I quickly perused today's Dispatch and noticed the story regarding a local suburb which shall remain unnamed herein but which is the one I reside in and so do many people of my general demographic. The article addressed the school district of which I am not a part of due to the financially savvy annexing of this part of the suburb to other unnamed suburb. A lot of folks residing in this suburb but ending up in the "other" school district lament this zoning assuming the suburb's residential district is more desirable. I disagree.
My contention is that resources, books, money and white people alone do not make up all the necessary parts of a good education. What's missing? Diversity. Every student is a clone of the one next to them and so on. Today's article seems to support my argument. The story goes that the district has hired a record number of alumni as teachers. A school rep is quoted as saying, "We don't seek them out. They're just quality candidates..." Or maybe just maybe after spending 4 or 5 years in the real world and encountering people who were...different, diverse, and possibly not white they realized they needed to head back home to the cocoon. The result is likely to be an even more narrow educational experience for the kids in that school district.
Now the district I reside in isn't all that diverse at this point but will become more so in high school. We probably shouldn't shelter our kids but for most parents it's a natural instinct. One that ironically can be more detrimental than all that scary stuff out in the real world. Better to be prepared.
2 comments:
so why do you guys live in this non-diverse unnamed suburb? And there are parts of your unnamed suburb and school district that ARE diverse - your kids just wouldn't attend those schools. And yes, I live in Whitey McWhiteyville too, I realize.
We live in the non-diverse unnamed suburb because we like high taxes that are spent mostly on traffic circles. And actually, the diversity of my neighbors is striking. There is a family from Guatemala out on the roof next door as I type. Eventually, our kids will attend with the diverse kids in H.S. And yeah, it still really won't be that diverse but a maybe a pinch more. Like I said we all want to overprotect our kids I just think mine are slightly less protected. Two of their teachers are men -- one visited Africa once. How much more diverse can we get? Mostly just saying I wouldn't be tooting my horn about hiring a record number of alumni.
Post a Comment