Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

shuffle the deck

permalink | categories: diversity, education, tampa
by kate @ 1:16 pm

How do we break out of our current social experience to bring others in?

I’m asking.

Tags: diversity, education, tampa

5 Responses to “shuffle the deck”

voxpopuli Says:
February 12th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
I admire your goal.

My answer would be too long for this site but I will perhaps discuss same on my own blog or yours.

This would be a good question to pose to those who are in charge of bussing.

Why are the ‘bussed’ children separated so often and apparently from those dropped off? The kids themselves know how to get together, the problems are created by the super-elias and other authority in the school system. If they are the ones in charge of bussing and cloaked segregation and I would say they are.
Meredith Says:
February 12th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Adversity provides opportunity to learn about others, to provide and accept help from them. If we learned to recognize the opportunities, we might be more unified.
dcdave Says:
February 12th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Integration is a pipe dream. Even in college, where there were plenty of african-american, korean-american, indian-american and europeanean-americans, all of these groups were guilty of self-segregation. The Korean kids hung out at one dining hall, the black kids at another, the Indian kids hung out off campus and the white kids, well, they were busy hating each other for being hippies/republicans/democrats/punks/indie kids/different.
It wasn’t uncommon to hear racial epithets coming from the minority groups about as frequently as from the dominant white ethnic group.
It all goes back to the fact that it’s easier to deal with something you’re familiar with than be challenged with something that’s different. I feel bad for those poor kids who get bused in because they are probably ostracized, pre-judged and don’t stand a chance in the school they’re in, while their friends back at home mock them for going to the school that they do.
The answer, however unpopular, is to de-link a school from it’s community. Education is a national security issue, and should be treated as such. Communities have no idea about the harm they’re doing because they are short-sighted by their very natures. They are not attuned to the bigger picture, that is an America that is failing in the global education market. Our Universities are some of the best in the world, which is why we have so many people rushing to come here. But our primary and secondary systems are a joke. If you live in a poor broken community, you are generally stuck with it’s schools, and their lack of funding.
Schools should be equally funded, and standardized.
Some may regard that as radical, but show me anything that’s worked educationally on a national scale and I’ll take it all back.
kate Says:
February 12th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
I dunno, I had lots of black friends in school and college. Lately, it’s been a different story. We can chalk it up to laziness, comfort zones, ignorance, etc. but we’d all benefit from a more diverse social situation.

Is all I’m sayin’.
Tom Says:
February 14th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Come to an event in the Bartlett Park neighborhood and you will meet a diverse and fun group of people.

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