Another education class tonight, and I’m trying to process everything that we discussed. It’s weird – the economic disparities underlying education in this country, and the way those play into racial/ethnic distinctions, seems like an undercurrent of the class, and something that’s very much on the mind of the professor. But it’s not being brought to the fore in a systematic way, so that people can understand it and use it to analyze other issues.
We spent a lot of time talking about the notion of tracking in public schools tonight, for example. And as someone who took a lot of honors classes in school, I know I felt a little defensive about the idea that my own education didn’t live up to the democratic ideals I have now. And then right at the end of the discussion, someone else mentioned that so far neither we nor the textbook had discussed the contrast between public schools and expensive private schools in terms of creating separate expectations for students. Which was a really good point, but one that kind of implied that the entire discussion so far had been kind of missing a key piece, you know?
Look, I’m all for making students construct knowledge for themselves. But I still kinda think that a little more structure would be helping us do so more efficiently.