Middle school was when I first became more aware of societal problems, of solutions to those problems. My father worked in the construction industry and battled seasonal unemployment almost every year that I can remember. As I grew older, I began to grasp the financial struggles and sense the familial stresses. We were still more fortunate than others in our situation, however. Not far from the marbled mansions of Doylestown and New Hope are the beaten boroughs of Quakertown and Bensalem. I can vividly recall the horrible chants our school had at sporting events for schools who were less wealthy. It was that bad.
Alongside the issues of unemployment and poverty, the issue of mental health played a large role in my intellectual growth, or rather, of my brother’s. He has Asperger’s syndrome. That doesn’t make him any less capable, he just requires more time and a greater support system than others. He also has trouble with socialization and recognition of unspoken cues or norms. He and I were withdrawn from private school because of a lack programs and understanding that might have helped him. Public school, on the other hand, provided him with the right tools and apparatus necessary.
Education, then, became another passionate interest of mine. Public education had afforded my brother and me opportunities we couldn’t have found anywhere else. Others are not so fortunate. Living close to Philadelphia, we would witness the disparities not only in regards to poverty but also between education systems. This topic has stuck with me the most as I believe education to be the greatest equalizer and, if done right, could solve many problems a society may face. Mental health and poverty both, in my estimation, are related back to education and the socialization of a populace.
Now that I am in college, I am granted access to classes and resources I never had back in my corner of Pennsylvania. I gravitated towards political science as my major because of my unhealthy fascination with history combined with a desire to apply that knowledge in a more practical, scientific manner.
Armed with this new knowledge and a greater capability, I began to delve deeper into the topic of education. When given the opportunity in my seminar in composition, I focused more specifically on educational segregation. Minorities were an occurrence rather than a rule in my school district; it was quite the homogeneous suburban bubble. None of my teachers, or any that I can remember for that matter, were minorities either. This is a problem. Without exposure to other ideas, other people, mind’s can close off and become ignorant. Ignorance signals the death of a democracy.
I would go on to discover more statistics about our county, statistics that lent weight to my initial fears. For example, my county has one of the highest ratios of whites to blacks in the entirety of the United States. My county was also a destination for white flight from Philadelphia following the Second World War. For much of the mid-century, the unspoken racism of homeowner’s associations and neighborhood committees kept blacks from moving there beside them. It would then follow that because the area became exclusive, blacks had fewer and fewer opportunities to move from the city and attend the schools that were in the suburbs. The Private schools that remain in the city are far too expensive and take too few applicants to be considered a real solution.
Public education may not be able to solve every problem but I believe it is a society’s best chance. Poverty, mental health, and other issues can at the very least be addressed in our schools. Education can provide an important first step towards self-awareness and empathy so that others might apply knowledge in their communities and begin to affect real change.
It would be great if there were some real energy around the values that public education *already* provide while also thinking about useful updates. Just feels like there is either complete dismissal of public education (from those interested in voucher programs, for instance) or “reforms” that involve dramatic and heavy-handed requirements/evaluations/”disruption” of the status quo that feel naive at best and cynically greedy at worst (the positive connotation that the word “reform” used to have for me is almost completely gone in the realm of education–signals a red flag when I hear it). I think your experience with your brother is one good example–public schooling insures (better than less regulated schools) access opportunities. Now, if the world of property taxes funding public schools was changed, that might improve access issues along economic lines even better!
“Without exposure to other ideas, other people, mind’s can close off and become ignorant. Ignorance signals the death of a democracy.” How do you promote this as a benefit worth investing in (it would cost money, probably, to make this more of a reality than it currently is)? Ideas and people are two different things–some people, quite simply, just don’t want their kids around poorer or, frankly, darker people. Some folks don’t want their kids around people with different sorts of politics, religious beliefs, or moral values of one kind or another. Sometimes it is both. How do you sell this as a benefit? Especially when people can just move to places where people like them live? Might be useful to research how bussing worked in the 60s and 70s to desegreate schools–and how schools, ostensibly, have become re-segregated since then.