Schools Part 3: What I cannot teach

July 15

As with everyone, experience dictates my vision of my world and myself. My experience growing up and experiencing race was varied. I have/had two brothers, one died ten years ago, who were adopted from Korea. I lived in Pakistan for four years and Barbados for one, moving back to the United States for eighth grade. More on all of that later, but the culminating lesson for me, one that has guided my priorities as I have looked at schools for my kids is that I cannot teach diversity in my home. I cannot teach my kids to see people of all races as human beings. I can discuss race and point out racism. I can expose them to different ideas and texts, but that is not the same. I do not have friends of color that we spend time with. I have had colleagues and friends of color through work and on Facebook, but the truth is that I am not exposing my children to people of color.

When Joel (first husband, now divorced) and I were going through the adoption process for our second daughter, Frances, Children's Home Society had us go through an exercise. The leader asked us to put a bead in a bowl that represented the race of the artists, musicians, authors, movies, music, friends, family, etc of what/who our kids will experience in our home. Our bowl was filled with white. We adopted a daughter from Korea, and yet my bowl is still white. Joel and I both have the best intentions, but we do not have the network to provide what Frances, or my other three girls, all white, deserve as they navigate the world.

So what does South High School have to offer Solana? When we went to the open house, we had an effeminate black 9th grade boy approach us and offer to give us a tour. I imagine this would/could happen at Southwest or Washburn, but it is hard to imagine it happening at the private school we visited or the school I work at. As we walked around the school, there was a mix of all races. Solana knew a number of students from her basketball team and from her middle school and many were students of color. There were mixed race groups and single race groups, but most importantly, it felt like the students' space. Yes, there will be fights in the halls, and maybe discipline issues in the classroom that are different from what I see in Minnetonka, but when I picked Solana up from the Y an hour ago, I had to go in to get her. She was playing in the gym with Tariq, an African American boy with whom she has been friends for three years even though he is two years older. He was telling her that honors chemistry is hard, but that she shouldn't be nervous about being in classes with older kids. He was one of the first boys at the Y to encourage her to join the pick-up games. Tariq is her friend because they both play basketball, both go to the Y, but also because they both went to Sanford and now to South. She would not have met him or any of her friends of different races if we had relied on my network of friends.

So I guess it comes down to my trust that South can provide Solana (and later Frances) with the academic rigor they deserve more than I trust the mostly white (often over-privileged) schools to teach them to see people of color as individual human beings.