White person say what?

I found the articles in the reader pertaining to the education of the Native Americans particularly interesting. As interesting as it was, it also sadden and frustrated me. I am taking an American Diversity class right now and we are just finishing up a unit on the Native Americans and the treatment they have received thus far from "white society." I was able to make connections between what I am learning in both classes, but it makes me even more frustrated. We attempted to assimilate the children by taking away everything they had ever known, including their families. We pushed our religion, values and traditions on the children to make them fit into "white society." Yet, even after all that work, we still held them back because of the racism that existed and still exists today.

The lost of culture has been regained some by the older people teaching the younger ones the traditional ways. However, the assimilation has taken root and the children really don't want to take to those ways anymore. It is sad because the Indian culture is really beautiful, and the people can teach us a lot if we are willing to listen.

Hmmm....where to live?

This week was really eye opening in terms of looking at the segregation that is happening in schools in America. On Wednesday, we watched a clip from Oprah about two schools in the Chicago area that were completely different. One was an inner city school that was lacking many necessary resources, and the other was a fancy suburban school about 35 minutes away. It was shocking to see the apparent differences among the schools. The difference in graduation rates between the schools was also slightly disturbing. The inner city school had a rate of 40% while the suburban school was at 99% graduation rate. It is hard to imagine that this type of inequality is happening in our public schools today. It is atrocious and unfair. The kids in the inner city need and deserve the resources and facilities that the suburban kids have. Especially in inner city schools, alot of the students are up against difficult living situations and are making critical life choices. Without the resources and materials, these kids are making choices with out the skills and options that are afforded to those in the suburban schools.