Episode 3

It's amazing to think about how the role of public schools has changed so much over the years (and how it has remained the same in some schools). I thought it was interesting that school was a place to keep children safe for the baby boomers. Health programs, which normally were not a part of curriculum, were not in place in some schools. Technology in a way was born during the baby boomer's time of enrollment in public education, so schools were beginning to prepare kids for a future of technology. I feel like schools are still doing this (we do are introduced to new technology all of the time in Dr. Grace's class, Dan Ryder uses technology in his teaching at Mt. Blue as well).

It was sad for me to see all of the segregation and unfairness that was going on in schools before, during, and even after the Civil Rights Act. Blacks didn't have a science lab, were not offered foreign language classes, and didn't even have a gym! This was shocking to me because of the, "separate, but equal" statement. This is separate but it is completely unequal. It broke my heart that 72% of disabled students were not even enrolled in public school. This made me want to cry because what is the definition of "disabled" in this statistic? A blind or deaf student is considered disabled; students with physical differences are considered disabled. Many of these students who were not enrolled in school might have had so much potential, yet they were not attending school. It chokes me up.

I liked that in the episode it said that school was the place to bring down segregation in America. I agree with this because what students are introduced to and learn at a young age is what sticks with them. This is why we see so much propaganda hidden in shows intended for young audiences. If students are encouraged to interact with people of different races, religions, nationalities, etc, then they will not only learn to "tolerate" the differences of their peers, but these differences will not be as apparent to children. A teacher told me an adorable story about how one of her students had said that a boy in the neighboring class (we'll call him Jim) was her cousin. The teacher met the girl's cousin and he was an African American boy. At the time there was not a lot of diversity in the area. This boy was not actually the girl's cousin; she had confused his name with another student. It was cute to here how the girl loved Jim and accepted him as family despite his skin color, though. She never doubted for a second whether he was really family.