The MTV Trés Phenomenon

I am not surprised that a larger number of urban minorities are being thrown out of class, but if researchers only look at the color, the miss the underlying culture which has contributed to the rise of disrespect in our schools. Parents who allow their kids to act up at home are less inclined to discipline their kids when they act up at school. In many instances, parents are scared of their own children, and let them get away with everything.

This problem is a significant issue with a growing number of Hispanic parents, the increasing number of whom are not standing up to their own children. In some cases, the students have learned how to intimidate their parents, or they simply tell them one story in Spanish, as the parents cannot speak English, but then they act a different way at school. I call this the “MTV Tres” phenomenon. The subsidiary channel of MTV, which broadcasts through local media markets, often depicts a growing divide for Hispanic students. Many of the commercials depict a white teacher who mispronounces a student’s name, or makes some other cultural faux pas, with the commercial ending with the following statement: “Te entendemos”or“We get you.” In one specific commercial, the Hispanic student stands in a classroom, during a parent conference. One side of the student, a young, blond-haired, blue-eyed teacher explains to the parents, two rustic paisas (Mexican slang for a rustic or working class Hispanic) standing on the student’s other side, that their daughter has missed three weeks of school, she has turned in every little work, and that their daughter is in danger of failing the class. The student, acting as interpreter, then brightly smiles at her parents and states “Todo esta bien!” The parents just stand there and look at each other quizzically.

This phenomenon is repeated frequently in schools across the country. Parents duped by their children, teachers who cannot explain anything to the parents, sometimes resorting to using the students as interpreters because there are not enough staff members to intercede. This breakdown is cultural. It has nothing to do with the color of the student, or even the culture of the home country where the parents and the children came from. This culture is uniquely prevalent in the public school system in urban areas.

I served for a little over one year at South East High School in South Gate, a new high school built to relieve the overcrowding at South Gate High School and Huntington Park High. Many of the parents betrayed a growing ignorance about the education and behavior of their own children. One mother had no idea what was going on. Another parent whined to me that she did not know what to do with her daughter, who was in the background complaining the whole time at the unfair treatment she had to endure at home. There was that one father who ran around, scurrying to do whatever he could to help his son, but his son would come into class with very little work, and often he was under the influence of some drug. Obviously, the father was living under the influence of denial.

Beyond these random accounts, the story of one young mother, though, was really troubling. This woman had an abusive son, Mike, one who knew who to manipulate administrators. After trying to contact her for two weeks, I finally met the mother when she finally showed up for a parent conference. Within five minutes, the woman broke down and cried. “My son calls me a bitch. He does not listen to me,” she cried. “I slapped him in the face once. He called the police on me. When the cops arrived, they just laughed at him, then left.” She obviously had no idea what do. Frankly, she was terrified of her own son. Mike was quite a handful, a young man who did not think that he had to listen to me or to any other authority figure. The dean at the time called me an authoritative teacher, and the miscreant son had borne the brunt of it for some time, and he certainly was not used to it. This kid has already been to juvenile hall, and the PSA (Pupil Student Attendance) counselor at the school paid a visit to the troubled family.

From day one, I pushed relentlessly to get this kid removed from my class. Sadly, this kid knew how turn on the water works. He knew how to play off of people’s emotions. He would cry that I was so unfair, that he wanted to go back to juvenile hall rather than be in my class. By week ten, I managed to get him removed from the class, but he was assigned to my homeroom. Because the students were assigned to homerooms based on testing paradigms, the school could not remove him. The dean was a very patient woman, and I know that I pushed her to the limit with my demands, and she was willing to do everything that she could to help me. She made arrangements for Mike to stay in the referral room, but it would be up to me to keep him informed of school events. Two weeks after that encounter, Mike was finally transferred to another school – but this after months of haggling with deans, administrators, and other teachers to create a paper trail.

The disjunction between parent and teacher is already bad enough in schools where every member o the team --- teacher, parent, student -- all speak the same language. When the parents do not speak English, however, the language gap, compounded by the machinations of some unscrupulous students, can stunt the efforts of the most prepared and well-meaning teachers, while inadvertently sending the message to students that they can manipulate and cover up their failures to get through life. What passes for a funny anecdote on a music television network is no laughing matter for students and teachers struggling in the public school system