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The school in American Culture

 

I found this reading by Margaret Mead to be very interesting. It reminded me of my childhood growing up in St. Vincent and the Grenadines attending elementary school.  After reading the passage one of the truths that stood out for me was “The little red schoolhouse”.  I can vividly remember our school building being somewhat like the “The little red schoolhouse”. It was an open building that was partitioned by black chalk boards. Every in the building would know when a child is being discipline. It was hard to pay attention because you can hear everything that was going on in each of the partitioned classrooms.  Margaret also mentioned that the teacher in “The little red schoolhouse” was known by the parents and so it was at my elementary school.  All of my teachers were from my village or the surrounding villages. My mom knew each of them and their parents as well.  I remembered as a child that I would often run from my teachers if I see them in on the street or take another path just to get away from them.  My teachers were strict disciplinarians who’s job as a teacher were not only restricted to the classroom but to my daily lives.  If a teacher were to see you miss-behaving in the streets it would also be a problem and I would also receive the just discipline for my in-appropriate behavior.

Another truths that impacted me was when the author Margaret Mead stated that “they must be taught to reject, and usually to despise, their parents’ values….making them ancestorless, children of the future, cut off from the past.”  In the Caribbean this truth was also evident.  I remember as a child we recited a lot of poems from England. Our text books were also from England and it taught us so many things about the English because St. Vincent and the Grenadines was under British rule.  When my mom visited England she told me that it was only then that realized what the text books were speaking about because, she could see the different places that were mentioned in the textbooks.  Everything came alive to her from what she read in the textbooks.

Reading this passage made me realize that we are not that different after all.  Margaret Mead was talking about “The school in American Culture” but in St. Vincent we were also going through similar experiences.  As a people we were thought to reject our pass and trade it in for something better and this is one of the things that took place in The school in American Culture.

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.