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Benetton Schools
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Anonymous
| LOL -- you gotta be careful what you unleash around here. One woman's term of derision is another's badge of honor, it seems! |
Anonymous
| Beauvoir. |
Anonymous
Indeed. Not everyone is infuriated by the idea of their children being surrounded by upper middle class children of all colors, even if these are 2 parent families with professional careers. Some of us find this affirmative of the idea of people being judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. An ideal world. |
Anonymous
|
Right, just like Benetton models are chosen based on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
And. of course, the fact that someone is upper middle class, professional, or the child of professionals speaks volumes about that person's character.... |
Anonymous
|
Beauvoir
GDS WIS |
Anonymous
Are you seriously suggesting it doesn't? That you may know someone is upper middle class, professional, interested in their child's education and thoughtful about diversity and you can deduce nothing about that person's character? It's obvious you'd like to make a big class warfare argument about how we should all be actively striving for 100% diversity of all types in our children's schools and there's one particular bee in your bonnet. Clearly you'd prefer for everyone to be exposed to the disruptive influence of poverty in the classroom in the name of economic diversity, but you're fighting an uphill battle. Dislike me for this all you want? But I do NOT want my children exposed to pathological behavior and negative stereotypes in their academic environment. I'm sure that makes me some kind of awful Yuppie in your eyes and evidently there could be nothing lower, but it's a cross I'm willing to bear. |
Anonymous
| Call me narrow, but there are some forms of diversity that I actively avoid at least in the school setting. One of the reasons that I choose private schooling for my child is that I am trying to minimize the number of children in class that have little interest in being there to learn, have behavior issues that are disruptive, are disrepectful to teachers and other children, and so forth. However, these qualities do not match up perfectly with family income levels ... many low income families raise their children beautifully despite their inability to afford private school. I understand PP's interest in surrounding his/her children with middle class VALUES and I agree ... I just want to emphasize that those values are found at much lower income levels too. |
Anonymous
|
You certainly can't deduce "interested in education" or "thoughtful about diversity" from the fact that some is an upper middle class professional.
As an upper middle class professional who somehow emerged from the "dysfunction" and "pathology" of poverty, I have to say I've seen just as much dysfunction and pathology in the upper middle class. Conversely, I've seen lots of interest in education and thoughtfulness about diversity among poor people. In short, class position doesn't tell you much about character, though maybe you could argue that, to some extent, each class has its peculiar pathologies. Arguably, that's just another argument for economic diversity -- it helps make both the peculiarity and the pathology apparent rather than naturalizing them. |
Anonymous
| There's lots of disrespect for teachers among upper middle class kids and parents. The smart college grads all become professional, you know. So any professional could do a teacher's job better than most teachers could. That's the parental logic. The kid version is "my parents pay your salary." |
Anonymous
| Ask Bernie Madoff about class and character. |
Anonymous
As an example, he probes the point but hardly disproves it. In reality, we can sing Kumbaya and agree that social projects are good all we like. Parents are not clamoring to put their kids in troubled schools and what troubled schools uniformly have in common is poverty, distraction, low standards, poor safety, and a lack of regard for academic ideals. No parent needs to apologize for wanting to distance their child from this syndrome as far as possible and if this means a lack of economic diversity in upper middle class schools or at least a STRONG emphasis on "middle class values" then sometimes people get what they pay for... |
Anonymous
| That may be a regrettable necessity, but it's certainly not "An ideal world." |
Anonymous
| Would someone please give me examples of upper middle class values? |
Anonymous
Nice question, but despite a college education & graduate school, I'm probably too poor to be qualified to answer it. Good luck. |
Anonymous
I hear you. Beyond a household income over $100,000, an advanced degree, a professional career, that's it, I guess. |