I am really bummed that I wasn't able to be in class to discuss this portion of the reading. I have always felt that I have lived a fairly naive life and am generally unaware of the plights that many people in this country have faced, reading this section of the book really tugged at me. It is impossible for me to imagine our country existing in the way it did only sixty years ago. I often imagine stories such as the plight of the Little Rock Nine as some kind of bizarre fictional story out of Hollywood. I can't imagine it could have possibly happened in this world. Every so often, however I am reminded of the truth. I recently attended a training in which we were asked to do a bit of role playing. We were supposed to act out the iconic photo which depicts the young black girl walking to school with people yelling all around her and armed guards present to enforce the law. The trainer talked about a time she did the same activity with teacher at a school in Arkansas. One of the teachers present at the training that day shared that one of the people in the picture was her aunt.
This article really made me think about the relationship between our education system and other education systems internationally. I often hear people say ( and often repeat myself) that many foreign countries don't test their entire populations of students and therefore our test scores are not comparable for this reason. This argument hinges upon a knowledge of civil rights movements in these countries and where they are in the progression compared to the United States. For example, if a country practiced full exclusion of their special education population this would obviously be a difference in civilian rights compared to the USA and would also skew test scores. I would have loved being in class today and having the opportunity to ask Matt about this. If it is true, does that mean many of these other countries will experience a civil rights movement similar to the water did? Will their education system be affected by it?
It was fun to talk with Bud at Gambino’s the other evening. He lives not too far away from the neighborhood I grew up in, a very multicultural part of Boise. Each house on our street that bent around our elementary school was of a different nationality with their own languages being spoken and holidays being celebrated. We felt we had such freedom to express who we were and enjoy learning about where others had come from. Block parties and school socials were very expressive and delectable.
ReplyDeleteI am very grateful that my parents couldn’t afford to live anywhere else, because I learned at an early age that I, too, could be discriminated against as well. I became very aware that children are only mean to children of other races because they have learned it from their parents. It breaks my heart to see children learning hate from their family members, rather than choosing to get to know someone for who they really are and not based upon what they look like. The tougher one for me has been the religious racism. When we moved to Idaho Falls and the neighbors wouldn’t let their kids play with us because we didn’t belong to their church.
It makes me so excited when my kids bring home kids of other nationalities and faiths. I feed them, they all call me mom, and we all get along because we embrace each other’s uniqueness and similarities. People are people; we should love each other for humanity’s sake and get along.
Bobbi Jean
I do think this push and pull is happening right now in northern Europe where they are grappling with the civil rights of immigrants from Turkey and refugees from African countries. Some of the immigrants are naturalized citizens and some are undocumented. The northern European tax rates are very high in comparison to ours, but the revenue often supports universal health care, paid maternity and paternity leave, pro-social events, and educational opportunities for the citizens. The rub for many people there is the sharing of the resources with resident people who haven’t invested in the system, but are reaping the benefits. The governments offered amnesty for the refugees or recruited workers to support the economies in countries with a less than zero population growth, but the new people came with a wide variety of experiences, foods, religions, and views toward the West. This has put stress on their societal systems because the ways things have been done before with a relatively homogenous population are now expected to address the changing needs of a different population base. The former generational understandings of the individual versus the greater good are now no longer the universal understanding. Education has been impacted and many similar questions that we face are being asked there: What language do we teach? Do we accommodate for different religions? Do we educate undocumented people? If so, through what system?
ReplyDeleteMy family has hosted students from Denmark recently and they were amazed at the differences in the educational and social systems in the US. They don’t change classes at their school, the teachers move from room to room. They hadn’t gone to school with special needs students before or in a school with such diversity of cultures and languages. They were struck by the misbehavior that was tolerated as well. They shared with us that schools are tracked in Denmark with students making life decisions at 13 or 14 by the schools attended or via aptitude tests. Universities are free of charge IF a student is able to pass certain tests. Other students go on to vocational schools or whatever their aptitude tests show as appropriate. Special education takes place at separate schools where needs can be met. The exchange students said that they don’t believe that everyone takes the same tests. Only students who want to go to university would be taking the tests that require academic rigor.