Brown vs. Board of Edu., Herbert, TAL

Ryan Mottram
FNED 346
Mrs. McKamey
11/4/18

Response to Brown vs. Board of Education, Bob Herbert, and TAL 

Quotes:

"If you really want to improve the education of poor children, you have to get them away from learning environments that are smothered by poverty." 

A lot of families who live in areas and neighborhoods that may be at poverty level cannot afford to move away from their residential place necessarily. Instead, better schools that are well-maintained and offer a good education with caring teachers should be established in these areas so that the children living in them can eventually move on to pursue a good career and have a better life, as their parents are surely hoping for.  There have been good schools established in rough and relatively poverty-level areas in cities throughout parts of the country including in Providence, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, etc. that have allowed kids growing up in them who want to learn excel in honors programs and graduate with a high GPA and attend college as a result of their willingness to work hard, despite backgrounds.  People living in these areas are certainly not asking for private schools due to monetary situations, but just schools easily accessible that offer a good education and safety for their children so they can do much better in life, and if there is a school children will come.



"More than a half-century after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation ruling, we are still trying as a country to validate and justify the discredited concept of separate but equal schools — the very idea supposedly overturned by Brown v. Board when it declared, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

Surely everyone can agree that all US schools today should be inherently equal without separation.  unfortunately, there are assumptions that the reasons why schools today still seems to be separate and unequal is because the majority of schools in poverty-level and lower class areas tend to be dominantly populated by minorities living nearby and do not offer as good of an education as schools that may be dominantly white with more teachers.  If there are people who believe this problem did not get resolved half a century ago, then it will certainly not resolve itself now.  Teachers can make a difference by treating all of their students the same no matter where the location of the school is and offer the best education possible to all of them.



"Americans’ pursuit of racial justice is a complex story that reveals the weaknesses of the human character, while at the same time affording hope in the triumph of the human spirit."

Racism certainly does not have to be a weakness of human character, and is nothing more than merely a negative concept that others use to insult individuals based on the color of their skin.  Schools are institutions where teachers should be willing to treat all students equally and entirely disregard all negativity regarding racism.  Being an educator is especially an occupation where this should be understood because of the fact that they will be dealing with young innocent children who cannot help their current home life and just want to make friends and even learn.  Helping others is an important part of life, and teachers should especially be willing to do so with children regardless of the color of their skin.


Comment/Point to Share:

Due to the majority of our schools for service learning being half white and half race-ethnic minority populations, I feel having a discussion one class about whether or not all the children in the classroom at our field sites are truly treated equally regardless of race or ethnicity would be beneficial.


https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/opinion/22herbert.html

http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/exhibition/index.html