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A good New Year's resolution "4" our community's children.
Posted January 1, 2008
I've always been impressed by Anderson School District 4's superintendent Gary Burgess, and the recent diversity initiative to help impact student outcomes is a sophisticated and worthwhile look at a serious problem, even if the Pollyanna word "diversity" does make me feel a little queasy ...
It's easy to think that this "diversity training" was simply buying into the American conceit that if we all learn to love one another's uniqueness then everyone would be freed to "be all they can be."
I think Mr. Burgess' approach is a lot more hard headed. It starts with the obvious that a teacher who is racist probably isn't going to care about their black children and whether they are learning anything.
It continues by confronting the reality that teachers who are wrapped up in their middle class lives may be tempted to blame their students for not overcoming their circumstances and not persist in helping them. (Because we all know that the middle class is the most enamored of the American mythology that anyone can master their circumstances if they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.)
Efforts like this one are great if they help correct some of the subtle ways that we can add insult to injury for our community's children in need. I'm going to be interested in the plan District 4 comes up with.
I just wish that everyone was more willing to understand and believe the larger reasons minority children struggle the same way white children do: Familial dysfunction and poverty that forces them to live in soul-crushing environments.
In the larger view, I can live in hope that that knowledge will call all people, especially our region's compassionate Christians, to a collective "repentance" about the way our society shares its wealth, organizes its priorities and cares for the dispossessed and marginalized.
But let's not forget there are an amazing number of small, modest ways that each and everyone of us can be the support system for those struggling children and make a difference one life at a time. And there are an amazing number of local non-profits we can support that are doing incredibly meaningful work in this area.
If you're looking for a New Year's resolution and a new commitment, look no further.
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Posted by nancyjo (NANCY THOMASON) on January 1, 2008 at 5:27 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Nick--
Gary Burgess is one of the finest men I have ever met. It was unfortunate that his time on the S.C Board of Juvenile Parole was cut short. He is so smart and could really cut through the crap to get to the meat of an issue.
I will never forget my first Parole Board meeting. I was going to sit there and keep my mouth shut. I really had that intention until a young lady came before us who had her recommendations for release and they basically called her in to tell her to go home and be good. Because I knew the area to which she would be returning, I couldn't take it. I had to speak up. I asked her what her neighborhood was like. She told me drugs are sold on every corner. Shootings are a daily occurence and crime is rampant. I asked how she would stay out of trouble with all that going on around her. She assured me she would.
Don't get me wrong. I had as lily white a middle-class childhood as there is. But, because of what I do, I know there are worlds out there that I can never presume to understand and that I can't help if I don't understand.
I appreciate the comments you made about the teachers who don't understand from where it is some of there students come.
By the grace of God, some of us have been spared a rough childhood and we owe it back to try to make it better for the next generation.
Nancy Jo.
Posted by aplummer (AMY PLUMMER) on January 12, 2008 at 5:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Nick,
Poverty does not make a criminal. Soul crushing conditions do not make a criminal.
The community in which you and I live does reach out to the low-income children. Some do slip through the proverbial cracks and still this does not make a criminal.
Nancy Jo is right; it's the drugs, the crime, and the illegal guns. Not poverty. Some of our Nations Strongest leaders came from "soul-crushing environments." Remember Abraham Lincoln?
Diversity, both racially and in socioeconomics, is what makes us a strong country. Money is not the solution, God's Wisdom is.
Amy