After moving out of Chicago and into the surrounding suburbs I attended a school that was extremely homogenous. There was little cultural diversity, everyone was relatively well off financially, and most students came from stable families. While there were groups and cliques, exclusion and discrimination based on ethnicity or financial situation was nonexistent. Teachers and staff members treated all students collectively and taught identical curricula.
When talking to Jose, even briefly and about surface issues, I was able to pick up that in his learning environment this was not the case. When I asked him about teachers and students, he always distinguished between the French, English, and Spanish aspects of each. He later explained that some students take classes in French and English, while others take classes in Spanish and English. He knew which students were in the French-speaking group and which students shared classes with him in the Spanish sector. This language barrier created a strong division among the students that was completely new to me. Jose didn’t seem to imply that either of the groups was superior to the other, but I wonder if I would have seen some conflict had the groups been brought together.
No comments:
Post a Comment