NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm Cree, an aboriginal Canadian. Growing up, I had my traditions and culture affirmed at home and in my community, but the second I stepped outside of that bubble...or entered the school, I was adrift.

It is painful to hear yourself talked about. Yet it is also painful to be ignored completely. In school, aboriginal people were either totally ignored in the curriculum, or totally misrepresented.

It has taken me years to get over the sense of cultural inferiority that has been drilled into me since I first entered school. The bulk of this inferiority, aside from the occasional deliberate denigration of my culture, has come from being excluded.

So what I learned, were things that affirmed a culture I was not a part of, practiced by a people I could never fit in with. There was a standard, and ideal I just couldn't reach, even if I totally rejected my culture and embraced theirs.

That is exactly what people are asking for when they want to curtail diversity. They want a homogenous culture that assimilates everyone into a sort of cultural bond and understanding. Instead, what you get are people who eventually break free, and hate you for doing that to them, for denigrating them, for teaching them through exclusion that they are less worthy, less important, and inferior.

This was sparked by another thread where I mention that the Faculty of Education I attended was almost wholly represented by white, middle-class females. Most students will not fit that profile. Such an overwhelming, homogenous representation of teachers is bound to have a profound impact on the culture that is taught and affirmed to children, and it worries me...because some of those women may reach beyond their culture in order to make education meaningful to their students...but they face significant challenges in doing so.

Anyway, long post..let's just get into it...diversity in schools...your opinion?

Well in my school, the goverment tries to have the faculty to have the same race ratio as the entire population, they apply this for gorvement and everything else too. At least this is what i heard

IN other words, lets say my country has 1mil chinese and 500 000 malays and 200 000 indians then the school board fits 100 people so it should be like 10 chinese to 5 malays and 2 indians

Well in my school, the goverment tries to have the faculty to have the same race ratio as the entire population, they apply this for gorvement and everything else too. At least this is what i heard

IN other words, lets say my country has 1mil chinese and 500 000 malays and 200 000 indians then the school board fits 100 people so it should be like 10 chinese to 5 malays and 2 indians

Interesting...and what is your perception of this? Do you think it necessary? Do you think it works? Etc...

School boards recognise there is a problem. When hiring, they hire men first, to try to balance huge gender gap. If they can get a non-white, they usually go for it...but the Universities don't turn out very many male or non-white graduates, so I think they need to start there.

Teaching kids to appreciate foreignness in others and thus encouraging them to accept diversity cannot be a bad thing!
Hopefully, it will lead to a better understanding. ;)

If there is going to be diversity in schools, students should be allowed to form clubs based on their cultures, so that those who belong to that culture can have a sense of community and outsiders can join to learn more.

If it's to be taught, diversity should be taught through classes like World Religions and World Cultures (or something to that extent), where you learn the basics of that religion or culture, such as the history, its evolution.

Simply teaching about diversity isn't the way to go. This is why there needs to be something that explores cultural history of different ethnic groups.

When there is knowledge, there is understanding. Without knowledge, you can't have understanding and thus, diversity takes a back burner.

Interesting...and what is your perception of this? Do you think it necessary? Do you think it works? Etc...

School boards recognise there is a problem. When hiring, they hire men first, to try to balance huge gender gap. If they can get a non-white, they usually go for it...but the Universities don't turn out very many male or non-white graduates, so I think they need to start there.

I think nobody body actually cares....when i see my indian teacher, i just think hey, thats my science teacher. and for the past 6 years all my class is chinese because "there arent enough malays" to be place in every class (Actual ratio is 25 chinese to 2 malays to 1 indian)

They do this with apartments but no one really mixes with each other on a daily or weekly basis



But the school and the goverment does teach us on each others culture and religion, we even have a racial harmony day

If there is going to be diversity in schools, students should be allowed to form clubs based on their cultures, so that those who belong to that culture can have a sense of community and outsiders can join to learn more. No offence, but I think that's a terrible idea. A sense of community is a powerful thing, and yes, very important...but forming groups in school like that, in my mind, is going to be more exclusionary, not more inclusionary.

See, even if all the aboriginal kids got together (we did anyway)...it's not like we could understand then what was being done to us. It took me years to realise where so many of my negative beliefs about myself and other aboriginal people came from...and to combat that. A club wouldn't have changed that a bit.

If it's to be taught, diversity should be taught through classes like World Religions and World Cultures (or something to that extent), where you learn the basics of that religion or culture, such as the history, its evolution.

Simply teaching about diversity isn't the way to go. When there is knowledge, there is understanding. Without knowledge, you can't have understanding and thus, diversity takes a back burner.

I don't think it has to be taught as a discrete section. I've seen a lot of progress in blending aboriginal worldview (for example) into the regular curriculum, rather than require it as a separate class. So when you teach hierachies in science, do it from a western, and an aboriginal perspective. When I taught, I integrated Chinese concepts, Arabic concepts etc into the curriculum to show kids that there are many ways of approaching certain things...there isn't ONE TRUTH that you're learning at school, which is what kids end up believing. That may sound like nothing gets learned then, but not at all...you can still teach science just fine, grounded in western beliefs...but just showing them how other people approach things provides a bit of balance.

Plus, if kids come from that background, it is unbelievably powerful to see yourself and you culture included.

*snipage*
Anyway, long post..let's just get into it...diversity in schools...your opinion?

My elementary school was over 90% black and hispanic, as were the teachers. Once and a while white kids were taunted for either being white and "acting white", while other white kids were taunted for "acting black". No teachers ever did anything during this specific branch of taunting, although they were usually quick to stop any other kind of bullying or teasing. Personally, I never felt this abuse, I don't know why, but a few of my friends were on both sides of it, and it always bothered me.

At my current "gifted" high school, almost all the kids are either asian or white, which dosn't reflect the general population of New York City at all. I find this is because other minority students at young ages do not get the support from in the home or in the schools to study properly to achieve at high levels. I believe that if the public education system put more money into hiring better, fairer, and more dedicated teachers, any differences of how races are treated within public schools would decrease substantially. I do believe that better teachers would include teachers who are able to relate to the cultures of the students, however they would need to be able to do so without isolating another group.

I think about the current anti-Muslim hysteria in the West and I imagine what kinds of messages Muslim kids are getting at school...not only from other students (and kids are so incredibly cruel to one another) but from their teachers and the materials presented. If those kids want to fit in, they pretty much have to internalise the negative messages about themselves and other Muslims. I imagine the same would be true of a white minority in a school that focuses on validating non-'mainstream' culture to the exclusion of theirs as well. Balance is needed.

In singapore we reinvent our culture so its all excatly the same:D ........


That is only 30% true