Picture a day-in-the-life of two 18-year-old, high school students in Connecticut on April 15, 2015. We find one White student in his father’s car on the way to his hyper-segregated White high school in a wealthy suburban community. Father and son are listening to a report on National Public Radio covering riots in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray. We find the second Black student sitting on a bus heading to a hyper-segregated Minority high school in an urban center. The student sits in the front of the bus, and listens to students on the bus talk about the rioting in Baltimore. The White student’s parents purchased a $600,000.00 home in the suburban neighborhood where the White student attends the hyper-segregated White high school.
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On the way to his first period class, the student passes three large boxes. The school’s Student Government is collecting cans and non-perishable items in the boxes for a food bank in a local inner-city neighborhood. The student passes a bulletin board, where school-sponsored clubs hang announcements for a Habitat for Humanity trip to an inner-city neighborhood, a coat drive for homeless men and women in the city, and a literacy campaign through which White high school students read to students at an inner-city elementary school. The White student arrives as his first period math class. Before the class begins, students read the morning announcements over the school’s public address. One of the announcements informs students about an upcoming program sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The entire school will participate in the ADL program titled “Names Can Really Hurt.” In his math class, the White student sits two rows away from one of eight Black students in the school of 1,012 pupils. The Black student lives in the nearby city, and attends the school as part of the Open Choice program. This is the only Black person who the White student will encounter throughout his …show more content…
The White social studies teacher takes a pause from the normal curriculum to talk about current events. The White teacher asks the White students if they understand why there is rioting in Baltimore. The White students share ideas and opinions. A plurality of White students in the class believe that the rioting is wrong, and support efforts of the Baltimore Police Department to restore order. A majority of students in the class is unable to identify why the incident is occurring. After social studies, the White student attends an English class. The class is reading the play A Raisin in the Sun. The White English teacher is struggling to help the White students to imagine the dilapidated, two-bedroom apartment on Chicago’s south side that is the setting for the play. At the end of the day, the White student attends his biology class, where the teacher reviews Darwin’s Theory of Survival of the
On the way to his first period class, the student passes three large boxes. The school’s Student Government is collecting cans and non-perishable items in the boxes for a food bank in a local inner-city neighborhood. The student passes a bulletin board, where school-sponsored clubs hang announcements for a Habitat for Humanity trip to an inner-city neighborhood, a coat drive for homeless men and women in the city, and a literacy campaign through which White high school students read to students at an inner-city elementary school. The White student arrives as his first period math class. Before the class begins, students read the morning announcements over the school’s public address. One of the announcements informs students about an upcoming program sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The entire school will participate in the ADL program titled “Names Can Really Hurt.” In his math class, the White student sits two rows away from one of eight Black students in the school of 1,012 pupils. The Black student lives in the nearby city, and attends the school as part of the Open Choice program. This is the only Black person who the White student will encounter throughout his …show more content…
The White social studies teacher takes a pause from the normal curriculum to talk about current events. The White teacher asks the White students if they understand why there is rioting in Baltimore. The White students share ideas and opinions. A plurality of White students in the class believe that the rioting is wrong, and support efforts of the Baltimore Police Department to restore order. A majority of students in the class is unable to identify why the incident is occurring. After social studies, the White student attends an English class. The class is reading the play A Raisin in the Sun. The White English teacher is struggling to help the White students to imagine the dilapidated, two-bedroom apartment on Chicago’s south side that is the setting for the play. At the end of the day, the White student attends his biology class, where the teacher reviews Darwin’s Theory of Survival of the