Debby Does…

I’m going to start with a sort of disclaimer, a caveat, a reader beware.

I have a lot of issues with public education. Having worked as an educator for 25 years, I have seen everything that’s right and wrong with the institution. Still, it is an institution and, in its purest, most unadulterated by reformers, form, its value is undeniable. It is supposed to be the great equalizer.

It’s not.

This post isn’t really about education, though it provides a jumping off point.

Moving right along (if you’ve pictured the Muppets, thank you)…

There seems to be a movement away from public education. I believe that Covid contributed, but I also feel as though there is a national desire to isolate. I don’t mean quarantine or lockdown. I mean that there is a need to take children, separate them from certain other children, and gather them together with children who look just like them, sound just like them ,and have the same parent guided interests.

In the area in which I am currently living, there is a school—a charter school—that has established itself as a home for classical education, feeding “the intellect and imagination, strong in arts, sciences, and music.”

I started reading about it and got excited! This is exactly what I think is important in education!

Then, I looked at the pictures.

Everyone is white—the Board of Directors, Paraprofessional Staff, Administration, Instructional Staff, even the Facilities Director. Only one Instructional Aide was a person of color. I saw a total of two students of color in their photo gallery and a school resource officer. When I reached out to them about the demographics of their students and staff, I received no reply.

This struck me, in particular: They describe the learning conditions as “orderly and calm.”

I have listened to enough parents talk about their school choices to know what this means. It means there is very little diversity. Parents perceive diversity as chaotic—children speaking other languages, cultural differences, and unfamiliar behavioral norms. When I would talk to parents about their child’s high school choice, they often mentioned our local technical high school as a strong contender, as opposed to the more diverse comprehensive high school, with stronger academics.

“There are so many fights,” they would say.

This is code for “there are mostly white kids at the tech school.” Their children weren’t going there because they were interested in the trades. They were going there to be with people who look like them.

We could debate this for hours, but that’s not really my point. How, in heaven’s name, can we prepare our children and our students for a world of many colors if we continually arrange situations for them that are only one color?

The world is, in general, an inclusive place. People of all shapes, colors, beliefs, abilities, and ideologies are walking around us every day. We have to know how to talk to them, negotiate with them, know them, and coexist. If a school’s job is to prepare students for the world, shouldn’t it reflect the world they are preparing for?

Our online lives are set up to encourage isolation as well. We can purge our friends’ lists, block followers, and only follow those who reinforce our beliefs and ideas. We are all supremely guilty of it, especially me. I have little tolerance for fools, so I tend to keep them out of sight.

This is not making me better. It’s probably making me smug and condescending. I’m going to work on that.

Over the 25 years that I taught high school, I saw a huge change in our parents and students. I worked in a school that was inclusive by nature and, when I started, our students were pretty darn good at accepting each other as they were and seeing folks as their equals. Over the last few years, I saw that begin to change. The groups started to seem more isolated and the “haves” seemed to rule the roost and set the tone.

That power group also seemed to be the group with the most isolating experiences. They only knew sports; their friends were the ones they made in sports; all their time was occupied by sports; and, most importantly, anyone who wasn’t into sports was less than worthy.

While I was teaching a dual credit music history course through a local community college, I gave a new assignment. I asked my students to describe a person who had an annual pass to an art museum and season tickets to the symphony.

Here are some of the words they used to describe that person: cringey, rich, stuck up, arrogant, single, lonely, pathetic, uncool, nerd, loser, and the like. Very few students seem to have any respect for this person whose life was different from their own.

As a follow up, I asked if they had ever been to a museum, a play, a concert, or any live music event. Most had not, nor did they see any value in it. They had, however, been to sporting events, vacation spots, on cruises, and to Disney. Money was not the issue here.

I’m taking a long time to get to my point, which is not unusual for me.

The world isn’t interesting if everyone looks the same, sounds the same, and tells the same story.

We are what makes the world interesting.

Who wants to live in an uninteresting, homogenized world?

What is the worst thing that can happen if you get to know someone who isn’t exactly like you?

Why are we scared of different experiences, different voices, and different perspectives?

Why do we label what’s different as bad or dangerous or weird or unworthy?

What good can come from setting ourselves apart from diversity and creating our own identical, white worlds?

If we don’t provide experiences for children, outside of our comfort zone, we are creating humans who will not be successful in the world, right?

As a teacher, I would beg parents to do the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing. Find diverse opportunities, show your child what new experiences look like, talk about them, read about new things together, look at what’s available in your community, and take advantage of the smorgasbord of possibilities. It will make your child smarter, more interesting, more intuitive, braver, and more human. How could any of that be bad?

When we know more people from different experiences, our hearts grow and our capacity for sympathy, empathy, and caring expands exponentially. It also makes things a lot more fun.

When we point fingers and call names, pull our children across the street when someone “scary” comes our way, and show them our ignorances and biases, we sink further into our isolation nation. How could that possibly be a good thing?

The opening ceremonies of this summer’s Olympics were rich in French culture, eclectic, and colorful. The American reaction was to claim that it was blasphemous. Many of those bemoaning this travesty have never read the bible and certainly do not follow the teachings of Jesus. Still they shouted and shook their fists over what they perceived as a drag queen depiction of the Last Supper.

(It’s now that I probably should mention that the painting of the Last Supper is simply an artist’s interpretation. We have no visual proof of what that looked like, so, I guess, we could stretch and say it might have included biblical drag queens. None of us can say for certain.)

What we can take away from this embarrassing display of cultural ignorance is that an awful lot of us aren’t very well read, beyond memes, social media posts, and supermarket tabloid headlines. It seems that most of us did not spend the summer before their freshman year in high school reading the dreaded Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, only to receive no grade for it. We don’t seem to recognize that the bible is a series of stories that explain, just as myths and fables do. That painting of the final supper of Jesus and his disciples exists to provide those who believe with a visual image of what the bible describes. The painting itself is not sacred; it’s an example of creative thought, just like the opening ceremonies. The painting and the biblical event are not one and the same.

If the events and political climate of the past 9 years is not enough of a sign that running to our corners, sticking our fingers in our ears, and singing “la, la, la, I can’t hear you” is not a solution, then maybe we all need to take stock. We need to dig deep into our ugliest bits and figure out how they got there and what we can do about them. No one is immune to fear and prejudice, no matter how we may try. It’s in there. It was installed in our body’s motherboard when we were just formulating our ideas about each other and the world. Most of us try our best to hide it, but others have been given permission to amplify it and use it to intimidate and belittle.

I don’t know how to fix this, but I do know that a world, specifically a country, where the first instinct is to hide and judge and rail and point and fear, is not sustainable. More than that, it’s just not a place that can feed our souls, make us better, and bring about global solutions. We all live in this big, mostly beautiful world, and our common goal should be to come together, not find ways to stay apart.

Our first common goal can be for people to learn the difference between apart and a part.

I’m done. I promise.