DIVERSIVITY
Education
CREDITS Our Mission: At Diversivity, we strive to create a more inclusive community that embraces diversity amongst different identities and cultures. We hope to do this by providing a safe platform for teens to share their perspectives, stories, and thoughts, while also advocating for solutions to issues relating to race relations, global events, identity, and more.
Team Message: As members of Diversivity, we wanted our electronic magazine to be a safe space for people from a multitude of backgrounds to share their stories, opinions, and perspectives about a diverse range of issues. We believe that writing is a powerful tool that can help create a more inclusive and diverse world. Each month we hone in on a certain theme, opening up submissions to anyone who wants to write about their experiences. This month’s theme, “education” drew many responses and shines a light on new topics. We believe it's important for every voice to be heard and we hope that our emagazine can accurately portray education and its various facets.
Chief Writer: Katie MacDonald Writers: Rachel Daniels Hillary Xu Sonal Gupta Chief Editor Rhea Kaw Director of Graphics Design Harshana Jawahar Graphics Designer Megha Patel
Student Perspectives on the U.S. Education System : Texas High Schoolers
1 Minute Interviews
Question 1. What do you think works with the current education system? “I think the blocked schedule (A/B days; alternating classes every other day) works to spread out homework and allow for longer class periods.” — NI “Literally nothing works; I'm constantly under stress and I assume that others most likely feel the same. Not only is the amount of homework stressful, but the pace of learning new material as well. I feel like in the majority of my classes we learn something and move on to a new topic the next day. We are learning like 3 different concepts in the span of a week. It's so stressful.” — ES “[The current education system] offers a lot of courses and material for students to discover their interests and learn more about our community and society.” — KA “The opportunity to make friends and meet new people! Without school, we are deprived of human interaction (which this pandemic has caused me to realize).” — AX “The variety of classes offered at the high school level allows students to begin exploring career options. I also enjoy the amount of support you can receive from counselors.” — IG “The Texas education system varies very strongly across the state, but the good schools are exceptional. I also like the extracurricular importance such as band and football.” — NC “I’m sure a lot of things work, but I can’t exactly name anything. I guess the fact that a lot of kids can get an education regardless of socio-economic status.” — KP “It’s great that Texas puts so much thought and funding into extracurriculars; it really allows students to branch out.” — SD
Question 2. What could be improved? “We should have education on how to do more practical things like interviews, college essays, and taxes.” — NI “I think that we need to start actually learning and going in-depth into subjects rather than just breezing through them. I think we learn so much in so little time that we aren't actually learning– we're memorizing. It's funny because if you memorize something and do well on a quiz, all you’re gaining is possibly a good grade– but learning something and genuinely understanding it will grant you actual knowledge AND a good grade. I think that schools should also start trying to teach with more than one learning style to create a multidimensional learning situation so more kids can succeed.” — ES “The curriculum feels very biased and not diverse; it’s focused on the norms of society rather than learning about diversity in our world and communities.” — KA “I believe that virtual resources such as textbooks should be improved and provided by the districts.” — JC “We learn something, have a test over it, and then never use it again. Then 2 years later we relearn it and then forget it again. Repeat. I think we should learn more important topics than the moon cycle.” — LH “I’ve always been a firm believer that school should also teach us practical skills that are necessary in life. I would propose that we should take a class that teaches us how to do our taxes or how to properly perform during an interview.” — IG
“I think that a lot of curriculum is either incorrect, highly biased, or unnecessary, such as teaching the Civil War as about states rights and not slavery, which is extremely wrong.” — NC “Everything is grade and GPA oriented which promotes cheating instead of actual learning.” — KP “It would be nice if there was a process in place allowing students to learn more soft skills [i.e. skills involving effective collaboration and communication] and life skills such as networking and taxes. It would [also] be good for Texas to increase student independence [by] letting them know about the various opportunities for [certain] areas such as competition and online or free learning. Furthermore, it would be amazing for students in terms of mental health and even physical health if less emphasis on standardized testing and regimented homework happened.” — SD Question 3. How has virtual school impacted you? “I’ve had more time for homework, but overall [I] have [had] less motivation to be productive.” — NI “Virtual school has mainly taught me how to teach myself. I assume many others are doing the same thing because it's more difficult to learn over a Zoom call… I enjoy the freedom that students have because of virtual school, like off-campus lunch, but it's stressful to get everything done. Honestly I do like virtual school, not exactly for the school and learning aspect, but because I like not having to be at school in-person.” — ES “Virtual school has made me more anxious and scared to talk to my teachers in previous years. While they are all very nice people, I don't know them as a person and I feel stupid coming to talk to them about anything.” — MC “In some ways virtual learning has motivated me more and helped me stay on target with school work. But, it also has been harder to learn and the communication between teacher and student has felt very one sided.” — KA
“I think virtual school has had both negative and positive impacts. Although it is much harder to form connections with teachers, it has allowed me to improve my communication skills (such as email and virtual conferences). I miss my friends that aren’t in my cohort, but I understand that it is necessary for the greater good. However, virtual school has had a negative impact on my physical health. I've experienced more neck strain and back pain because of the 7-8 hours of screen time.” — ML “My eyesight has gotten worse!” — JG “Virtual school is easier because teachers cannot monitor you closely. This means we are allowed to use notes on tests to make it fair to everyone. But because of this, students such as myself aren’t preparing or studying enough because we are depending on the use of our notes. This is creating bad study habits that are going to be difficult to reverse once COVID is over.” — LH “For me virtual learning has had its pros and cons. Going virtual has allowed me to become much more organized, thus causing my grades to skyrocket from last year. On the [other hand], virtual learning has negatively impacted my mental health. Not having regular human interaction as well as feeling divided from the in-person learners has greatly affected me.” — IG “Online school is so isolated. It’s a lot harder for me to learn because I can’t stare at a screen for 8 hours a day and I feel a lot more mentally drained.” — NC "Virtual school gives me headaches and makes my eyes hurt. I’m very unmotivated and get distracted very easily.” — KP “Virtual school is less informative and educational than previous years of in-person school. I find myself being a lot less sociable, which I think a lot of other kids relate to. They aren't seeing their friends and they’re going to class, but not making new friends (or classmates that can help them with academics). Additionally, virtual school has made me rush to do things quickly and not fully understand things to educate myself.” — TR “Virtual learning causes more education and responsibility upon the individual; I find it really hard when I have to reteach myself things that I don't understand. Virtual school has also affected my sleep deprivation. By staring at a screen everyday, I am a lot less active and I find myself constantly eating more.” — MC “Virtual [learning] has actually made me [less inclined] to get up early and do work. But in a way, it’s allowed me to get all [my] work done because there’s a lot more time to do so now.” — JC “Virtual school has allowed me to feel more relaxed and overall good about school. It has allowed me to get more and better sleep and has opened up more time for me to spend with my family. Though the transition to virtual school was (and still is) kind of rough given internet connection problems and translating typically in-person activities to the virtual world, the whole process has honestly not been too bad.” — SD
RACISM IN THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM Systemic racism has a long and tumultuous history in the United States. Naturally, this insidious beast has infiltrated its way into the educational system. A myriad of issues related to racial insensitivities plague the educational system, some of which I’ve witnessed firsthand. These injustices affect millions of children of color daily and have the potential to impact the course of their lives.You may have heard that the US spends more per pupil than any other country. While this statement is not necessarily false, it fails to divulge important information about the shocking differences in the monetary figures from state to state. A OECD report broke down the statistics further to reveal that Mississippi spends less than half of New York per student, a whopping $8,702 to $22,366 respectively. Further contrasts are visible on a county vs. county basis. Like many things in the country, the funding system disproportionately shortchanges BIPOC students. 35 percent of public school revenue comes from property taxes. In poorer communities, usually full of students of color, schools must rely on fickle state revenues. However, these students’ white and affluent peers on the other side of town are able to get more funding through property taxes. This is why predominantly nonwhite school districts across the country annually receive $23 billion less than their white counterparts, despite serving the same number of students. How do we expect these black and brown students, often born into poverty, to achieve upward mobility when the playing field isn’t level? We underfund their schools and provide them with subpar materials. It shows in their standardized test scores and in their grades.
Then, we push the idea that there’s an equality of opportunity in the United States. Students in overlooked neighborhoods are told to sprint 100m while richer students get a 90m head start. We must reduce reliance on local property taxes to fund education and rectify funding gaps within school districts. There is another important issue needing to be addressed. Most teachers are white, despite the schools they work at being much more diverse. Not only is representation extremely important, but teachers are better able to understand the unique needs of students if they can relate to their specific walks of life. This lack of variation within the administrative staff has far-reaching implications for kids enrolled in these schools. Black students are more likely to be suspended from school than their white classmates, and the large contrast in data begins as early as pre-K. Black students make up 18% of all preschoolers, but represent almost 50% of all preschool suspensions. A possible explanation can be found in a recent study conducted by the American Psychological Association. Starting from as young as 10, black boys are perceived as less innocent by multiple members of society. Of course, these implicit biases and preconceived notions don’t escape their teachers and principals. That suspicion of guilt often trails behind African-American men their entire educational careers and their entire lives. Therefore, it is crucial that we dismantle racial discrimination and bias hiring in school districts, and make a concerted effort to increase the percentage of teachers of color in our schools.
It’s the month following semester exams and the school is eerily quiet. After a week of hectic test-taking and 15 weeks of classes, every student holds their breath in anticipation for receiving a number that will determine their future college prospects: class rank. Students are pitted against each other in a desperate race to success, losing many hours of sleep, friends, and opportunities for real learning. The desire to become academically successful is notable—how schools define success is not. Ranking students has created a culture of performance instead of a culture of learning, with implications that range from increased stress levels to anti-intellectual sentiment. This is what the culture at my highly competitive Texas public school is like. Maybe you’ve had a different experience, but let me tell you about mine. Students (including myself) spiral into a cycle of self-doubt and stress, caving into the pressure of maintaining high grades while juggling extracurriculars, jobs, volunteer work, family, and friends. Burnout is prevalent amongst 16 and 17-year-olds who sleep 6 hours on a good day. And all of this results from the mounting pressure of performance academics. What is performance culture? For our purposes, it’s the cumulative cultural pressure that arises when the school system emphasizes grades rather than learning and growth. Success is defined by a letter or number value that is assigned to your work, causing students to seek high grades at the expense of learning and self-care.
PERFORMANCE VS LEARNING CULTURE IN SCHOOLS
In contrast, a learning culture emphasizes growth and continued curiosity for a subject. Success is defined by understanding a concept and the desire to learn more about it, allowing students to become intrinsically motivated to explore topics that interest them. These two concepts are intertwined and every school has a varying combination of performance and learning culture. It’s all about balance: having an education system that can be quantified by numbers (test scores, etc.) but prioritizes learning and growth. In my experience, the American education system, unfortunately, is heavily performance-based. In my school, if a student fails an assignment and wishes to increase their grade, the highest score they can receive is a 70 out of 100– if they correct their errors and redo the assignment. And they can only correct their mistakes once. This does not make sense to me. Shouldn’t the point of the assignment be to learn the material? Why stop a student from mastering the concept by limiting their opportunities to learn from their mistakes? Growth is achieved through working through our failures and learning from them. Only allowing one attempt at growth and capping off the score at 70 severely limits a student’s motivation and the value derived from learning. Students become discouraged from pursuing academic fields (especially STEM fields) because of the trauma associated with performance culture. Students begin to believe that they are not “math people” or “science people” solely because they do not perform well on a 30 question standardized multiple-choice test, with questions that are often poorly-worded. We start to define success as test scores, and soon we let test scores define us. The school system requires reform. The current educational model perpetuates a performance culture that ultimately discourages real learning and increases stress. We need a curriculum that emphasizes learning and growth, that doesn’t punish mistakes, that gets students interested in learning. We need change. And it needs to start tomorrow, hopefully before my next Calculus test.
THE WHITEWASHING OF AMERICAN HISTORY The United States has a rich history, good and bad. To have a proper perspective of the world and become better global citizens, it is pertinent that students are taught all of that history, from an unbiased point of view. History has always been a multifaceted story, yet we only seem to learn about world events from an Anglo-Saxon and Eurocentric stance, throughout all levels of education. If we do delve into other countries’ and demographics’ perspectives, it is usually brief or only in optional classes. The incomplete teaching of our history causes students to develop improper pictures about events that occurred in the past. From the Trail of Tails to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, these tragic, yet inescapable events are just two of the important affairs in the development of the nation. Furthermore, while difficult subjects, they are integral to understanding the complex systems and injustices that survive to this day. We cannot afford to scratch the surface of these topics. I attended a diverse middle school, so I often heard complaints from my companions about our history classes. Not only were they repetitive in nature, repeatedly covering the Middle Ages, ancient civilizations, and the early United States, but the curriculum failed to incorporate matters about other places around the world. We understood that large chunks of the class couldn’t be devoted to nonAmerican issues in an American school system and that every base couldn’t be covered. We did, however, find it completely plausible to begin conversations about occurrences in different regions.Implore your board of education to improve the curriculum in your county. We were recently able to integrate LGBTQ+ history into the classes in my school district. Any progress is a step in the right direction.
EXTRAS
Here are some stories that aren't about this month's theme, but we felt should be included!
READ ON!
IS MY LIFE LESS IMPORTANT THAN THE ECONOMY? Watching the news should be an easy thing, but it's not. Every time I view it, I see how our world is falling apart right before my eyes. I want to see heartwarming stories, but instead I hear of a second genocide. I’m seeing murders, hate crimes, violence. I’m only 16, yet I have been exposed to the truth. The realities of our world. I’m only 16, yet I have seen how big issues in our world are disregarded because of “political views.” I am only 16– yet I am scared for my future. Here’s one example: In my province, our premier, the head of a province or territory in Canada, is refusing to go back to an early stage for Covid. Our cases are rising by over one thousand people per day. The situation is not getting better and the second wave of CoronaVirus cases are coming. But nonetheless, Doug Ford is refusing to let the economy take another hit in order to protect people’s health and safety. To my government, my life is a small price to pay for “business as usual.” As much as we wish things could go back to normal, they can’t. So many students don’t have access to proper technology to help them in school. Schools are not funded enough to support students and we don’t have enough teachers to keep class sizes down. I’m in grade eleven and every decision, every mistake, that our government makes impacts my future. Trust me, it's not a good feeling. My family has to decide whether to be able to put food on the table or see my grandparents. We are supposed to rely on our governments for support yet we are scared of their every move. This needs to get better. We need to set an example, but instead we are taking risks. Unnecessary risks. My mental health is getting worse and I’m stressed over things no normal 16 year old should be stressed about. The well-being of my family, the safety of my friends, my own future. Ontario government, do better.
Asexuality Today
Like many other terms, asexuality is an umbrella term, and exits over a certain spectrum. Also incorporated with the word “ace,” asexuality is when someone has little desire in having sexual intercourse, yet they do have interest in intimately emotional relationships. There are many misconceptions regarding why someone is asexual, ranging from abstinence due to detrimental relationships to the practice of celibacy, yet asexuality is simply something someone identifies with. There isn’t a necessary reason behind why someone is asexual. People disregard the ace community as those who practice abstinence due to religion, have sexual repression or dysfunction, obtain a fear of intimacy, or are simply not worth of finding another partner. The reality is that people who identify as ace might want strong friendships in combination with understanding and empathy. They do want to fall in love, engage in sexual activity, and some may even want to start families in the future.This sexual orientation is an umbrella term, and a few common terms that fall under asexuality are semi sexual, grey-a, and queerplatonic
Demisexual refers to people who only experience sexual attraction when they are in a strong and emotional relationship. These people often need to obtain a connection to the other to experience attractions The term grey-a indicates people who identify between sexual and asexual, henceforth the terms given name. Lastly, people identify as queerplatonic when they experience a nonromantic relationship that contains an intense emotional connection, something that is much more than simple friendship. Another orientation under this umbrella includes aromantic asexuals. These people feel neither a romantic nor a sexual attraction to others. Aces may use homo-, bi-, or hetero- to describe who they feel an attraction towards.Today, around one percent of the world is asexual, though the number could be higher. The longer initialism, LGBTQIAP+, incorporates the term “ace” as well as other orientations. All in all, it’s important to remember that healthy and happy relationships can be built without the requirement of sexual intercourse. Identifying as a specific orientation is difficult and complicated to understand, yet it’s important to note that time is needed to resolve one’s feelings. Sexuality is fluid, flowing, and free. It’s not a test to pass, or a requirement to have known. Overall, it’s normal to be conflicted on who you are, but it’s important to understand what each orientation incorporates in order to not perceive misconceptions as truth.
IMAGINE You need to wake up, do your work. You have so much work. Get up. Do it. Suddenly it’s that much harder to get out of the bed– to motivate yourself It will get better, it will get better with time. You can’t describe it with words, but it’s there. In your thoughts, in your dreams, in your nightmares. A choking darkness that controls your every move. A darkness that judges you, that tells you you’re not worth it. Stop thinking negatively. Just concentrate, you can do it. No you can’t. You can’t do it. You’re worthless. Every day is a struggle, every day is a fight. You can’t describe it with words, but it haunts you. You feel as if you need to be cured, but nothing is working. Every word you say is second guessed, every action, every thought. You’re not worth it, you can never be accepted. You can never be appreciated. They pity you, they despise you. They’re talking about you behind your back. Just give up. Imagine.
THANK YOU !!
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