The students at Greenville* Elementary are mostly African American, or Hispanic. When looking around the classroom there are only a couple Caucasian and Asian students. When searching Greenville Elementary on inforworks.com, the statistics show that 56%, more than half of the school’s students are Hispanic. 21% are African American, only 13% Asian and 10% Caucasian.
When you first walk into the school there are signs in both Spanish and English, which I think it is great to have a school welcoming to people who speak different languages. I think these signs are mostly for parents leading them to different part of the building, because inside the actual classrooms there are no other signs containing both languages. According to infoworks.com only 26% of the students are receiving an ESL education service.
Jonathan Kozol would say that this school is not a diverse school. Just because most of the students in the school are Hispanic or African American, does not make this school diverse. When looking at the students in Ms. Oak’s classroom there are only two Caucasian students and one Asian student. Jonathan Kozol would argue that if this school was diverse, then there would be an equal percentage of all ethnicities.
According to infoworks.com the majority of the percentage of proficiency in math and reading for grades 3 through 6 are substantially below proficient. The students in which attend Greenville Elementary live in a poor urban area. This could be a factor in why scores are so low. Jonathan Kozol argues that if this happened to a rich school, something would be done to change the proficiency of the scores. He says what is good for a rich child, is just as good for a poor child. It is upsetting to me that year after year the students at the school are continuing to achieve such low scores.
In Ms. Oak’s classroom, the ethnical background differences of the students are as obvious to these first graders as it is to me. A boy, Bert was being teased by another boy, Ernie, saying he had a crush on a girl in the class. Bert was not angry he laughed with Ernie saying he could never have a crush on the girl because they were friends, and neighbors, but more importantly because she was white. Bert did not speak about the girl’s skin color in a derogatory way, but it was one of the reasons that he could not have a crush on her. Since these boys were saying this directly in front of me, I explained that it was okay if he had a crush on her and Bert exclaimed “That means I can have a crush on you!”
*names have been changed
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Hi Kristin,
ReplyDeleteYou're correct--Kozol would charge that the classroom is not diverse; it is, in fact, segregated. What do you think are the implications of a segregated school?
You share an interesting anecdote about Bert and Ernie (cute pseudonyms). Some would say that young children are without such attitudes. Here we see that, already in first grade, the children have learned that skin color matters.
Dr. August
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ReplyDeleteKristin, I definitely agree that your school is not diverse. I argued the same point about Chris’s blog when he said his school WAS diverse because of the large African American and Hispanic percentages, even though all the other percentages were relatively low. I believe that Kozol is right that the parts must be equal for the school to be diverse, because if you exchange the percentages of the Hispanic students for those of the White students so that whites are the majority, one would probably change their mind about the diversity of the school. I think it is sad that your school has performed so poorly in the past years on tests. It must make the students feel as if they are not worthy of extra help from the town/state/government because they come from a poor area. I feel as if the poorest areas should get the most help and funding because they are the ones that need it the most and it would help to stop perpetuating the cycle of rich privilege. If the poor schools got better funding, the children would get better educations, possibly go on to graduate from high school and college and get a good job, giving them more opportunities to improve their economic standing. I thought Bert and Ernie’s story was kind of cute but also sad. First of all I love the names (rubber ducky you’re the one was my favorite song when I was little), but it made me wonder what this boy’s parents were telling him if he thought that he couldn’t have a crush on a girl just because she was white. It may not have been his parents telling him anything but maybe it was just what he saw in his everyday life. If he had never seen an interracial couple before he may have just assumed that black men were supposed to be with black women, and white men were supposed to be with white women. I think it is great that you corrected him and let him know that it doesn’t matter what color her skin is, as long as you like her for who she is.
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