Racism ?????
It's a well known fact that the students at my little Academy do not possess the world's greatest behavior skills. Behavior and disipline issues come up daily and it frustrates everyone on staff.
That said. I was SO PROUD of my kids the other day at the Nutcracker. They did a great job! I sat with the first graders - with a row of middle school kids from some other school behind us. I had to put my finger to my lips to shhh! first graders twice. I had to turn around and GLARE at the big kids four or five times.
There were some behavior issues - - one kid threw spit balls (he didn't spit them - but threw them) at the third grade. He stoped when I confiscated them. Some kids ran in the lobby and had to be yelled at - - but in general they behaved BEAUTILFULLY!!!!
After the performance, an usher told one of the teachers that several schools complained about OUR SCHOOL.
We had an emergency staff meeting to discuss the complaints and problem solve (or at least brainstorm about problem solving). Most staff felt good about our kids behavior (for a surprising change!!) and were shocked by the complaint. Our Africian American staff members quickly wrote the complaints off as racism. Now, we were the only school at this performance with a student population consisting of mostly Africian American students. We were also the only school with kids in uniforms (with the school name right on the front - making it easy to identify the "academy" kids)
As a white girl - I've never experienced racism before. It's not like I live in a vaccumm, I've heard the jokes, comments, snide remarks. I've lived, worked, played, and grown up with people who can't keep their prejudices to themeslves. (and i've held some less than PC thoughts in my lifetime) BUT . . . how does one know when someone else is being honest or being racist??
Have I become so used to the behavior of my kids that my expectations have been lowered (maybe they were rotten kids - but they behaved 200% better than normal - so I maybe I just didn't notice??)
The thing is - our A.A. staff feels the comment was totally based on personal prejudices and we should ignore it (because we know our kids did well)
Where do you draw the line?? When do you blow it off as a racism thing and when do you take critism to heart and use it as a tool for change? Growing up I saw lots of "Robins Kids" use the race card to make excuses and get out of trouble. It drove me crazy - - It still does
Honestly, I would never have thought to suspect that the folks complaining about us might have made the complaints based on ethnicity. If i were in WDM and got a complaint about my school, I would have yelled at my kids (even if I thought they did great). But my WDM kids were not minority kids - and no one would complain about them based on skin color.
I don't deny that racism exists - - and I am very blessed to not have to deal with it on a daily basis. How easy would it be to blame every critism on racism. Every bad grade, every scartastic remark, every opportunity to improve and grow is really just someone picking on me because I'm different.
I don't know - - I don't know how much stock to put in the comment - - the schoolwide plan right now is to wait and see what happens (way to be proactive!) We're taking another field trip in Feb. I guess if people complain about us again we'll have to take it seriously and keep our kids out of public places until we've taught them to behave (but who knows --we might be the only Africain Americian School . . . . I"m really struggling with this. I don't like the attitude of blaming (My parents never allowed me to make excuses - - The people who complained might very well have been prejudiced - but it feels like minoirty communites use racism as a generic excuse for everything. It might be true (it probebly is racism 90% of the time) but I think the habit of concluding that racism is at the root of everyhting suddenly becomes a dangeous attitude - - - a person can justify almost everything . . . .
12/21/2002
