diversity being taught in schools

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I had an idea that I thought was really good. What if, every kid had to go through a coarse in school where they had to spend 2 months as a different demographic, and they had to do this with at least 3 different demographics. For example, a christian would have to spend 2 months as a muslim, a white man would have to spend 2 months as a black guy, a black guy would have to spend 3 months as a Mexican, a Mexican would have to spend 2 months as a white guy, an abled guy would have to spend 2 months in a wheel chair, etc. (they could use high grade make-up artists to change peoples' ethnicities).
I think this could potentially make people learn to be more open minded and accepting of one anothers' differences. They'd gain perspective by learning what it is like to walk in other peoples' shoes.

Each student throughout the coarse of their grade school years, would have to spend 2 months as 3 different demographics, ones which are specifically picked for them in areas that the individual needs the most awakening to (this could be determined by psychologists through a series of tests).
At the end of each experience, they would be required to write a 7 page or longer report on their experiences and what they've learned from walking in this other person's shoes.

Damn there's no edit button lol. Just to clarify, I didn't mean to put a 3 there when I said the black dude should have to spend 3 months as a mexican (I was giving examples), I meant to say 2 months.

Nice thought, but the implementation would be difficult.

I'm imagining one ordinary teacher trying to bring a meaningful experience such as you described to 20 or 30 students.

The teacher would have to understand the different 'demographics', as you call them and have a decent methodology to translate those real experiences to kids who, even within their own community, would be quite diverse.

The experiences the kids would be getting would need to be structured and controlled in a manner that kept the desired goal in place instead of say, the kid in the wheelchair thinking, "Hey this is FUN!" while zooming about the room knocking things and people over.

I can get into a wheelchair at work, spin about the halls and pop wheelies all night long, but realize little about the difficulties and emotional aspects of living in a wheelchair.

Again... nice thought, but rather difficult in any school's system, I think.

I think kids do NOT need to be taught diversity at an early age. The grown-ups need that!
Kids will emulate the authority figure whether that is a parent, teacher, or latest star on television.
They will do this for a variety of different reasons depending on the events happening in their own lives.

The kids I knew when I was working at my daughter's school (Kindergarten through 3rd grade, at the time) could care less what color someone's skin was, how they laughed or ran, until someone taught them about 'differences'.

As kids grow, they are not automatically becoming bullies, dictators, or socio-paths.

I've seen boys playing with dolls and girls in dresses with scabs on their knees and dirt on their hands and faces climbing the monkey bars. Kids were hugging who they wanted to hug, holding hands with each other (boys/boys, girls/girls, boys/girls), all without any noticeable discomfort or apparent feelings of amor.

When the 'higher authorities' in a child's life start telling them those things are wrong, inappropriate, or something you do with 'certain' people, the kids are usually forced into a life of living with 'differences' instead of living with 'similarities'.

What I didn't like seeing in elementary schools was all this attention being placed on teaching very young children the diversity of THE WORLD!

For the young kids I've mentioned above, their 'WORLD' was very small indeed. You can tell them all about China and the kids who live there, but they have no true grasp of what you're talking about. China might be that blue house down the street, for all they know.

I think school and our society would benefit better from teaching children about their communities starting with a very small 'world' and over the years gradually expanding it as the child can relate better to the fairly abstract notion of 'the world' and 'the universe'.

Sorry for the rant... I guess it is one of my pet peeves

Of coarse it would be structured, your probably right about the kid/adult thing though. I think maybe they should introduce such a coarse in high school or at some level of the education system, even if it's in colledge.

I don't think your suggestion is practical, but it is interesting. I think it would be valuable if parents encouraged their children to take several breaks throughout their education in order to travel and participate in different cultures. It would probably be easiest for home schooled kids to get away with this, but I highly doubt the reason most kids are home schooled is in order for them to have a broader experience of the world. Maybe public schools should offer domestic exchange programs with schools in a different demographic.

You might have seen boys playing with dolls, but left to themselves boys playing with dolls would be in a minority. This is not down to the imposition of some arbitrary social custom; it is down to human nature. Boys and girls are different. Is this really so hard to accept?

If you want to quote anecdotal evidence to support your view, I can do the same. Try the story of David Reimer for a tragic example of what can happen when you wage war against human nature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

In fact, I would think many people on this board should be able to identify in some way. Weren't most of us raised as neurotypicals in a neurotypical world for most (or all) of our young lives?

There's enough diversity being preached (forced down our throats) as it is now. Too much, actually. It’s been this way for a long time and I’ve never seen much more that very limited value in it. I believe that we need to get back to the more important core studies like science, math, history, industrial arts, and such. Not limited to just those, of course, but they should come first by far. These things are of a more tangible value in the real world. Talk all the coom-ba-ya (or whatever) diversity you want but in the end it’s industrial and military power that count in the REAL world.

diversity is important!! !! !

I believe you are mixing up a few things here and getting some others completely wrong.

First off, Mr. Reimer's story is just Mr. Reimer's story. I'm not sure what this really has to do with my argument.
I am very much aware of gender issues and that is not what I was attempting to argue.

I find it interesting that you quoted only the part about boys playing with dolls and not the girls part.
I may be reading into your comment, but it seems to illustrate to me the fact that our cultures are quite nervous when it comes to defining masculinity. Masculinity is certainly one of the most fragile things we have in our lives.

I mentioned the boys and girls as an example of how young children are quite diverse without input from adults. It was a small example of how kids can cross the social stereotypes unknowingly and think nothing of it. I'm not sure how you came up with the opinion that, "...left to themselves boys playing with dolls would be in a minority.".
Dolls for boys exist as 'action figures', but the softness of the dolls that precede these figures in their lives (stuffed animals or baby dolls for example) is lost when marketed to boys later in life. It is not the children directing that... it is the adults, adult society, and the toy companies.

At some point, gender diversity is thrown out the window by the adults under the guise that, "boys will be boys" and there is nothing we can do about it. Then we come back at some point and try to 'teach diversity'?
I don't want to do anything about boys being boys.
I would like to see the kids left to grow without these sorts of external influences based upon some adult's insecurities as to what constitutes masculinity and femininity, righteousness based upon belief, etc.

What is actually happening is that true diversity is quashed and a sort of revisionist diversity is brought into play.
What I call revisionist diversity is buffered by prohibitions that keep people from feeling free to express themselves as they feel, in the world at large.

As I also mentioned in my post, I believe children need to learn about their world in a conceptual arrangement they can comprehend.
Teaching a 2nd grade child about issues from across the globe isn't as effective, in my opinion, as teaching them about issues within their own small community, expanding the boundaries as the child's comprehension of the world around them grows.

Your comment, seems to support my feelings that we should allow children to be genuine in who they are, and as a society accept them for that.

THAT, to me, is diversity.

Yeah school should just be about booklearning. Biased political ideology doesn't need to become involved in the classroom. I don't think people should be forced to like diversity. Personally, I don't mind it....to a point. Canada and Belgium both have 2 major, and different, cultures and they have some really bad domestic problems (Quebec wants to seperate, the Flemish part of Belgium has been trying to ban people speaking French anywhere in their part of the country). Too much diversity ends up in terrible social strife imo.

As a child, I wanted to play with toy cars and trucks and blocks and climb trees. It annoyed me no end being told it wasn't "ladylike" and that I should play with dolls. I ended up putting dolls in the trucks and pushing them around.

A few weeks ago, I saw a father tell his little daughter "girls don't play with toy swords". I think we have a long way to go before we overcome sex role stereotyping in our society, let alone any other stereotyping.

Maybe I am getting some things mixed up. Sorry if that’s the case. I was just going on the gist of your first post as I perceived it. And as far as I can see, the gist of your second post is similar. You seem to be saying that gender stereotypes are largely imposed on children by the adult world. I would agree they are to an extent, but that those stereotypes have not come out of nowhere. It’s the old nature-nurture debate. I guess I lie nearer to the nature end of the spectrum than most people.

My comment about AS perhaps only confused things further. I should have mentioned first that I am pretty sure diversity is already being taught in schools, and it’s something I disagree with. Of course, boys who are drawn to feminine pursuits and girls who are drawn to masculine pursuits should not be stigmatised for it. And perhaps if the whole “diversity” business were as some people would like it to be, then several aspies would not have to endure the stress of trying to conform to the NT world and wondering why they found it so difficult.

But the modern religion of diversity goes way beyond all this. It is in fact completely Orwellian. For example, if our liberal elite really valued human diversity, they would try to preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity of the world by maintaining the ethnic and cultural homogenity of individual nations. And they would recognise that men and women are different and cease obsessing about filling gender quotas in every possible area of life.

The modern religion of diversity is actually all about asserting the meaninglessness of human difference. And I think it’s dangerous. If you treat people as blank slates, and ignore their biological make-up, you can do great damage. Not just to individuals, as in the David Reimer case, but to whole societies. The native people of Britain, for example, are constantly being instructed to “celebrate diversity”. What they are really being told to do is to celebrate their own dispossession.

And you know, I would not be surprised if there are schoolboys out there being forced to wear dresses as part of diversity education.

- To snake321, I’m surprised you started this thread actually, since you quite often post on the destructive nature of political correctness.

Oh, I love diversity, I am proud and happy to live in a truly pluralistic country and I love learning from and adapting to other people, because it is through that I learn more about myself, peace j

Point is we all have to share the world, so we must all learn get better understand one another and get along. If diversity causes problems, that in and of itself is a problem that needs to be fixed. I honestly think that if people had first-hand experience of what it is like to walk in someone else's shoes, they might become more open minded.

Thank you for your reply, I enjoyed reading it.

When you wrote about the "modern religion of diversity", I see that as the same thing I wrote here


I also believe that all these new fads that pop up every several years in education (in the States, as least), are nothing more than misguided people rushing around to make things look and feel nice.
This whole 'new' idea of teaching diversity is wrong.
Diversity is right there with the young children. They haven't learned (in most cases I have seen or read about) that they should focus on other people's differences.

I read one story here where the siblings would take an AS child and play with them by placing the AS child where they needed them, fixing up their role and playing. It did not sound malicious to me. It sounded like the non-AS siblings realized that in order to play with the other sibling, they would need to do certain things for that child.

This probably isn't coming out the way it is in my mind...

I'll stop for now, but I have seen some interesting comments here.