Diversity.........why?

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
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<p>On a separate thread a parent commented on finding diversity on/at a bs campus. In Chicago, we have diversity in some school setting, gifted grammar schools and selected enrollment high schools, but we still live in communities that are separated by color and cultural. </p>

<p>New bs parents, I wonder just what to you expect your children to gain from a diverse student body at bs?</p>

<p>Students, how to you think going to school and living with others that are different than you going to make you better, or will it?</p>

<p>For those are ready there, parents or students, have you seen a change in your child or yourself for having had this experience?</p>

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<p>I’ll bite (though it’s very late and I hope that I make sense)…</p>

<p>I was fortunate enough to grow up in the south where I had the benefit of knowing, admiring and cultivating deep friendships with black people. Because of this, I am not as likely to believe stereotypes simply because my experience tells me otherwise. There is nothing “novel” about someone of another race to me. </p>

<p>I want my children to have this benefit as well. I want them to also gain from experience the reality that people are more the same than they are different. They know this in theory right now. I want them to experience that. They will also find that the people who are most like them in essence may not look anything like them at all.</p>

<p>As far “bringing” diversity, well, that could be in any form. If I were an URM and people treated me as part of the curriculum, I’d be pretty ****ed off. There’s more to diversity than race. What makes someone interesting isn’t so much their skin tone as much as their experiences and culture that sometimes (but not always) come with it. I’m sure that at first my son will find some novelty in being around people of different races, but I’m sure it’ll wear off “right quick” as he sees that appearances get pretty boring after a while :)</p>

<p>When I was a teenager, I made a deal with a good friend of mine: he could ask me any question he wanted about white people and I could ask any question about black people. We had great conversations and never once had an argument. We did find out that neither one of us could guess the age of someone from another race. We never figured that one out. :)</p>

<p>The difference between real life and the boarding school bubble is the living arrangements. I imagine that the neighborhood-like segregation we see in cities is probably mimicked in the dining halls and clubs of boarding schools. I hope not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is.</p>

<p>Hope I made sense! (insomnia again)</p>

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<p>I remember when my sons friends where shocked to find out that the bottom of his feet where white…</p>

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<p>Have you ever been friends with someone with a foreign accent? In the beginning, all you notice is the accent. After awhile, you don’t even notice it and are vaguely surprised when someone new comments on how much they “love his (or her) accent”. Your initial response is something like, “oh yeah, I don’t notice it anymore.” Well, that is simplistic, but that is what I suppose my daughter is going through. It is not that she has lead a sheltered life, just a rather one dimensional one. As I said in my post on another thread, there is not much diversity in my town. I am hoping that her friendships with kids of all different cultures will make her a better global citizen. I hope that she will have learned, through these friendships, to see people first and color second. Sounds corny, but that’s it.</p>

<p>I think she might agree.</p>

<p>zp</p>

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<p>I think I might add to this discussion by quoting Peter Kariuki '05’s essay in the Deerfield viewbook:</p>

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<p>I love the posts so far, and will add my own observation. My daughter went from a mostly white middle school to a private diverse one. When I met her new friends, I found they were Afro-Caribbean, Latina, Pakistani, and so on. The beautiful thing was, she had not described them to me by color. They were just her friends.</p>

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<p>Ahh. the theoretically diversity dream. You are in for a bit of a let down if you think BS is truly diverse. They all strive for diversity in admissions, but kids tend to cluster and befriend only those most similar to them: Asians hang with Asians, etc. And, please, there’s still a vast majority of the class that fit a certain socio-economic pattern of white-wealthies. If you don’t believe me, read the often talked about book on this site, The Best of the Best, by Ruben Fernandez, where he talks at length about how students group themselves into stereotypes at mealtime in the dining hall.</p>

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<p>Binge: What Your College Student Won’t Tell You by Barrett Seaman – he has a chapter on diversity on the collegiate level that I guess is similar to the above^^</p>

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<p>BS is about opportunities. You have the exposure to a higher degree of diverrsity than normal schools but you can choose to benefit or not from it.</p>

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<p>Grinzing, I think Asians often hang out with other Asians. I would suspect the major reason behind that, may be the language barrier. If English was my second language, given the chance, I would probably prefer to speak my native language during downtime. And why not? English is hard.
Perspective is dictated by personal experience. While bs might not be altogether successful at integrating all the different races, at least there are different races present . Which is a lot more than I can say for our ps. As far as dining segregation, some schools like my dd’s have assigned seating. You are randomly assigned to a table, with a faculty member, for a two week period. According to my daughter, those two weeks can either fly by, or drag on forever.</p>

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<p>What Benley said.</p>

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<p>Ditto what Benley said.</p>

<p>My daughter attends a school that is diverse and has friends who are from a multitude of foreign and regional backgrounds. She accuses me of raising her “white” because she has no need to “cluster.” Actually I raised her to be comfortable in any situation so she wouldn’t be afraid to try something new.</p>

<p>So when she “test drove” boarding school by doing a summer program, she found herself with a roommate from Thailand and a new friend from Hong Kong. They still communicate via social media. She also had friends from France, Dubai, Germany, and various states around the US. When she did revisits on campuses she ran into former summer school classmates who then talked about other students they were in touch with.</p>

<p>That’s why. Because we’re a global society and here in the US many people can’t imagine life or people beyond their own regional boarders. And many foreign students know only about African Americans what they see on TV (do I need to say more?) While she was in school she was able to get international views of our presidential election and have spirited debates. And both she and her friends were better for having “face to face” exposure rather than continue to live with stereotypes.</p>

<p>So - I don’t want miracles - I just want more exposure to the fact that the world is a little bit larger than the city we live in - with nice people and jerks in all colors and genders.</p>

<p>She’ll be better prepared to face that world, than staying at home and watching life as depicted on the news.</p>

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<p>Actually, in my daughter’s case, boarding school is going to be considerably <em>less</em> diverse than her public elementary/middle/high schools thus far. She’s in a large suburban system that has no majority minority. She’s gone to school with Asians [chinese Korean], Southeast Asians, African-Americans, Africans, fresh-off-the boat Central Americans…you name it. Her schools have all been quite mixed income-wise as well. </p>

<p>All depends on where you’re coming from.</p>

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<p>My son and his roommate have decided to live together again next year. This is the time when boarders are jockeying for the best roommate choices, making plans to room with BFFs, etc. My son is African American and roomie is from So. Korea, ESL. “He’s really cool” is the primary reason for their decision, a criterion that transcends national boundaries, language barriers and other demographic characteristics.</p>

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<p>I’ve been wondering whether to jump into this discussion. First, I like and respect all of you. The issue of diversity is a hot-button issue, and I’ve noticed in offline life that people can get tremendously offended at a poorly-chosen word or phrase. If anything I write makes you angry, please ask me for clarification before flying into a rage.</p>

<p>To the topic. In my opinion, diversity is a worthy institutional goal for elite institutions. It is an investment in the future. It allows the selected, able children of the elite to meet and, one hopes, befriend the selected, able children of the rest of the world. </p>

<p>When we visited schools, we did notice that each school had its own atmosphere. My husband noticed that one school we visited had a noticeable division between student groups. You did not see students hanging out with students from other backgrounds. In the school’s defense, we visited at the beginning of the academic year. Perhaps these divisions become less noticeable once students acclimate to the school.</p>

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<p>I would add that our boarding student has close friends who hail from different backgrounds. I think this does vary by school and, as Benley noted, by student. Perhaps it is easier for students to get to know each other well in small schools.</p>

<p>Grinzing, I will have to pull out The Best of the Best and read more of the book. I must admit that I found the alleged conceited attitude of the students exceedingly uninteresting, and thus, stopped reading the book. I do not think that the practices cited in that book reflect all, or even most boarding schools. It is, perhaps, a trap that lies in wait for those who would pride themselves on excellence.</p>

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<p>What about classism? What about wealthy vs. middle class vs. poor in boarding schools?</p>

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<p>GladToBeHere, I don’t know. The only thing I can contribute on that front is that my kid believes the students at her affluent public middle school were much more competitive over material things, clothes, ipods, and such. We speculated that boarding, at a remove from mommy’s pocketbook, cuts out much of the nonsense. </p>

<p>This probably varies by school. I should note that we live in a very affluent town. The boarding school community is more diverse, in income and student background, than our hometown–and that’s a good thing.</p>

<p>So, if you come from an upper-middle class town in which all the students are under pressure to have a certain model of UGGS, or Ipods, or whatever, don’t expect a boarding school to be more extreme. Living away from home, with a dress code, and many school sponsored activities, can help to even the playing field.</p>

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<p>I agree with you Peri…I live in a town that is quite affluent, and kids are extremely rude to parents who don’t even flinch anymore when it is done to them in public. My son currently attends a K-8 school, and surprisingly there is more diversity there, then right in town. I like this thread…:)</p>

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<p>Can I tell you, I grew up in a family that had few financial resources. And I worried about boarding school and worked a summer job and used part of the funds to buy new clothes. I shouldn’t have bothered. The rich kids dressed worse than I did.</p>

<p>For the most part, the key to enjoying life at BS is to “be yourself” and gravitate towards those who see your inner “light.” There will be plenty of people to choose for who don’t make you feel like you are “less than.”</p>

<p>Did some kids go to Switzerland or the Caribbean for vacation? Sure. But often they also had non-involved parents who traveled while the kids were warehoused at the BS. Those were the kids who cried on the phone at midnight trying to keep up with their parent’s ideals for them. While the rest of us poor and middle class shlubs (there were a lot of us) reveled in the freedom, the new experiences and pitied them.</p>

<p>It’s one of the reason’s why we looked for fit - places where my daughter could “slot” in without feeling the need to “keep” up even though we can afford more than my parents could ever dream of.</p>

<p>But I do know the books that sell the other image (the bling, the computers, etc.) still trade on old stereotypes because the reality is not nearly as interesting nor would it sell very many books.</p>

<hr>

<p>But interesting story - I was recently visiting elementary schools in a southern state and talked about MIT as part of the presentation. The schools were about 50% White and 50% Latino. The teacher found me the next day and told me that one of the girls - a 4th grader and first generation English speaker asked her if MIT was a “big deal.” The teacher confirmed it. So the girl said “And they took her? They let her in?” The teacher nodded. So the girl said “No one ever told me I could go to a school like that” and asked if the teacher would let her tag along when she went to class at the local university to see what it was like.</p>

<p>When I went to BS I was not rich - I had to struggle for every dime - but the experience broadened my exposure and let me know I was entitled to do some of those things those kids did too when I grew up (it wasn’t in the vocabulary in my neighborhood, either). I learned:</p>

<p>Rich is not always happier. Sometimes those kids are less happy and under enormous pressure.</p>

<p>The world is bigger than my city and the pictures in nonfiction books and Life magazine were real places that I could access.</p>

<p>Many of the kids who looked different on the outside had the same passions and interests as I did. </p>

<p>That above everything else is what I loved most about my “diversity education” at BS.</p>