In my political science class the other day, a news story was brought up that I found to be extremely relevant to this class. The story was about a school in Alabama having an overcrowding issue that led to the school rezoning districts. This act has created what many people are calling, re segregation. It just so happens that many of the black children are being put in one school while the white children in another. The sad part is, is this really a mistake? In my political science class we discussed that people that share similar views and are like each other tend to live together so the zoning may have just reinforced this, but I'd like to hear what other people think. Here is a link to the article
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/education/17schools.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190400065-Rw6btUNn8YAHCvWLeaYL0g
I felt like the discussion today ended up being "this is what my school did" kind of thing. To be honest I was astonished that some people didn't get to participate in lab experiments, where at my school I would have never thought twice about it. Although it's important to realize that other schools and areas have different resources and did things differently I think we need to put our conversation into context. People had different resources growing up, their education was different but what does this all mean and what does it mean for the future? Towards the end of class we started discussing possible solutions for the numerous educational inequalities and I think we came to the conclusion that the biggest and first step is accepting their is a problem with our system.
One last point I'd like to make is that while listening to everyone speak in our class I decided we should be a little more open minded. We are allowed to agree and disagree with each other but I think just because someone had one experience it doesn't mean everyone else should have it or did have it. One thing that we kept hammering on was that anyone can work themselves up. I believe that there opportunities for people to do so but I don't think we should make the generalization that it is possible for everyone. On the other hand I think that we shouldn't make excuses either; I don't mean to single anyone out but some people kept saying that their parents did this, this, this and this, so they couldn't do other things, which is understandable but I don't think that you can make the assumption that someone else's parents just sat on their ass all day until a PTA meeting because many parents work, do things around the house, and have time for meetings and other activities so I think it depends on individual circumstances.
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3 comments:
Well said, Rachel. The point is, everyone must hold himself accountable for what he/she deems important. Some people have different priorities, based on their circumstances of course.
I found your blog very interesting to read. It is really sad that resegregation is now occuring. I thought there was a goal to make segregated schools unsegregated and now things are occuring to make it the reverse. I also agree that we should all be open minded. We have all had different experiences and different opportunities. I do not think we should be placed into categories based on our past. Some of our schools held more opportunities than others, but the point is we are all here. I think we need to spend more time and energy focusing on those who arent here, rather than the differences amongst our class, who in my opinion, all hold bright futures.
I would first like to say that I think your last comment on being open minded was a GREAT one. I often find myself, in many of my human development classes, in discussions that are related to this topic often turn into a battle. I liked that you said that we should realize that each persons experience is different and we should realize that the only way to understand what it was like for the other is to be open-minded
As for your comment about resegregation, you definitely have a point. Recently, I watched a documentary about the first segregated school, Little Rock. The documentary was called "Little Rock Central: 50 years later" (it was on HBO). You would think that because this school was a milestone in history that it would try to keep to the highest standards of desegregation. However, this was not the case. So you may have a point when saying that people of the same background tend to stay together.
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