
One thing that caught my interest was Christopher talking about how children unlearn free cooperate in school. I kept thinking of the Sesame Street song and video that goes "Cooperation making it happen, cooperation, working together" it's a great kids song. I wish Christopher would have given some specific examples from life. It's so general, this kind of talk. The lady sitting in front of me started talking about home schooled kids and that made me think of all kinds of problems.
In Atlanta I have a cute petite 2nd cousin named Adrienne. When Adrienne was around eleven her mother took her out of school because she couldn't afford a private school and girls in Adrienne's public school were always threatening her because their little boyfriends like Adrienne. The big problem, I think, is that Adrienne is a white kid and the girls who want to beat her ass are black or Mexican, so in my mind my cousin is being racist for taking Adrienne out of school. Is that a good answer to a problem, run away and ignore, separate yourselves?
Atlanta is weird though. I dated two guys who grew up there. The first guy went to public school. He was a white boy names Sean, most of his friends were Afro-American and Sean was all about hip hop culture. He even thought he was a good rapper and his lisp made it pretty funny. Sean is a nice guy but he is involved with drugs on a level that is seriously dangerous to his health.
The second guy went to a private school and when I dated him he had just got out of Berkley school of music (along with 3 of his high school buddies). I hung out with him and his friends a lot and they were all white kids, well a few Jewish guys and one girl who was half French half Peruvian. They were the group that helped me realize that I am lower middle class (so way uncouth) when I just though I was middle class (well, I'm actually pretty impoverished if you look at my income, I'm going by my upbringing in the country here, I never felt poor I had the basics and more, you know?)
So yeah, Atlanta's schools bum me out. I've thought that it would be nice to go teach high school art in the public schools there just so I can help the kids get all pissed (and optimistically they could create something positive out of their knowledge of the negative) off about the social boundaries related to class and race that are in existence there. I'd probably get fired even if I got hired.
Back to the conference today. The lady in front of me also said that children learn how to be an individual in school. I think that is a short sighted statement because being an individual is something that can't be learned it is something that just is, from the time you are born. I was thinking about all the little mean spirited cliques in schools and how people are always struggling to fit in to one of them.
What do these groups mean to individuality and free cooperation? What the hell is free cooperation anyway, I still don't know about that.
Is it forced cooperation, when little girls join the cheerleading squad or the girl scouts or whatever? I remember when I was 8 years old I was walking around the playground with my friend Melissa. She said "let's start a club" I said "OK" Then she said "Elizabeth can't be in our club" and I asked "why not?" She told me something but I can't remember it because at the time I didn't understand it and it kind of hurt my feelings even though I wasn't the one being excluded. It has something do with Elizabeth being a dork or something but isn't everyone a dork? Shit. I don't know where I'm going with this. I'd better stop.