Diversity?

So, I have been pre-interning in a second-third grade split classroom for a quarter of a semester now, and absolutely love it. Good thing, heh. I am at an urban school in Kalamazoo called Washington Writer's Academy - amazing school, seriously. I am sure I will have plenty more to share in the upcoming year (since I will be doing my internship here too.)

Today, my mentor teacher addressed the Core Democratic Values. Diversity was one of about eight that were highlighted. Now I really do not mean this in a critical way at all, because my mentor teacher is absolutely awesome, (he has a great sense of humor that the kids often are slow to pick up on, hehe.) Yet after giving a pretty good idea of what diversity meant, he explained that our classroom was a diverse classroom. That is what got me. The class is 3/4 African American, about 15% hispanic and maybe 10% caucasian. Similar socio-economic status. This really is not diversity. A diverse classroom should really include almost equal amounts of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Caucasians, Middle Eastern Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans.....

I am also reading a great book by Jonathan Kozol called The Shame of A Nation that discusses the restoration of apartheid schooling in America, that is simply showing me so much more - this issue of non-diversity on such a broader spectrum. I absolutely recommend this book if you want to get fired up about something, because at times I just get so frustrated I have to pause for a few (games of Snood that is ;-) .) If you look at so many of the schools named Martin Luther King Jr Elementary/Middle or Rosa Parks or Thurgood Marshall ... the main population - almost always over 90 percent - is African American. How can we consider this diversity??? CERTAINLY that is not the dream that Martin Luther King had envisioned.

Time to get off my soapbox... for now ...