Diversity in American Schools

Three weeks ago my Global Studies teacher asked us to write a journal entry from the perspective of a poor immigrant to America. It sounded like an interesting assignment and I thought about it after class for a time as I walked down the halls of the private high school I attend. But as I thought about it more and examined the different faces that passed me in the halls, I realized that none of my peers would be able to relate to the nature of this assignment in any measure and neither would I. At a school such as mine, diversity in financial and ethnic backgrounds is lacking. The next morning I woke up, looked out my window and saw dozens of Hispanic students walking down my street towards the public high school in my neighborhood. I watched for quite some time and counted not one Caucasian or Asian student among them. It was then I recognized the key in order for diversity in schools to have a positive effect and that key is balance.

A school where students, varying in ethnic and social backgrounds, have the chance to come together and learn alongside one other would be greatly beneficial to the learning experience. Students would be exposed to many different lifestyles other than their own, preparing them for stepping out into the amazingly diverse world in which we live. However, a majority of schools today are too heavily populated by people of similar backgrounds, creating a lack of balance and diversity.

The problem with having no balance in the variety of student backgrounds at a school can be better understood with this simple analogy. Imagine four musicians, who all play folk-style music, gathering to play together. They are all very talented in playing folk music, but then they suddenly have the desire to play jazz music. They soon realize that learning to play jazz music is impossible because none among them is knowledgeable in the genre of jazz music, only folk. Thus there is no one from whom to learn. In the same way, the students at a school lacking in diversity will be unable to gain true understanding of other cultures without the enlightening experience of interacting with students of differing backgrounds. In America today, in most public places, one daily encounters people from a wide range of ethnic and social backgrounds. Thus it is important to have experience in dealing with a diverse group of people, and the first place where one should gain this experience is in school.

The challenge in creating this experience lays in the reality that very few, if any, neighborhoods themselves are balanced in their diversity. Since schools cannot control the numbers of students in each ethnic or social group they serve, it is important for schools to consider creative ways to build bridges between different groups of students and achieve balance in alternative ways. Creating these “social bridges” is an extremely complicated and daunting task. One may suggest adjusting the make-up of class lists in such a manner that classes are as balanced as possible in terms of diversity. But what if students of a particular background begin to excel far beyond the rest? In that case, a higher level class should be offered to these students, but then once again the students would be ethnically segregated, defeating the entire purpose of balancing the class lists. Complex problems such as these have no simple solution. Yet still, everyday there are people who come together to discuss and plan ways to allow the many different students in America to unite. Perhaps someday, with enough effort, the dilemma of diversity in schools will transform from segregated communities into a wholesome and interlocking mosaic of different cultures and backgrounds.