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School history

This post is in response to Chanson's post about French schools---it started out as a comment and grew and grew... Unfortunately, I can't quite figure out how to link to it (and I need to do the laundry and shower before Luke wakes up), but here's her blog, it's September 20th's post.

I went to a public southwest Minneapolis elementary school. It was mostly white, until about 5th grade when waves of Hmong refugees started coming into the city. The Hmong students were pretty much as nerdy as I was: my best friend Hai outscored the 6th grade teacher on the Iowa test of basic skills. There were not many African American students there, though.

When I was in 7th grade, I went to a South Minneapolis jr. high---it was certainly integrated. However, the experience served mostly to confirm whatever vague prejudices I had gotten from TV: the black students were interested in smoking, making out in the back of the bus (these were 7th and 8th graders!), and not in succeeding in school. I basically didn't talk to anyone until I was put in the gifted/talented english class, when I finally felt comfortable enough to make some friends---who were all white. My best interracial relationship was with my biology teacher, a very powerful African American man (Dr. Williams) whose lessons I still remember. In general, though, going to an integrated school did not help and probably hurt my prejudices.

It is definitely fair to say that my own social ineptness contributed to the problem, as did the sheer awfulness of 7th grade. Also, High School in Minneapolis probably would have been much much better. What I want to say, though, is mere integration is not enough. (Certainly, neither is segregation---My husband went to a mostly white rural high school in Wisconsin, and had some of the same troubles I had in jr. high.) For my kids, I want them to go to school with kids who want to be there, whose parents are encouraging them, and not with kids who see it mostly as a social club and don't respect the teachers or the education they are trying to give the students. It's not that academics are the only part of getting an education, but I do believe that they are the main point and can unite students from different backgrounds.

Where we live now has a county-wide school system, instead of city by city. It certainly has its problems, but they are able to do more integration using income tests and magnet schools than they would if it were more local. It is quite interesting coming to the south... There is an incredible amount of baggage here in the south, and if I ever figure out any meaningful part of it I will write up a post. Integration in the South is much more complicated than in the most of the North, just because of history.

Right now, my daughter goes to a private elementary school which fits her personality. The attached preschool succeeds in getting very diverse classes in general, although any specific class may full of blue-eyed blonds. My favorite comment of Eleanor's was about her best friend in preschool: "Nur looks just like me, except a little taller. We could be twins!" Nur is Haitian/Lebanese/European and does not look anything like Eleanor---except perhaps if you look at their hearts, which is the point, I think.

Comments

Carol said…
That's a good point -- I don't mean to imply that integration is simple and that good results follow effortlessly. (here's the link to the specific article.) If that were the case, it would be done; it wouldn't even be an issue.

Taking two discrete populations that see themselves as distinct from one another and forcing them into close contact can increase hostility. Still, I think merely being in close contact creates the opportunity for a lot of positive interactions in addition to the negative ones. I think that fact alone is one of the big reasons why people in cities are more politically liberal than people in small towns. In your own story, you were at a stage in your life where your interactions with teachers were more positive than your interactions with students, and you ended up having a memorable positive experience with a teacher of another race.

That said, you're right that the South faces very particular challenges, and that's good to hear that your school district is working on finding good solutions.
mathmom said…
Carol---

Thanks for the reply and the link! I think that the point I was trying to make with the story was that sending kids to an integrated school to make them tolerant is not sufficient. I do agree that no interactions at all does not beget tolerance, and likely leads to intolerance.

Looking back at my story, I can see that most of the problems I had at the Jr. High stem from being a geeky 7th grader, and not from the school population. I have heard (although I have no statistics to support this) that 12 is a very conservative, xenophobic age. I believe it.

My mom recently apologized for sending me to that school. It certainly wasn't her fault, it was more that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time---and then moving to the suburbs for 8th grade just complicated things further.

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