post midnight thinking

So i guess this is as good a time as any to admit that mr. Jones totally inspired me to start a blog. At midnight or so i started reading them for a bit. almost an hour later and 9months worth of blogging earlier, i came upon a problem that i understand and experience but have never really thought about it that much. Latin is the only class i take that isn't advanced in some way, this means that it, like computer discovery years before, is about my only forray into the general masses of JPS students. These aren't really the general masses i suppose, since normal people don't take latin, but it's close enough.

So all through his blog he's dealing with the problem of teaching both excellent and mediocre students at the same time, and having to go a bit to fast for some and a bit to slow for others. The logical solution to this problem would be to divide the classes into smart kids and less-advanced kids, and would, in theory, wind up with everyone learning more. The problem with this is dividing students based on intelligence is a dangerous thing, and isn't especially acceptable. This would be even worse, because probably all the White kids would end up in the smart class. This leads me into another fun topic: racism.

I've always had to deal with the problems of racism and such...that makes is sound like i'm discriminated against, which isn't especially true. I've always had to deal with the inherrent stigma, and exhistance, of racism down here. About all of my friends are white. In a school that's about 95% black this seems to point to racism. It's kinda bad how all white kids kinda cling together in murrah, and it's always been that way. In my defense, I'm friends with people who are like me. People who are like me usually come from similar cultures, which means a lot of them are white. I don't dislike any black people on the basis of their skin color. I do dislike a lot of black people based on their personality, humor, values, and opinions. I dislike a few white people based on these things to.

Now, it gets a little more sordid when it comes to people like Carrie, or Karlos, or Melissa, or many many other black people who aren't that different from me. If they were white they'd quickly become part of the white click and we'd hangout and have fun and junk like that. Also on the topic of girls i'm perhaps unreasonable partial to white girls. Again, some of this has to do with personality, i'm partial to girls i like, but there's more to that. I dunno, i suppose everybody's a bit racist. It's sad that everything in mississippi gets turned into a racial debate. Oh well, i digress.

So back to fun school thinking. Would it be wrong to seperate kids into smart kids and dumb kids? We seperate out mentally disabled students. We create APAC and AP and accelerated and all that jazz, but there's no simple division of classes based on needs and potential. It's a bit risky to say potential, because it's terrible un-PC to say that anyone has less potential than anybody else, but i was born into a nice, white, high educated, high religious, loving and structured family who work hard to ensure that i'm outstanding. If i were born to a single mother who dropped out of college and works fulltime to put food on the table, i probably wouldn't be anywhere near where i am. I probably couldn't play piano, or swim, or read, or type, or think like i do now, since all of those require a bit of capital. It just doesn't quite seem fair that i have an easy time in high school while some people have to work. I'm just thinking classes like latin, health, computer discover, and those types of things would be a whole lot more productive if instead of dividing us by the magic formulas councelors use and mess up day in and day out, simply use testing, test scores, or just preference to chose where students end up. Why did i take mrs. cook for Chemistry when most people take Stokes?

Oh well, i think that's all for me, i'm in desperate need of some sleep. Hopefully i'll be able to wax philosophical on most of my blogs, and it doesn't turn into xanga or livejournal.

btw, i'm attracted to those who are unbridled and free. So says the magic quiz. Incidentally this is very true, but whatever.