Over this past week, my husband and I have been winding down each day by trading worries about the incident that occurred last Friday at school. Has our Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s teacher been informed of the incident? Do the other girls' parents know what happened, and how was the incident conveyed? Did the school administration express "zero tolerance" for the behavior, or did they simply report "the facts"? What will be the follow up for what happened? What should be the response, follow up, and accountability on the part of the school personnel to assure our daughter's safety?
I spent two hours yesterday afternoon on the elementary playground enjoying the early onset of spring and the informal celebration of my younger daughter's birthday with her sister's friends and siblings. The perpetrator of the incident last Friday was part of the mix on the playground yesterday, and she appeared to be in hot pursuit of my daughter's attention and affection. Several times, my DD1 shrugged off her classmate's arm around her shoulder, or shook off her hand in an attempted grasp. When we got home yesterday evening, I spoke with my DD1 about her feelings regarding her classmate; "Do you want to be friends with this classmate? Do you like it when she puts her arm around you or chases you on the playground?" I asked. "No, Mommy, I don't want to be friends with her" my DD1 stated. "Are you afraid of her?" I queried next. "No, I'm not afraid of her, but she doesn't listen when I say 'no' or 'stop,' and I don't think the teachers would understand if she tells on me."
Our school district has a formal anti-bullying policy, in which the school board signals a commitment to ensuring that all schools are "safe" environments in which students are free of "bullying, harassment, or intimidation." Bullying or harassment is defined in this policy as "intentional conduct that creates a hostile educational environment by substantially interfering with a student’s educational benefits, opportunities, or performance, or with a student’s physical or psychological well-being." Upon the submission of a formal "Bullying, Harassment, or Intimidation Incident Reporting Form," the school district policy requires that school personnel take immediate action to intercede on behalf of the student who is being bullied or harassed.
Given our concerns for the toll that her classmate's over-zealous attention may (continue to) take on our daughter, I am coming to see that what my husband and I have been deliberating upon through our back and forth this week is whether or not the hair cutting incident last Friday, in combination with the history of their prior interactions, can be identified as harassment or bullying? If we don't characterize this classmate's interactions with our daughter as such, can we trust that the school personnel will take our concerns seriously enough? Or is it only by naming what happened last week as bullying or as harassment, and by signaling this framing through the submission of a formal incident report, that we can be assured that our daughter's teachers, guidance counselor, and school administrators will act to help protect her, and will support our DD1 in her attempts to establish a firmer boundary between herself and her classmate?
My questions to my readers extend from my week's deliberations with my husband: What is our role in helping our daughter navigate the intrusive demands of her classmate? How do you know when a pattern of peer interaction is a form of harassment or bullying? In kindergarten, what forms of intervention on behalf of our daughter should we be seeking from the personnel at the school?
Friday, February 24, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Our First Call from the Principal's Office
Friday afternoon at 2pm I received a call from the assistant principal at my older daughter's school. "Don't be alarmed," the assistant principal assured me as she opened the conversation. "I am calling to report an incident. Your daughter was involved in an interaction with two other girls in her class in which a piece of her hair was cut off. We have spoken with all three girls and your daughter is fine. It is school policy to inform all parents when their children are taken to the principal's office."
My stomach lurched as I listened to my daughter's assistant principal explain the situation. My eyes welled up with tears, and a lump formed in my throat. I could feel the slow burn of anger gathering inside me as I attended to the principal's full report. My questions gathered, too: Where was the teacher? Which girls were involved in the incident? Was my daughter hurt? Was the intent malicious? Or did one of her classmates just get carried away by curiosity, as my two daughters have done at home with scissors and hair?
The next hour and a half after this phone call was a long wait. I wanted, no I needed, to be reassured that my daughter was okay, and the only reassurance I could trust was my own first hand verification. As I waited outside the kindergarten doors on Friday afternoon, I hoped that she would emerge and then offer her usual smile, hug, and skip before charging off to play. And she did -- my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) smiled at me, and then ran over to hug me before asking me to hold her backpack and coat so she could be freed to play. My daughter was okay.
24 hours plus later, I, too, am working to find my equilibrium. My DD1 provided me with the full story of what happened after we left the playground. The incident took place in the housekeeping corner of her classroom, which is somewhat hidden from sight. My DD1 was working with scissors and paper to cut out shapes with another classmate, when a third classmate came over to the housekeeping area holding her own scissors and announced that she was going to cut off her tongue. After being ignored, this classmate instructed the other girl to cover my DD1's eyes while she held her down to snip off some hair. My DD1 kicked in protest as she was being held down, and after a lock of her hair was captured she was released. She immediately went to the substitute teacher to report the incident; her story was confirmed by the ESOL teacher who witnessed the interaction. The three girls were then taken to the office by the ESOL teacher, and my DD1 repeated her story to the principal, which was corroborated by the two other girls who were involved in the exchange.
My daughter also revealed that the perpetrator was, indeed, the classmate whom I suspected. From the first week of school, my DD1 has been troubled by this girl's mode of interaction. She has pushed my DD1 on the stairs, pulled on her sweatshirt hood, taken away her stuffed dog and ignored my DD1's request to return her toy. When they were in the same reading group, my DD1 complained of the bickering that seemed required of her. When I have volunteered in my DD1's classroom, I have noticed that this classmate seems to be seeking my daughter's attention and friendship, which she exhibits by rushing to stand next to her in line, requesting to sit next to her at lunch, and chasing her at recess. And yet her manner of eliciting connection is challenging to my daughter because she is repeatedly invasive of her personal space and she is too often up in my daughter's face.
As a teacher, I would work each day to see and commend the good in this child who has been so irksome to my daughter. However, as a parent, I am ready to dismiss this child as unfit for my daughter's company. I fiercely want to protect my daughter from anything or anyone who can do her harm. Consequently, my dialogue with my DD1 has shifted this year away from how important it is to be friends with all the children in her class to how it is sometimes necessary to distance ourselves from those who do not know how to be friends. As of Friday, I have given my DD1 explicit permission to say "No" to this classmate's request to sit together at lunch or to play at recess. Yet what is not so clear to me is how I should engage with the educators at my daughter's elementary school regarding this pattern of problematic behavior with another child in her class. Is this incident an example of what can happen when the focus of kindergarten becomes too exclusively focused on the academic and not enough on the social and emotional developmental needs of children? If the kindergarten curriculum no longer teaches children how to positively interact with one another, then how can my daughter's classmate practice the kinds of behaviors that could better lead to authentic friendship and connection with her peers? What is the responsibility of the educators at my daughter's school to protect students from harm, particularly the harm that children can inflict on one another?
My stomach lurched as I listened to my daughter's assistant principal explain the situation. My eyes welled up with tears, and a lump formed in my throat. I could feel the slow burn of anger gathering inside me as I attended to the principal's full report. My questions gathered, too: Where was the teacher? Which girls were involved in the incident? Was my daughter hurt? Was the intent malicious? Or did one of her classmates just get carried away by curiosity, as my two daughters have done at home with scissors and hair?
The next hour and a half after this phone call was a long wait. I wanted, no I needed, to be reassured that my daughter was okay, and the only reassurance I could trust was my own first hand verification. As I waited outside the kindergarten doors on Friday afternoon, I hoped that she would emerge and then offer her usual smile, hug, and skip before charging off to play. And she did -- my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) smiled at me, and then ran over to hug me before asking me to hold her backpack and coat so she could be freed to play. My daughter was okay.
24 hours plus later, I, too, am working to find my equilibrium. My DD1 provided me with the full story of what happened after we left the playground. The incident took place in the housekeeping corner of her classroom, which is somewhat hidden from sight. My DD1 was working with scissors and paper to cut out shapes with another classmate, when a third classmate came over to the housekeeping area holding her own scissors and announced that she was going to cut off her tongue. After being ignored, this classmate instructed the other girl to cover my DD1's eyes while she held her down to snip off some hair. My DD1 kicked in protest as she was being held down, and after a lock of her hair was captured she was released. She immediately went to the substitute teacher to report the incident; her story was confirmed by the ESOL teacher who witnessed the interaction. The three girls were then taken to the office by the ESOL teacher, and my DD1 repeated her story to the principal, which was corroborated by the two other girls who were involved in the exchange.
My daughter also revealed that the perpetrator was, indeed, the classmate whom I suspected. From the first week of school, my DD1 has been troubled by this girl's mode of interaction. She has pushed my DD1 on the stairs, pulled on her sweatshirt hood, taken away her stuffed dog and ignored my DD1's request to return her toy. When they were in the same reading group, my DD1 complained of the bickering that seemed required of her. When I have volunteered in my DD1's classroom, I have noticed that this classmate seems to be seeking my daughter's attention and friendship, which she exhibits by rushing to stand next to her in line, requesting to sit next to her at lunch, and chasing her at recess. And yet her manner of eliciting connection is challenging to my daughter because she is repeatedly invasive of her personal space and she is too often up in my daughter's face.
As a teacher, I would work each day to see and commend the good in this child who has been so irksome to my daughter. However, as a parent, I am ready to dismiss this child as unfit for my daughter's company. I fiercely want to protect my daughter from anything or anyone who can do her harm. Consequently, my dialogue with my DD1 has shifted this year away from how important it is to be friends with all the children in her class to how it is sometimes necessary to distance ourselves from those who do not know how to be friends. As of Friday, I have given my DD1 explicit permission to say "No" to this classmate's request to sit together at lunch or to play at recess. Yet what is not so clear to me is how I should engage with the educators at my daughter's elementary school regarding this pattern of problematic behavior with another child in her class. Is this incident an example of what can happen when the focus of kindergarten becomes too exclusively focused on the academic and not enough on the social and emotional developmental needs of children? If the kindergarten curriculum no longer teaches children how to positively interact with one another, then how can my daughter's classmate practice the kinds of behaviors that could better lead to authentic friendship and connection with her peers? What is the responsibility of the educators at my daughter's school to protect students from harm, particularly the harm that children can inflict on one another?
Thursday, February 16, 2012
What Is the Role of Play in Kindergarten?
In Beverly's Cleary's ode to kindergarten, Ramona the Pest, the kindergarten protagonist describes kindergarten as being "divided into two parts" -- the part which includes "games, dancing, finger painting, and playing," and the part called "seat work". Ramona calls out the importance of play in her kindergarten experience as a kind of counter balance to the "serious" part of school. My favorite educational philosopher, Vivan Paley, also signals the importance of play to learning in her book You Can't Say You Can't Play, a study of her students' social relationships with one another as developed through classroom play. After having spent a morning in my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s classroom this week on Valentine's Day wherein I got to observe my daughter and her classmates during a half hour of free choice play, and having had a lengthy conversation this week, too, with two colleagues at my younger daughter's preschool about the purpose of free play, I find myself wondering: what is the role of play in kindergarten, in terms of students' academic learning and social development?
At home, my DD1 loves to engage in imaginative free play with her younger sister. They usually enlist a legion of stuffed animals to act out their scenarios. They collect props from their room as well as from throughout the house to furnish scenes for their staged play. In the spring and summer, they move seamlessly between inside the house, the patio, and the yard to create a series of elaborate sets. What is the purpose of this free play during my daughters' extracurricular hours? To enjoy being alive and the sparks of their own lively imaginations? To experience the thrill of creativity and the power of their own agency? To expand language skills and fine and gross motor production skills? All of the above and more?
And at school, what is the purpose of play? On Valentine's Day, my DD1 and her classmates could select the block area, the housekeeping area, puzzles, the writing center, books, or the computer and Promethean board stations. Because it was a special holiday, the students were not assigned to their usual small groups or to a specific rotation of centers. Rather, they could choose which form of play they wanted to engage in, and with whom. And yet instead of blissful engagement and the visible enrapture of fun, I noticed several of the kindergarteners wandering around the classroom, apparently not sure where to go or what to do. For those at the computer stations, tension erupted as to whose turn it was to use the mouse and the Promethean pencil. And on both the carpet with the puzzles as well as in the block station, the kindergarteners in those areas bickered with each other as to how long the block road should be, which animals should be allowed on the road, and which puzzle pieces could be used by who. Where was the fun? Where was the productive learning? And where was sense of the social connectedness that can come through children playing together?
Clearly play is important in elementary school and in kindergarten because recess on the playground is an integral part of the daily schedule for students. At my DD1's school, the kindergarteners have their own dedicated playground which is adjacent to the Pre-K and kindergarten wing of the school. I can tell a positive difference in my daughter's energy and behavior on the days when she plays outside during recess or after school versus the days when the weather or our schedules do not permit her this playground time. However, I am coming to see that I cannot really articulate what this playground time during school hours is for, given how little guidance there is of childrens' interactions with one another.
I appeal to my readers to consider with me: How purposeful does play need to be in order to be productive? Under what conditions is play beneficial to children's learning and development? And under what conditions can free, unstructured play become counterproductive?
At home, my DD1 loves to engage in imaginative free play with her younger sister. They usually enlist a legion of stuffed animals to act out their scenarios. They collect props from their room as well as from throughout the house to furnish scenes for their staged play. In the spring and summer, they move seamlessly between inside the house, the patio, and the yard to create a series of elaborate sets. What is the purpose of this free play during my daughters' extracurricular hours? To enjoy being alive and the sparks of their own lively imaginations? To experience the thrill of creativity and the power of their own agency? To expand language skills and fine and gross motor production skills? All of the above and more?
And at school, what is the purpose of play? On Valentine's Day, my DD1 and her classmates could select the block area, the housekeeping area, puzzles, the writing center, books, or the computer and Promethean board stations. Because it was a special holiday, the students were not assigned to their usual small groups or to a specific rotation of centers. Rather, they could choose which form of play they wanted to engage in, and with whom. And yet instead of blissful engagement and the visible enrapture of fun, I noticed several of the kindergarteners wandering around the classroom, apparently not sure where to go or what to do. For those at the computer stations, tension erupted as to whose turn it was to use the mouse and the Promethean pencil. And on both the carpet with the puzzles as well as in the block station, the kindergarteners in those areas bickered with each other as to how long the block road should be, which animals should be allowed on the road, and which puzzle pieces could be used by who. Where was the fun? Where was the productive learning? And where was sense of the social connectedness that can come through children playing together?
Clearly play is important in elementary school and in kindergarten because recess on the playground is an integral part of the daily schedule for students. At my DD1's school, the kindergarteners have their own dedicated playground which is adjacent to the Pre-K and kindergarten wing of the school. I can tell a positive difference in my daughter's energy and behavior on the days when she plays outside during recess or after school versus the days when the weather or our schedules do not permit her this playground time. However, I am coming to see that I cannot really articulate what this playground time during school hours is for, given how little guidance there is of childrens' interactions with one another.
I appeal to my readers to consider with me: How purposeful does play need to be in order to be productive? Under what conditions is play beneficial to children's learning and development? And under what conditions can free, unstructured play become counterproductive?
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Building Bridges across Diversity in Kindergarten
Friday afternoons I have a standing date to pick up my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1) from kindergarten. I have come to rely on this weekly ritual as an important opportunity to check in with my daughter's teacher and to connect with the other kindergarten parents. During these Friday afternoons on the playground, I have learned about how to best combat lice, what kind of candy is preferred among my daughter and her peers, and the names of younger siblings. Most importantly, this time on the playground has allowed me to observe my DD1's budding friendship with her new best friend (NBF), a kindergartener in another class at school.
Her new best friend is a lovely young girl -- energetic, playful, and cheerful with a beautiful smile. It so happens that my DD1's NBF has a younger sister who is the same age as my younger daughter, so our shared afternoons on the playground are pleasurable for both of my girls and me, for I have also enjoyed getting to know the mother of my daughter's NBF. I noticed my new mother comrade (NMC) in the second month of school because she often arrived in the afternoons with a ball of some sort or a jump rope, and she was also noticeably friendly with the other mothers on the playground. I noticed, too, that she often gathered the children round her on Fridays to distribute an end-of-the-week treat -- candy, or cookies, or lollipops. I have been impressed by the warmth that is displayed between my NMC and her daughters, and level of engagement she demonstrates with the cluster of kindergarten children on the playground after school.
My NMC emigrated from East Africa to the United States ten or so years ago and joined her husband in Maryland. They live a block away from the elementary school and are well connected to their cultural community as well as the members of their Coptic church congregation. At home and on the playground, my NMC and her husband speak both English and their native language with each other and with their community associates. Their primary community in Maryland is comprised, perhaps not surprisingly, of those who have also transplanted themselves to the United States and who share their native language, religion, and customs.
As an educator who believes that it is important for each rising generation of American children to have the opportunity to interact with a heterogeneous group of students in our public schools, I am really glad that by attending our local, public elementary school my DD1 gets to become acquainted with such a diverse array of peers. What a tremendous opportunity to become "educated" about the rich complexity of human society and to learn first hand how much she has in common with those who are also different from her.
However, as a parent, I am learning that by selecting a NBF whose family is, in essence, worlds apart from ours, it is not clear how my DD1 or I can bridge the distance between our two families. My daughter does not really understand why, despite the genuine friendliness of her NBF's mother and sisters and the easy exchange we've developed on the playground, her NBF can't come over to play at our house after school or on the weekends. Nor does it make sense to her why her NBF can't join her soccer team, take dance class, or sign up for summer camp with her. My questions are similar: How can I make overtures of friendliness and express interest in getting to know my NMC and her daughters without becoming too pushy or intrusive? How can I best support my daughter in growing this friendship with her NBF without inserting myself unnecessarily? Or is it best to simply let my daughter and her NBF find their own way, come what may?
Her new best friend is a lovely young girl -- energetic, playful, and cheerful with a beautiful smile. It so happens that my DD1's NBF has a younger sister who is the same age as my younger daughter, so our shared afternoons on the playground are pleasurable for both of my girls and me, for I have also enjoyed getting to know the mother of my daughter's NBF. I noticed my new mother comrade (NMC) in the second month of school because she often arrived in the afternoons with a ball of some sort or a jump rope, and she was also noticeably friendly with the other mothers on the playground. I noticed, too, that she often gathered the children round her on Fridays to distribute an end-of-the-week treat -- candy, or cookies, or lollipops. I have been impressed by the warmth that is displayed between my NMC and her daughters, and level of engagement she demonstrates with the cluster of kindergarten children on the playground after school.
My NMC emigrated from East Africa to the United States ten or so years ago and joined her husband in Maryland. They live a block away from the elementary school and are well connected to their cultural community as well as the members of their Coptic church congregation. At home and on the playground, my NMC and her husband speak both English and their native language with each other and with their community associates. Their primary community in Maryland is comprised, perhaps not surprisingly, of those who have also transplanted themselves to the United States and who share their native language, religion, and customs.
As an educator who believes that it is important for each rising generation of American children to have the opportunity to interact with a heterogeneous group of students in our public schools, I am really glad that by attending our local, public elementary school my DD1 gets to become acquainted with such a diverse array of peers. What a tremendous opportunity to become "educated" about the rich complexity of human society and to learn first hand how much she has in common with those who are also different from her.
However, as a parent, I am learning that by selecting a NBF whose family is, in essence, worlds apart from ours, it is not clear how my DD1 or I can bridge the distance between our two families. My daughter does not really understand why, despite the genuine friendliness of her NBF's mother and sisters and the easy exchange we've developed on the playground, her NBF can't come over to play at our house after school or on the weekends. Nor does it make sense to her why her NBF can't join her soccer team, take dance class, or sign up for summer camp with her. My questions are similar: How can I make overtures of friendliness and express interest in getting to know my NMC and her daughters without becoming too pushy or intrusive? How can I best support my daughter in growing this friendship with her NBF without inserting myself unnecessarily? Or is it best to simply let my daughter and her NBF find their own way, come what may?
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
My Daughter's 1st Report Card
For the past three years, my husband and I have engaged of the ritual of sitting down with our daughters' teachers and talking with them about our children's developmental progress, as observed at the cooperative preschool where they were enrolled. Through each of these meetings, we learned about to what kind of play and activities each daughter was drawn, how their fine and gross motor skills were developing, and, most importantly, what characterized their interpersonal interactions at school. When were they timid or shy about speaking up for themselves? Under what circumstances did conflict emerge with their peers? And how did they negotiate the sharing and turn taking that was required of them at school?
The report card I opened last Friday evening was a very different paradigm. Instead of focusing on the multiple aspects of our daughter's holistic development, my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s first report card primarily chronicles her academic progress and performance through the first half of kindergarten. There are roughly 45 indicators in reading, math, science, and social studies, along with some 'personal and social development" and a few more "physical motor development" items. We now know that our daughter is "proficient" at retelling important details in stories and hearing and identifying sounds in words. She is also proficient at sorting objects, writing her numbers, and identifying patterns using concrete objects, even as our DD1 is "in progress" with modeling numbers in a variety of ways and in reading simple high frequency words.
In the summary comments, my older daughter's teacher clearly communicates her appreciation for our daughter's intelligence and her pleasant demeanor in class and with her peers, and her recognition of our DD1's emerging academic skill set in literacy and mathematics. I should probably be thrilled with these "results." And yet instead of being elated at the profile crafted of my DD1 from her first report card, I find myself dwelling on what is not included in this seemingly thorough description of my daughter's capacities. I find myself wondering: Is it enough to know my daughter as a reader and as a cooperative member of the class? What does it mean for my DD1's teacher not to know her more personally or individually?
Perhaps it is easy for me to be somewhat cavalier about my DD1's academic progress when I have always imagined my daughters doing well in school. Yet I do wish that my daughter's kindergarten teacher had more opportunity and capacity to tune into her particular interests and to help her develop more as an individual learner and person. My reaction to my DD1's first report card helps me to see more clearly that my aspirations for my daughter are not so well-aligned with the collection of 50+ benchmarked targets for kindergarteners across my daughter's school district.
So what is a parent like me to do? Blog and ask for my readers to share and comment regarding their reaction to their children's first report cards!
The report card I opened last Friday evening was a very different paradigm. Instead of focusing on the multiple aspects of our daughter's holistic development, my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s first report card primarily chronicles her academic progress and performance through the first half of kindergarten. There are roughly 45 indicators in reading, math, science, and social studies, along with some 'personal and social development" and a few more "physical motor development" items. We now know that our daughter is "proficient" at retelling important details in stories and hearing and identifying sounds in words. She is also proficient at sorting objects, writing her numbers, and identifying patterns using concrete objects, even as our DD1 is "in progress" with modeling numbers in a variety of ways and in reading simple high frequency words.
In the summary comments, my older daughter's teacher clearly communicates her appreciation for our daughter's intelligence and her pleasant demeanor in class and with her peers, and her recognition of our DD1's emerging academic skill set in literacy and mathematics. I should probably be thrilled with these "results." And yet instead of being elated at the profile crafted of my DD1 from her first report card, I find myself dwelling on what is not included in this seemingly thorough description of my daughter's capacities. I find myself wondering: Is it enough to know my daughter as a reader and as a cooperative member of the class? What does it mean for my DD1's teacher not to know her more personally or individually?
Perhaps it is easy for me to be somewhat cavalier about my DD1's academic progress when I have always imagined my daughters doing well in school. Yet I do wish that my daughter's kindergarten teacher had more opportunity and capacity to tune into her particular interests and to help her develop more as an individual learner and person. My reaction to my DD1's first report card helps me to see more clearly that my aspirations for my daughter are not so well-aligned with the collection of 50+ benchmarked targets for kindergarteners across my daughter's school district.
So what is a parent like me to do? Blog and ask for my readers to share and comment regarding their reaction to their children's first report cards!
Thursday, February 2, 2012
How Does Diversity Matter in Kindergarten?
This week, I stepped back into my role as a teacher educator (after a six month break from teaching) at the first meeting of a semester long "Diversity and Equity Foundations" course for aspiring secondary teachers -- all juniors or seniors. The course is designed to expose aspiring teachers to the diversity of students who are populating American public school classrooms, and to help these candidates examine their own identities, views, and perceptions of those who are dissimilar from them. After introducing my new students to some basic facts about the system of public schooling in the United States, I then led them through a profile of the diversity demographics that are prevalent in our schools today.
In Maryland, for example, 54% of students enrolled in the public schools are children of color (A Public Education Primer, 2012, Center on Education Policy). In my local school district, 35% of enrolled students are white, 25% are black, 21% are Hispanic, and 12.5% of students are English Language Learners (The Fact Book 2011-12, MSDE). At my daughter's school, 49% of students are black, 16.5% white, 26% Hispanic, 33.5% are English Language Learners, and 60% of students quality for Free and Reduced Lunch. In our opening discussion last night about how and why diversity can enrich public schooling for all, several of my undergraduate students suggested that in order to be prepared to live in the broad "real" world as adults, it is important for young people to have exposure and practice in interacting with others of various customs, religion, language, and culture. At first glance it would seem that my older daughter's school is a wonderful example of such rich diversity, as the demographic statistics above suggest. However, this week I also learned that one of my older daughter's classmates--the only white child in her kindergarten class--has transferred to another school.
Upon learning of her white classmate's departure, I have been left wondering: Is it significant that in my daughter's kindergarten class there are no white children remaining? Which is more important -- for brown-skinned children to be educated alongside white children or for white children to be educated alongside brown-skinned children, or both, and why? If my daughter were white-skinned like me rather than brown-skinned like her father, would I be thinking more seriously about transferring her to a different, less "diverse", school, too?
As I reflect on my reaction to the departure of my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s white classmate, and with report cards coming out this week, I find myself curious about the impact of the factors of diversity on students' individual and collective academic achievement at my older daughter's school. We have always expected that our DD1 will do well in school. And yet in a diverse setting like my daughter's neighborhood school, how much can the wonders of heterogeneous, public schooling mitigate against the predictive factors of race, language, and class? And how much of the correlating effect of achievement and SES is at play in the fact that many of the white families in our neighborhood appear to be opting for alternatives to our diverse, neighborhood school?
In Maryland, for example, 54% of students enrolled in the public schools are children of color (A Public Education Primer, 2012, Center on Education Policy). In my local school district, 35% of enrolled students are white, 25% are black, 21% are Hispanic, and 12.5% of students are English Language Learners (The Fact Book 2011-12, MSDE). At my daughter's school, 49% of students are black, 16.5% white, 26% Hispanic, 33.5% are English Language Learners, and 60% of students quality for Free and Reduced Lunch. In our opening discussion last night about how and why diversity can enrich public schooling for all, several of my undergraduate students suggested that in order to be prepared to live in the broad "real" world as adults, it is important for young people to have exposure and practice in interacting with others of various customs, religion, language, and culture. At first glance it would seem that my older daughter's school is a wonderful example of such rich diversity, as the demographic statistics above suggest. However, this week I also learned that one of my older daughter's classmates--the only white child in her kindergarten class--has transferred to another school.
Upon learning of her white classmate's departure, I have been left wondering: Is it significant that in my daughter's kindergarten class there are no white children remaining? Which is more important -- for brown-skinned children to be educated alongside white children or for white children to be educated alongside brown-skinned children, or both, and why? If my daughter were white-skinned like me rather than brown-skinned like her father, would I be thinking more seriously about transferring her to a different, less "diverse", school, too?
As I reflect on my reaction to the departure of my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s white classmate, and with report cards coming out this week, I find myself curious about the impact of the factors of diversity on students' individual and collective academic achievement at my older daughter's school. We have always expected that our DD1 will do well in school. And yet in a diverse setting like my daughter's neighborhood school, how much can the wonders of heterogeneous, public schooling mitigate against the predictive factors of race, language, and class? And how much of the correlating effect of achievement and SES is at play in the fact that many of the white families in our neighborhood appear to be opting for alternatives to our diverse, neighborhood school?
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