My niece is in the first grade and this weekend I helped her finish her homework. She had to complete a one-page report on capuchin monkeys and create a habitat in a shoebox depicting the monkeys in their natural environment. We spent time on the Web looking at videos and investigating what the monkeys ate and where they lived. We scavenged my yard for twigs, nuts and berries, and then raided the leftover Halloween decorations for spiders to include in the habitat. It was an incredibly educational experience — for both of us.
My niece is fortunate. Her well-educated mother has a demanding, yet flexible job that allows her to arrange her schedule to help her daughter with her school work every night. My niece is even enrolled in extra tutoring a few days a week to improve her reading and I often give her fun, educational software games that engage her critical thinking skills.
There is no doubt my niece will go to college. Going to college is a given because those around her have instilled this expectation from the time she could stand. My niece has T-shirts and stuffed animals from a diverse array of colleges and universities. She has visited several college campuses and knows several Latina college professors. When she mentions doing something when she grows up, her mother is quick to point out it will be after she graduates from college. Her mother has also already figured how to pay for her education.
My niece knows college is possible and has a support system that will ensure she receives every opportunity to reach her potential. We’re already fostering her expectation of going to college, preparing her academically and investing to pay for her college education. What keeps me up at night is not whether my niece will go to college or not, but the knowledge that too many Latino youth do not have a similar support system that will guarantee a trajectory to college.
