Over the semester I have done a great deal of listening, reading, reflecting, and a good bit of talking as well. I realized early on in this course that in order to look toward the future, I had to dig through the past. I began by examining myself and the looking into the history of the independent school movement. I examined my own feelings about race and privilege, the founding of Rocky Mount Academy (RMA), and spoke with Tony Shanks, RMA’s first Black student. I came to the conclusion that in order to shape the future of RMA, I must accept who I am, examine the history of the school, and proactively transform who we were into who we can become. I believe we should continue to strive to be the finest school in Rocky Mount by providing the best education to students regardless of race, religion, class, or economic status. Although I still have more to learn and more to do as an educator, I feel I have begun an important journey to help me be a part of a transformation at my school.
Looking back to the first night of class, I distinctly remember being in tears. I was alone, at the front of the room, I let go of my friends’ hands and stepped ahead of my classmates for every statement of describing an advantage or opportunity. It was a game meant to demonstrate our diverse backgrounds, but I was embarrassed and ashamed when I “won” the race. I felt out of place, isolated, and unheard. How was I going to convince my Black professor and my six Black classmates that I was not a racist? More importantly, could I convince myself? Here I am, a privileged, White woman who left the public school setting to teach in an affluent private school where my students are around ninety percent Caucasian. Am I prejudiced? Am I a raci...
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...ps of Change with VISTA:
Tarheel Junior Historian 44:1, (fall 2004). Raleigh, NC: Jones, Alice Eley.
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Shanks, T. (Personal Interview, April 16, 2010)
Tatum, B.D. (1997). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? and
other conversations about race. New York, NY: Basic Books.
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4) In Rose Place the segregation needs to stop polluting the community, it goes beyond a racial hate but also an economic disparity. Integration at Jackson Smith elementary school is important not only for the minority students, but also for the students who have always attended that school. They can learn from each other and begin to understand how the world around them functions, they will have to work with others from all different types of life. By excluding a select group of students, the community is stunting their ability to achieve a greater life then what they are currently living in. “Isolation by poverty, language, and ethnicity threatens the future opportunities and mobility of students and communities excluded from competitive schools, and increasingly threatens the future of a society where young people are not learning how to live and work effectively across the deep lines of race and class in our region.” (Orfield, Siegel-Hawley, & Kucsera, 2011, p. 4). Through teachings, meetings and ongoing work this community could learn to open their doors to allow others in giving them the opportunity to become more effective members of society and hopeful helping squash out the remaining remnants of racial
In his book Improbable Scholars, David Kirp examines the steps communities take to make successful education reforms. While describing the particular education initiatives of Union City, New Jersey, Kirp suggests that “[if] we want to improve education, we must first have a vision of what good education is,” (2015). Kirp’s descriptions of Union City certainly support that point, but it’s difficult to claim that that point is generalizable if we do not examine other education initiatives and their approach to reform. In examining how visions of “good education” can guide successful education reforms, one can point to Black communities in Mississippi—whose radical vision of “good education” guided the creation of schools, curricula, and community
Mr. Kozol provides his own socially conscious and very informative view of the issues facing the children and educators in this poverty ravaged neighborhood. Those forces controlling public schools, Kozol points out, are the same ones perpetuating inequity and suffering elsewhere; pedagogic styles and shapes may change, but the basic parameters and purposes remain the same: desensitization, selective information, predetermined "options," indoctrination. In theory, the decision should have meant the end of school segregation, but in fact its legacy has proven far more muddled. While the principle of affirmative action under the trendy code word ''diversity'' has brought unparalleled integration into higher education, the military and corporate America, the sort of local school districts that Brown supposedly addressed have rarely become meaningfully integrated. In some respects, the black poor are more hopelessly concentrated in failing urban schools than ever, cut off not only from whites but from the flourishing black middle class.
Tatum, B. D. (1997). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And
Authors Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton in Chapter Five of Courageous Conversations About Race broach the topic of race, by asking the reader to evaluate his or her own consciousness of race. According to the authors, in order to address the achievement gaps between African American students and White students, educators should shift their energy towards focusing on the factors that they have direct control of inside the classroom rather than on the factors that influence this achievement disparity between races outside the classroom.
When a person presently looks at university school systems, one never imagines the struggle to obtain such diverse campuses. With Caucasians, Asians, Latinos, and African Americans all willing and able to attend any institution, it is difficult now to envision a world where, because of one’s skin color, a person is denied university acceptance. In actuality, this world existed only fifty years ago. In a time of extreme racial discrimination, African Americans fought and struggled toward one of many goals: to integrate schools. As a pioneer in the South, a man named James Meredith took a courageous step by applying to the University of Mississippi, an all white university. After overcoming many legal and social obstacles, the University of Mississippi’s integration sent positive effects rippling among universities across the nation.
... The amalgam of cultural and educational backgrounds will surely affect our college in the future; however, the tradition of the historically black college will not be lost. When our chorale and gospel choir sing spirituals on Founder's Day or commencement, one cannot forget the auspicious beginning of our college and the many colleges like ours, the ideal men and women like Booker T. Washington envisioned and strove to achieve. In this time of historical backsliding when doors are closing to talented students of color, the historically black college is again a home and a sacred space, a setting where one can cultivate talent, self love and the love of others--a special place where the bonds to a past and to an American tradition erase all personal feelings of self-aggrandizement and intellectual pride, a place where the self encounters the struggle of America's past, a place where the soul grows deep like the rivers. WORKS CITED Anderson, James D. The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935.
Ekwa-Ekoko, I. (2008). Afro-centric Schools within a Multicultural Context: Exploring Different Attitudes Towards the TDSB Proposal within the Black Community. Toronto: Ryerson University.
In September 1957, nine African American high school students set off to be the first African American students to desegregate the all white Central High School. The six agirls and the three boys were selected by their brightness and capability of ignoring threats of the white students at Central High. This was all part of the Little Rock school board’s plan to desegregate the city schools gradually, by starting with a small group of kids at a single high school. However, the plan turned out to be a lot more complex when Governor Orval Faubus decided not to let the nine enter the school.
As an African American male, I experienced inequality, and judgment from individuals that have no idea what kind of person I truly am. As a youth, I received a lackluster education, which has resulted in me underachieving in a number of my college classes. It has come to my attention that other colored students are currently experiencing and receiving the same inadequate learning environment and educatio...
Through programs that directly fuel desegregation in schools, our educational systems have become a melting pot of different races, languages, economic status, and abilities. Programs have been in place for the past fifty years to bring students that live in school districts that lack quality educational choices, to schools that are capable of providing quality education to all who attend. Typically the trend appears to show that the schools of higher quality are located in suburban areas, leaving children who live in “black” inner-city areas to abandon the failing school systems of their neighborhoods for transportation to these suburban, “white” schools. (Angrist & Lang, 2004). This mix of inner-city and suburban cultures creates new challenges for students and teachers alike.
The issue of whether HBCU’s are still needed have been occurring constantly in today’s nation. HBCU’s have been in existence for almost two centuries now. Their principal mission is to educate African Americans, and they have. HBCU’s graduate more than 50% of “African American” professionals and public school teachers. But, HBCU’s have been facing challenges such as their decrease in diversity, financing, and graduate rates which has caused a speculation of their importance in today’s communities. I believe that HBCU’s are still needed.
In the book In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing and Standardization, Deborah Meier shares her experiences in designing and operating Mission Hill School in Boston, serving as principal, and her experiences teaching and leading in various New York City schools. She became the founder and director of the alternative Central Park East School, which embraced the ideals of John Dewey and she served as founding principal for Central Park East II and River East, both in East Harlem. Meier also helped to establish a network of small schools in New York City. She started out teaching kindergarten in a temporary position in Chicago with the intentions of following a different path in life after this position, but found her passion in teaching, specifically with the minority population. Her love for and connection with inner city school minority students comes from her experience as a young Jewish girl feeling like a minority growing up in a predominantly Anglo-Saxon population.
1957 was a year of irony and progress. It started and ended on “Tuesday” and progressed from the common though that African Americans were not equal to white people to more equality between the two races. It was a difficult time of change of Americans as the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak in 1957. One of the main headlines that year was the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1954 the Supreme Court decided that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. As one of the first schools to integrate Central High School because known for the Little Rock Nine, a group of nine selected African American students that changed history and started to change the common thought of African Americans to a positive one. For the purpose of this paper I will discuss the positive effects of Central High School’s integration and the Little Rock Nine.
Diversity in classrooms can open student’s minds to all the world has to offer. At times diversity and understanding of culture, deviant experiences and perspectives can be difficult to fulfill, but with appropriate strategies and resources, it can lead students gaining a high level of respect for those unlike them, preferably than a judgmental and prejudiced view.