Plessy and Brown

For this reading we talked about ethnicity in education and whether we should teach to circumstances or to potential. In the Plessy vs. Ferguson case, Plessy was imprisoned because he sat in the "white" section of the train, although the train conductor and those on the train did not have the power to segregate. The way this relates to my metaphor is that throughout our road trip, it is inevitable that we will be confronted with opposition that may impede us from reaching our ultimate goal or potential.

I am from Bonners Ferry, Idaho which is located in northern Idaho approximately 30 minutes from the Canadian border and as I have traveled through Montana many times to come to Rexburg in the Winters, I have been confronted by snow storms. This was an opposition that tried to hinder my progression to arrive at my destination. There were times where we needed to pull over on the side of the road and wait out the storm, but sometimes it would not improve and we would need to drive slowly with our hazard lights on, or stay overnight in a hotel and continue the drive the next day.

Although there are oppositions that may try to obstruct our receiving quality education, there are also tools that allow us to still reach our potential. There may be circumstances in a student's life that is challenging and teachers need to understand that the reason they are teaching to those circumstances is because you understand a much higher potential for that student than he himself understands. The teacher should know that the student is capable of many great accomplishments. The student's tools for reaching their potential as a learner are friends, counselors, maybe an inspiring teacher that they have had in the past or maybe have heard of. Thomas Plummer who was a professor at Brigham Young University wrote an essay called, "Diagnosing and Treating the Ophelia Syndrome." In this essay he said that the first treatment is, "Seek out and learn from great teachers, regardless of what they teach." He said this because he said that these teachers will force the student to think on their own and will inspire them.

Daily Assignment

In this research journal we find some of the advantages and disadvantages of desegregation in schools. According to the research, there is only a slight improvement academically for minorities in desegregated schools while there is a noticeable improvement in self-esteem among those minorities when they are placed in desegregated schools. Results of the research performed also found that a student’s race or gender influences the teacher’s view and actions towards the students. Another finding in the article was that there are still struggles for defining leadership roles between minorities and Anglo students.

The way this related to Plessy and Brown is because in the Plessy case, there was a problem defining leadership and those that really did not have power to segregate were still doing so. This happens in many schools. The students and teachers themselves are segregating by the way they approach minorities and minorities are unable to understand their potential because of this.

Brown wanted the schools to be desegregated to provide equal opportunities for all races. If the schools were desegregated, he felt that minorities would have a better opportunity to be successful and reach their potential. In the journal I studied, it talked about how minorities’ social lives improved in desegregated schools, but academically they slightly improved. The desegregation of schools has so much potential, but it won’t be very effective if the teachers are treating minorities as if they have less potential.