Perhaps we are measuring the wrong things. What do children gain by attending schools with students from diverse backgrounds, aside from what we can read in the results of standardized test scores?
What do children lose by attending segregated schools?
In my own experience, in a town in Indiana, not far from Indianapolis, I spent 9 years of school in an all-white environment (asian counting as white enough, I guess). The racist jokes were all aimed at the small handful of ‘Polacks’ in our school. It made me very uncomfortable, and though I did not defend those kids, I did not join in.
During my tenth year, a black girl suddenly appeared in our school. We understood she was there because of trouble at her previous school, or a pregnancy, or something. I might have seen her in the halls once or twice, but never had the opportunity to speak to her. And then she was gone. I’m sure the two or three weeks in our school were the most horrible of her life.
In my final two years of high school, I spent half a day at my home school, and the other half at a nearby vo-tech school. There were black people there. Lots of them! Mexicans, too! My lab partner, Eric, was black, and we got along well. I would have called him a friend, if we didn’t live on opposite ends of the bus routes that brought us to our common school. So we were friends in class. He and I were the only two people who ever played the hybrid tic-tac-toe/connect four game I had developed. We had coded language that existed between the two of us. He vouched for me among his friends, and I was allowed to sit at a black table, and eat ice cream during our breaks. We helped each other learn basic electronics, and went to a competition together, and didn’t do terrible.
I did learn some electronics while there, not that I retain much other than basic theory and the ability to use a multimeter. I can solder, when it’s required.
But I learned much more. I learned that people put together can get along, and often do. I learned that there was nothing to fear from people different from myself. I learned that a black kid my age was more or less interested in the same things that I was, though we listened to slightly different music. I learned to appreciate the music he did. I learned things I can’t put into words, and those things live with me today, nearly thirty years later. I may not be smarter, but I am a better person. Most of the kids from my high school are still as close-minded as they were then, and they always will be. Their kids might get ‘good’ educations, but they’ll lack that thing that my kids don’t, because they attended diverse schools from a much younger age than I did.
We are measuring the wrong things when we send our kids to the ‘right schools’. And it’s a shame.
