The Problem We All Live With

angieconsonni

The article, The Problem We All Live with by Nikole Hannah Jones, was on the topic of segregation. There are many people who believe that segregation is a problem solved, but it is still living among society and in school districts.
My elementary school, middle school and high school were predominantly white. I have never been to a school with much minority, and I never thought anything of it. I also live in a small town where the population is white and where the people of the towns surrounding mine are white. In Michael Brown’s case, he graduated from a school in Missouri where the students were mainly black, poor, and the children were failing.
School districts have always been attempting to improve the issue of segregation and the achievement gap. Early college high schools and literacy programs were created to help desegregate schools. “What the statistics show is that between 1971, which is where the nation really started doing massive desegregation, and 1988, which was the peak of integration in the United States.” says Nikole.
In my experience, I was introduced to segregation with a video of Jane Elliot. In this video, Jane performed an experiment where eye color was an advantage or disadvantage with her students. The children with blue eyes got less work and the children with brown got more. This was a secret learning project to introduce segregation to students and how it feels when people are treated differently just because of the color of their skin.

http://wpas.worldpeacefull.com/2011/03/why-do-we-discriminate-jane-elliott-blue-eyedbrown-eyed-training/

I chose this video because Jane Elliot is a true hero to me. I wish that our future teachers will learn from her, and from this article as well. We know that segregation is happening in school systems, but how can we fix it?

Published by angieconsonni

Hello, I am a Junior at Rhode Island College. I am a Youth Development major with a minor in Performing Arts. I first started off as a Dance and Musical Theatre major. I began working at the YMCA and fell in love working with children. I worked there for two and a half years and have recently been hired at Family Service Association. I hope to move up as a site coordinator and hopefully a director at this site. I am in the process of figuring out what I would like to go for my masters degree in. I am thinking to either be a child's life specialist and study at Wheelock College, or to continue at RIC and study Social Work. I come from a big Italian family, where sunday dinner includes multiple portions of food, wooden spoons flying across the table and family speaking to one another in an uncontrollable, screaming volume. I live at home with my mother, step-father, sister, Nina and brother, Nathan. I have five step-siblings, however I only see two of them around the holidays. I have a english mastiff named Delilah, a calico cat named Bodhi, and a turtle named Adagio. I have played soccer since I was four years old, and have danced since I was three. I love to sing and play guitar, and I love the outdoors. Two of my favorite hobbies along side these are hiking and ice-skating. :))

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