Reply to spin-off! What is so awful about attending school with exclusively upper middle class kids?

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Reply to "spin-off! What is so awful about attending school with exclusively upper middle class kids?"

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[quote=Anonymous]I think many of the parents who are choosing public school because they think their child will be sensitized to how other people live have a very naive view of how schools like that really work.  I grew up in a good sized town that had one large public high school that everyone in town went to.  There were no private schools near by.  The only other option was boarding school, but it was a decent school, and very few people felt the need to send their kids elsewhere.  We had students across the spectrum, from quite rich (the child of one of the highest earning professional golfers of the time) to the kids from public housing.  All races, with sizable black and hispanic populations.  I played sports with the black kids, and we were very friendly. I'm sure some of the people I had in my classes were poor, but I couldn't really tell you which ones.

For the most part, I hung out with the kids who were like me. I didn't visit the homes of the kids who were poor or culturally different, and I can't really tell you anything about what their lives were like outside of school. I definitely wasn't unique in this regard.  I did have one very good black friend, but her parents were better educated and higher income than mine.  Her mother was just a darker-skinned version of my mom. This wasn't a conscious choice, but it just was.  If your child goes to a school where he or she is a distinct minority, then this "diversity" experience might work, but I still suspect that kids will always end up spending the bulk of their time with people who are really like them, even if their skin is a different color.  Walking through a school hallway doesn't give you any more appreciation for how other people live than walking down a downtown street.    [/quote]

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