By, Emma Janas
- There was a lot to learn from this week’s reading, as it discussed racial issues that are still faced every day around the world even today. The themes that my LC group and I chose to emphasize in our Learning Experience were the Brown vs. Board decision, the Case Green vs. New Kent County, and the “freedom of choice plan” because all 3 of these were working towards one goal, a unified United States where racial inequality and segregation would no longer be so present. Our objectives for the lesson were having our classmates get a deeper look into what racial segregation looked like in the 1950s and 60s, such as black students not even being able to originally attend the same schools that white students could, and all the hesitation that Southern schools had when it came to the idea of black students being welcomed into their schools. To get our classmates involved in the lesson, we created a poll in which we asked questions such as, “prior to the reading, what do you know about the freedom of choice plan?”, to get a general idea of what those who may not have read the reading knew regarding the topic going into our lesson. Another question we asked was, “How did racial segregation have an impact on America in the 1950s and 60s?”, so that they could write down some reflection on the ways that racism was seen in the United States during that time period. We also had open discussion time in which gave our classmates time to discuss their ideas and opinions regarding things such as whether they believed the brown vs. board decision to be a crucial step towards ending segregation or not, and whether or not they believe racial segregation is still seen within our country in today’s day and age within the school system. This gave them an opportunity to speak up about their personal opinions and beliefs regarding the subject of racism within this country. The last question we asked for discussion was how and why do we think the Green vs Kent County Case still has such a large impact on dealing with debates on racial disparities today.
- Through reading this article, I learned so much about the topic. I learned that the court saw segregation as a reparative process, and there had to be several different attempts and decisions made in order to break the issue of racial segregation in America. Previous to reading the article, I did not know anything about the Brown vs. Board decision at all, so I learned a lot deeper about what it was, the meaning behind it, and its push to allow black students to be given the same opportunities and be able to attend the same schools that white children could. I also learned what the freedom of choice plan was, how students would automatically be re enrolled in their schools every year but could now re enroll in a different one if they wanted, meaning that black students could enroll in a previously white school, however they most often chose not to because of the social stigma. When the black students would transfer over to a white school, they would not be looked at as an individual, but rather for what the color of their skin was. For this lesson, I completed several of the powerpoint slides and came up with the discussion questions, as well as finding a video to display for the class to get a visual example to make the lesson more intriguing. My responsibilities for this lesson were making it strong and influential enough to the point where my classmates could clearly understand the severe racism that was seen in the 1950s-1960s.
- References:
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During readings comments for this week’s reading, “The radical supreme court decision that America forgot” regarding online posting comments difficulty:
Paragraph 3: Implications as a reader:
The Green vs. new County case marked an incredibly important time in history, in which its main objective was to begin putting an end to racial conflicts and segregation that we still often see today. What was so important about the Green vs. County case was that it caused the United States supreme court to truly open up their eyes to see the racial segregation that was constantly going on in America. Green thrived to enforce changes across the states, ones that involved repairing the racial discrimination matters that affected children and adults all across the U.S.
Paragraph 5: Implications as a reader:
I don’t believe that freedom of choice was a good thing because students should never automatically be re enrolled in their schools, each and every year it should be expected for a student to have a choice of whether or not they will continue being enrolled in their current school. However, what was good about this was that black students would now be able to enroll in previously all white schools. This was convenient for black students because they had been having to drive a long distance each day just to get to their schools everyday because of the fact that they were not allowed to attend school with the white students before. This was able to bring down the racial barrier between schools, however there was still definitely segregation because although some black students chose to switch over to white schools so that the schools would now have diversity, very few actually chose to due to the social stigma. And, as expected all white students chose to stay in their originally designated white schools, so those students still were very separated from the black students.
Paragraph 22: Implications as a reader and future teacher:
I completely agree, although the Green decision had a lot of hardships and struggles and visible consequences like busing and conflict, there were definitely some aspects that came out of the Green decision that represented hope and the cause for it in the United States. After all, it did force Southern schools and people all around to learn to embrace the need for desegregation and diversity within schools. It truly represented to not give up a fight for what is right, in this case the desire to no longer have schools be opposed to white and black students getting an education together. For me as a future educator, I hope that none of my students ever feel less just because of their ethnic background or racial status. I feel as though in today’s day in age we have continued learning more about diversity and the importance of segregation not being seen within the classroom more and more. I will continue implementing the idea into my future classroom, to embrace who each student is, and hope that racial borders are never set up among my students.
Emma 