or the University of
Pennsylvania, but the adults in the community who believe they have the power to give Lea
students the best. The Garden Court Community Organization would not have had a significant
impact without caring and observant parents that identified areas where students were not being
exposed to resources. Three of the people I communicated with mentioned Steven Wood, a
parent of a Lea student, as a community asset. His involvement in the Lea community is endless.
He is the President of the Lea Home and School Association, Vice President of the Garden Court
Community Association, a Member of the West Philly Coalition for Neighborhood Schools, the
Lea Leadership Team, Climate Team, and Communication Committee.

NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

Steven Woods involvement suggests that he would be a source of navigational capital

(Yosso, 2005). Not only does he have big dreams and high expectations for Lea students, but
also he is living proof that people can navigate through the bureaucracy of schools to realize their
goals. He is able to utilize his experience and the experiences of other Lea parents to bring about
change through official channels. In response to the recent budget crisis, parents from Lea and
Penn Alexander rallied at City Hall and went to Harrisburg to advocate for the students and the
schools (Steven Wood, electronic communication, July 20, 2014). Parents belief that students
deserve the best and their ability to maintain hope for the future in spite of political challenges
suggest that there is an abundance of aspirational capital in the community (Yosso, 2005).
Steven Wood admits that, there is definite hope, but also much work to do (electronic
communication, July 20, 2014).
One Lea family demonstrated the strength of their belief in the importance of education
as well as their linguistic capital. Teresa Brown talked about how the people coming in,
specifically immigrant families, really care about education. One family from Bangladesh
brought an interpreter to the education workshops so that they understood everything and were
sure that their questions could be answered (personal communication, July 20, 2014). The effort
that the family put into attending the workshop shows how much they value education even
though families often face significant institutional challenges.
It is possible that parents are not reading with their children because the books that the
children have easy access to are written in English. Parents may value education, but may be
illiterate or literate in a language other than English. Particularly since Lea students represent
twenty-five different countries and speak twenty-five different languages, teachers could inquire
about the barriers that are preventing some children from reading (Henry C. Lea, 2014).

NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

Teachers could then purchase books that are written in different languages and observe if the
students pick up these books.
The diverse cultures of Lea Elementary students can also be an asset. Teachers can take
advantage of the linguistic and familial capital of families that have emigrated from other
countries by inviting them to share unique aspects of their culture, history, and family traditions
with their class. During the first week of school, teachers could encourage students to bring in
an object or picture of something that is important to them or to their family. This way the
teacher can get a better sense of the backgrounds of their students as well as expose other
students in the class to other family values.
In addition to discussing assets, community members gave examples and characteristics
of people they considered to be good teachers. The most prevalent characteristic of a good
teacher was their ability to effectively discipline students. One said this explicitly, a teacher has
to have the art of discipline down because you end up disciplining so much (Michelle Smith,
personal communication, July 19, 2014). However, when asked to elaborate on what she
considers effective disciplining, she talked about how this teacher took the time to notice that the
student did not go crazy when he was kept inside because he was preoccupied with drawing
pictures of buildings. The teacher recognized this pattern and asked if the child wanted to be an
architect. After this, the student took drawing buildings very seriously. Consequently, she did
not need to discipline this student because the child was engaged and no longer disruptive
(Michelle Smith, personal communication, July 19, 2014).
Steven Wood described a good teacher as stern, but fair in her discipline manner. He
provided an example of how this style played out in the classroom:

NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

She can leave her room and have first graders stay on task until she comes back without
any disruptive behavior because she places high expectations for behavior as well as
education in her classroom (electronic communication, July 20, 2014).
When asked about good teachers, Teresa Brown said, there are teachers that just have command
of their classroom. When you walk down the hallway and itd be quiet, wed think Oh, theyre
away on a trip and youd get to the door and all the kids were involved in working and
everybody was interested (personal communication, July 19, 2014). She also said:
Their classes are calm and you never hear them yelling. Theres just a peacefulness and
control and the kids are interested. Theres no kid, if the stuff is interesting, is not going
to want to do it. And the thing is to find whats interesting. (personal communication,
July 20, 2014)
All three good teachers that mastered the art of discipline did this by creating a particular
classroom culture and establishing relationships with the students that makes a system of
punishment unnecessary. Some teachers have learned that identifying individual student
interests, keeping the children engaged through interesting material and having high expectations
for behavior have had a significant positive impact on their classroom culture. The idea that
identifying student interests leads to decreased discipline problems and thus becoming a good
teacher is related to the idea that good teachers care about their students.
The beliefs that caring about your students leads to being a good teacher and that being a
good teacher means you care about your students are different because they suggest two different
kinds of caring. Valenzuela (1999) draws on the idea put forth by Noddings (1984, 1992) that
teachers can aesthetically care for students or they can authentically care for their students. The
essence of aesthetic caring lies in attention given to things and idea, whereas authentic caring

NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

nurtures and values sustained reciprocal relationships (p. 22). If a teacher cares about her
students aesthetically, she is not necessarily a good teacher. Good teachers are likely to care
about their students authentically.
The good teachers identified by the interview participants illustrated an authentic caring.
Michelle Smith identified the good teacher that her son has as being able to mediate the
arguments between the children (personal communication, July 20, 2014). The fact that this
teacher is mediating an argument rather than telling the children not to argue suggests that she
values relationships and interpersonal connections. Additionally, this teacher took the time to
notice what the child was interested in and discussed what he wants to be when he grows up
which suggests a degree of openness in their relationship.
Steven Wood talked about his sons teacher who does not just care about pedagogical
applications of knowledge, but also becomes involved in character development. This suggests
that the teacher places importance on nurturing her students and encouraging development. He
also mentioned the culture she has created by establishing high expectations. Nieto (2008)
would agree that this teacher has created an ethic of care because of her insistence on
establishing and reinforcing rigorous standards instead of lowering standards.
Steven Wood identified this person as a good teacher because she has a theme of
community being an instrumental part of a childs education (electronic communication, July
20, 2014). He elaborates on how this plays out in her teaching philosophy and practice. He says,
She is very open to parents being part of the process of education instead of it being just lip
service. Her entire demeanor welcomes community members and parents. Valenzuela (1999)
talks about how there is a social and cultural distance between the adults and the school culture
that stems from the fact that the teachers rarely engage with the community (p. 63). Embracing

NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

10

the community and parents suggests that her caring is authentic. Since authentic caring revolves
around reciprocal relationships between students and teachers, expressing interest in the
students community and family shows a desire to get to know the students on a deeper level.
When asked about good teachers, the first thing that Teresa Brown said was the most
basic thing is that the teacher has to love her kids. She has to know them and really care about
them (personal communication, July 20, 2014). However, she amended this statement by
talking about how its not just about loving your students, but what you say and your attitude.
She believes that students can tell if teachers genuinely care about them. This is supported by a
student who said, Ms. Novak is the best teacher I ever had. The way she laughs at us makes us
happy, you know, like she really likes us (Valenzuela, 1999, p.101).
All of the community members directly or indirectly talked about how good teachers care
about students in an authentic way. However, none of them mentioned that these good
teachers took authentic caring a step further to become advocates for their students against
certain institutional structures that promote and perpetuate inequality (Nieto, 2008, p. 30). It
should also be noted that the people interviewed for this project were all adults. In this case
good teachers mean teachers they would like their children to have.
I spoke briefly with a group of six middle school boys that were playing on the Lea
basketball court. I explained that I was going to be student teaching at Lea in the fall and I asked
them for advice. One of the boys said that he didnt like his student teacher because she was a
liar. Last year, one of my students told another student Miss Anna always does what she says
shes going to do. We can trust her. These personal anecdotes suggest that students feel good
teachers earn student trust by telling the truth. Mr. Sosa touched upon this idea and the fact that
being honest is another way for teachers to show that that they care.

NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

11

She told me in front of everybody, Sir, just one thing. Dont lie to us. So, it kind of hit
me. These kids want the truth. They want sincerity. For the teacher, its one thing to say
you care and its another to show it. (Valenzuela, 1999, p. 113)
While students want teachers who tell them the truth, parents consider teachers to be good if
they have developed an effective disciplinary system. However, it appears parents do not mean
punishment when they talk about discipline. Rather they value teachers who take the time to
notice and understand individual student differences and use this knowledge to keep the children
engaged and therefore less likely to engage in disruptive behavior.

NEIGHBORHOOD STUDY

12
References:

Bourdieu, P. (1986) The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of Theory and
Research for the Sociology of Education, 241-258.
Henry C. Lea. (n.d.) Retrieved August 14, 2014 from
http://webgui.phila.k12.pa.us/schools/l/henry-c.-lea
MacLeod, J. (2009). Aint no makin it. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Nieto, S. (2008). Nice is not enough: Defining caring for students of color. In Pollock, M. (Ed.),
Everyday antiracism: Getting real about race in schools, 28-31.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring, a feminine approach to ethics & moral education. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Noddings, N. (1992). The challenge to care in schools: An alternative approach to education.
New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring.
SUNY Series, The Social Context of Education. State University of New York Press.
Yosso, T. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community
cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69-91.