This made me cry. Bright inner-city girl’s reaction to seeing the 18-acre private, “This is a joke. This is so unfair. We’re being trained to flip burgers or serve the kids that get to attend here [who will go on to become lawyers, doctors and bankers].”
The Facebook timeline of the inner-city students is full of their friends dropping out of college. Even after a full $55k per year scholarship to an elite private college, an inner city boy hides tiny issues until they snowball to the point he is kicked out and has to move home. Program highlighted the soft skill, social skills and intangible gap of even the very bright inner-city students.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/550/three-miles
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/05/04/magazine/tale-of-two-schools.html
So this article is basically saying some people are poor and some are rich?
<<<
“They walked into Fieldston, and they were just overwhelmed. They couldn’t imagine that this was just minutes from where they lived, and they never even knew about it. One kid ran crying off campus. It made them so disheartened about their own circumstances.”
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
The unintended consequence of shoving “better things” into the faces of those who have less.
If I were shopping for a used reliable car for my kid, I wouldn’t take him to the Mercedes dealership first.
Still trying to figure out what the intended consequence was. Is Fieldson specifically a social justice oriented school or something? The only obvious result I could see would be envy in the University Heights students and White guilt in the Fieldson students. Maybe that was the intent though.
I urged people on another thread to listen to this episode of “This American Life”. Put it on in the car. Listen to it while you’re making dinner or cleaning up the kitchen. Don’t post anything about it unless you’ve listened to the entire thing (or read the transcript–but really, listening to it is better).
<<<
Still trying to figure out what the intended consequence was.
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
I think the intended consequence was obvious.
[QUOTE=""]
students paired off, one from each school, and shared stories that in some way defined them. When they gathered as a group a few hours later, each student was responsible for telling the other’s story, taking on the persona of his or her partner and telling the story in the first person (“shattering stereotypes by walking in each other’s shoes,” as one of the Narrative 4 facilitators put it).
[/QUOTE]
While it can seem to be a “good thing” to “shatter stereotypes,” it can be very hard for young people to see their peers in such better circumstances. Sometimes it’s better just not to know.
Again–you really need to listen to the entire episode, or read the transcript, before commenting. There is much more to the story than you’re assuming.
i read it. i still think it was not entirely “ethical” for Ethical Culture Fieldston to participate in this exchange. what is enlightening and inspiring for adults might just be too much to expose kids to. on any side. it felt like the in person exchange was done more for the purposes of a dramatic story than in the interest of changing any kids’ lives for the better. just MHO.
I read the article. Seems like a good program as it expands the awareness of both sides.
Agree with Slithey - listen to the podcast. It is really an interesting and heart breaking story that is instructive to all. The stated purpose was for the smart kids from the poor public high school to see the possibility of a better life beyond the restrictions of their neighborhood and, to some extent, the lure of the street. As well as to show the Fieldston kids how fortunate they are. The intention was certainly not to taunt the poor kids with how good the private school kid’s have it. The piece also highlights the need for more supports for kids that are smart but poor when they get to top colleges.
There is no way to “not know” some kids have better lives when that information is everywhere. Kids watch TV and see what other kids have. What the inner city kids, especially the very bright ones, need is support to allow them to have the best shot to escape poverty and have a good life.
Ditto. I posted a link to this podcast also on another thread; people should listen to it before criticizing it.
My freshman roommate was a Jonathan, inner city Detroit kid ill-prepared for the engineering curriculum at RPI and treated poorly by the privileged masses. He dropped out after sophomore year to join the navy.
Surprises me that Posse didn’t smoke him out of his dorm room to render assistance. The kids I know in Posse say the program is wrap-around. Maybe it has changed recently
^ Assuming you are responding to post #12, @Magnetron is a parent. There was no Posse when I attended college. That is a recent innovation to help lower income students be more successful.
I also urge people to listen to the American Life podcast – it is riveting, and very informative. However, while it appears at the start to be about this Fieldston-University Heights relationship, it quickly turns into another type of story entirely. It’s not really about the exchange, the way the NYTimes story is.
Some of you seem to be saying, “if you are poor, just stay in the neighborhood and never interact with people of a different socio-economic status.” I disagree with this. I think it’s a bad thing when the only relationship between poor and rich is that of employer-employee, or served and server. The gap between haves and have-nots is growing, and walling people into their communities just widens the chasm. Yes, it was upsetting for that girl to see Fieldston – although you have to listen to the whole podcast to understand why. But why not show her that Mercedes? Why should she only see used Fords?
My roommate, assuming it was meant for me, was doing poorly but did not fail out. He got caught in the federal financial aid Pell cuts of the early 1980s and could no longer afford it.
His parents were divorced, six kids, raised in a lousy neighborhood and just did not have the HS rigor nor the academic coping skills that my kids take for granted. I didn’t mean to imply he had withdrawn the way that Johnathan did.
If you want kids to learn to relate to each other, why not create a cooperative between schools that has the students participating in joint activities outside of school? What’s the purpose of including a trip that takes the poor kids to visit a high school attended by the rich kids? Are they going to be given the opportunity to attend that school? Are the courses, activities, and resources that school provides to the rich students going to be offered to the poor ones? No matter how hard they work, the Univ. Heights students will never be permitted to attend that school or take advantage of the opportunities it provides the families who can afford it, so dangling it in front of them is pretty insensitive.
austinmshauri, you need to listen to the podcast or read the transcript to understand the story.
I thought this sounded familiar. This NYTimes article is a year old and I’m almost certain this was discussed on CC last year.