What I Don’t Know Can Hurt Me

[cathschaffstump]

The times, they are a-changing.

There's an issue we're teasing apart into different filaments at the college. Diversity at Kirkwood is at an all time HIGH. Coolness and awesomeness! We have lots of students from different countries. We have lots of students who speak different languages.

We have lots of students who are coming from rural subculture. We have lots of students who are coming from urban subculture. We have lots of racial diversity. Finally!

This is the first time many of our white students are interacting with diverse populations. Come to think of it, this is the first time many of our teachers are as well. This five-year period has seen an incredible spikes. We're recruiting abroad and in the Chicago areas, and Iowa is bringing in immigrants.

BUT what we haven't seen to get us ready for all this? A scaffolding support system that helps us all get along. In reacting to a fight in the atrium, we hired a stone-faced security guard. It had become a gathering place for black students. Now, it's not. Instructors complain of how loud our Islamic students are, our black students are, and our Hispanic students are. Cultural norms are rubbing each other along raw edges.

If there's one thing the Internet has taught me in recent years, it's that you can't decide your own culture, ethnicity, socio-economic class, any aspect about you is "base-line normal," and everything else takes you into exotic country.

As a professor, I feel it's important for me to get educated. Most efforts at Kirkwood start modestly, and our modest beginning appears to be a reading circle.

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Mirrored from Writer Tamago.