Blog E: Diversity

Growing up in Lynn, Massachusetts, my education was very diverse. As Lynn is a diverse, fairly urban community, I never though much of it. Everyone, from the students to the teachers, understood that not everyone grew up the same way, or celebrated the same holidays. It came to it that, in high school, when a teacher would ask a question with a racial or ethnic background, it would be fairly awkward. He or she would recieve looks as if everyone in the class was saying, 'Yeah, we know we're different. There's no real need to talk about it." To some extent, I agree with them. Sometimes it's more important, if the group handles diversity positively already, to focus more on the cohesive aspects. Most of the time it's more important to find the likenesses in cultures than point out the differences.

Even in Lynn, however, there have been troubles with diversity. Several years ago, schools rejected students because of their race, ironically, because of a 34 year of desegregation law. The law allowed schools to assign students based upon race, put in effect to reduce segregation. The students were rejected because they would have upset the diversity ratios.

I believe that diversity should be taught, but, as stated above, from a cohesive standpoint. I think schoold should teach more about the similarities between cultures, to further prove that regardless of culture, we are all living on the same planet, and are all of the same species. The individual cultures shouldn't be neglected as such, and I do believe that personal heritage is very important, but sometimes teaching the "differences" aspects of diversity can lead to further segregation.