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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I for one really liked what I saw at the Banneker interview. The entry was so different from entering our EOTP middle. The security guards watched you but were friendly, no one was ordering you around, they helped you get through, even though they also weren’t shirking the process.

The kids at the table hustled DS off to his test or whatever it was. Another kid brought me to a nearby space where she answered my million questions. And though a charter kid she was clearly from my kid’s demographic. And just being there I could see a demographic mix I liked. Not dominated by Ward 3 kids, nobody slumming from privates, no Georgetown professor’s kids as far as I could tell.

And the program the AP and teacher and administrator described was rigorous. Character building. Community focused. The kind of thing we just haven’t seen up to this point. To date the program has taught my kid and not much more, he’s spent his time teaching his friends, and it’s tiring after a while despite his inherent goodwill and friendliness.

I think it’ll be good for him. And it’s inspiring to me. I yearn for a community like this. After seeing how DCPS has done so little to integrate or improve, with (now I’m sounding pretentious I know) Obama followed by Voldemort, with BLM ending in a painting on 16th Street, I am really looking forward to a small version of a future that America appears not to want. Where _these_ kids replace us.

Just impressed is all. 
[/quote]

Not sure what you have against Georgetown professors kids. I teach at American University. Is that a problem for you too? Would it help if I said I am AA? [/quote]

Oh the Georgetown thing was something specific that turned me off and I’ll relate it quickly if I can: I went to a SWW open house and in the English or lit or humanities or whatever it is session, a 50s tanned white guy in a half-zip says “hi I’m a Georgetown professor and I wonder what your approach to teaching gender in the canon is,” or something like that. Such a turnoff humblebrag non-question - and I’m like, “why do I want to be around a community full of phonies like this?”

So it was that. It’s not everything or everyone. It’s the showy privilege oozing out of people that just didn’t seem part of the culture at Banneker. [/quote]

As a SWW parent, I'm glad you are taking you judgmental attitude elsewhere. My kid has met an incredibly wide range of families through her peers at SWW and is even interested in a profession she knew little about before meeting the mom of a classmate. I'd also love if they got to know a Gtown professor (of any race... not sure how that's applicable?) , who could likely provide great advice as they prepare for college applications.

To each their own!

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In real life, there's probably equal chance that this kid ends up at SWW. And to be minimally self-critical, I think I am really more comfortable with people who are appreciative about teachers who care and will get their kids to work hard, and less comfortable with parents who feel that they are discerning customers who want to push the schools where their children study to change to meet their wishes.

Not going to out myself, but as a person from a different class background who ended up going to fancy grad school, having never seen institutions and people like that, I was certainly impressed by many people around me, but some aspects of the culture were a turnoff. I'm a little torn about what I want from my kids, when I can't have them grow up like I did.[/quote]

College professors can often be arrogant and condescending. Not all of them obviously but many of them [/quote]

This. I was a graduate teaching and research assistant, college professor are largely self-important gas bags. Hate to tarnish the mystic but yep largely insufferable.[/quote]

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