The Issues Of Race And Democracy In Schools

The Issues of Race and Democracy in Schools

“The schools represent a powerful force of social, intellectual, and personal oppression, which are rooted in the culture’s history. The schools represent a number of deeply held cultural values-hierarchy, conformity, success, and materialism” (Purpel 34).

It is interesting to note that during colonial times organized education was withheldfrom Africans, Native Americans, Mexicans, Asians, and Puerto Ricans, but after many years of fighting the educational system, these groups were able to receive a chance at a fair education as defined by the government and school board. After a fair education was granted to these groups, another issue sprung up, that of segregation. When the term segregation is mentioned, it is usually associatedwith the past because that was during a time when segregation was permissible by law. However, we need to look at the wider spectrum of society and history to realize that segregation still exists today, although in a more covert manner. When segregation is used in a dialogue, most of the time it is used in context with education because the majority of court cases involving this issue dealt withequality of schooling. It is important that the court cases revolving around this topic are kept alive so that we as a society can learn from the consequences that have occurred as a result of segregation. America’s conduct towards other minority groups is better than its treatment of African Americans. Although inequality has existed among many different races, as mentioned above, I will dealmainly with the relationships of African Americans and whites because they are the ones that have been given the most exposure in the past.
One thing that parents of all races and backgrounds can agree on is that each one of them wants for their children to have success in their lives. Many parents encourage their children from a very early age to strive for excellence because they never hadthe opportunity. They want their children to use their time wisely so that they will never have to miss an opportunity that may come before them. However, the reason many young ones today are not excelling for themselves, happens to be the same reason that many of their parents were not able to excel to their potential. What could these youth have in common with their parents, who seem to beancient to them? Race. Race has and will continue to be an issue in the ongoing fight for a fair education. Racism exists. People are afraid of change. They want to live in the comfort zone of their race forever, which is most likely that of the elite, or semi-elite. The elite? When I mention the elite, I am focusing on white people because their culture is the one that schools have tried toimpress in our students for generations. They are the ones that have the money, their children are the ones that are excelling at fast rates because of this money, and their children are the ones that will continue to silently and covertly fight for unequal education so that their offspring will have the path to excellence handed to them on a silver platter. As a future educator, I feel that thereis no place for race issues in education because we choose to work in a school setting so that we can help each student succeed in life and encourage them to do what will make them happy as a democratic citizen.
“The school is the logical place in which the children should be helped to understand their traits and to select those which should be integrated into ideals” (MacKay 141). The UnitedStates claims to be a democratic nation with values and morals, but the recent approach that it has taken with its lackadaisical views about the education of our students, especially those of minority students, is anything but fostering a democratic spirit. In a sense, it as if the meaning of democracy and its creed have been lost in translation because today “democracy has become a kind of...