Piexelating the Self -- Braude -- Intermezzo

High School: Public and Private

Learning to be Citizens vs. Trained Individualists

There has been a call for a rethinking of the American education system; this has led to looking within our local communities for change. Researchers such as Glenn K. Omatsu have studied educators who are shifted their teaching toward "teamwork, interethnic unity, and community building" (Omatsu 9). In his article “Freedom Schooling: Reconceptualizing Asian American Studies for Our Communities,” Omatsu challenges schools that were creating "subjects," not "citizens." He situates his piece alongside Grace Lee Boggs' association with Detroit Summer, a Freedom School "for the new millennium that challenges young people to 'rebuild, redefine and respire' devastated inner-city neighborhoods" (Omatsu 10-11). These Freedom Schools, according to Boggs, were created to start a movement to "challenge the concept of schools as mainly training centers for jobs in the corporate structure or for individual upward mobility and replace it with the concept of schools as places where children learn firsthand the skills of democracy and the responsibilities of citizenship and self-government" (qtd. in Omatsu 11).

Prep for My High School Years

Both of my parents were aware of this educational movement and worked alongside it in their own careers. When my dad was a history teacher for 7th-12th graders at Friends School in Detroit, he created a curriculum in which the city of Detroit was his students' classroom; he designed the course, based on the teachings of John Holt and the "unschooling approach," so that students met with mentors and spent time learning primarily from the city’s resources instead of textbooks. My mom worked in a team of five women to create The Women's Growth Center in Detroit, where the mission was to provide a safe space for women to come, have therapy, become educated about relationships, self-esteem, self-confidence, holding their own as mothers, and the choices they make for their lives. The leaders from the center gave talks at Wayne State University and local radio stations meant to help women become more informed about themselves and their resources.

Therefore, when my sister was ready for high school, my parents researched schools in the Metro Detroit area that would allow Gwen to continue pursuing the passions that she had developed during homeschooling; they wanted a school with educational values similar to their own. That is to say, they wanted the school to believe at some level that "happiness, we might say is, the ultimate performance indicator" (Ahmed 4). They were not interested in schools being "training centers"; they wanted their daughter to be focused on developing as a whole person within a community that had her passions as the focal point around which the rest of her educational pursuits were designed.

Me + High School + Happiness

Following their beliefs, my parents allowed me to choose where I wanted to go to school. I watched my parents spend hours researching, discussing, and prepping with my sister to make sure she was "happy" and "successful" in her academic choice; this minimized time that our collective family spent enjoying one another. Therefore, when I chose to attend our local high school, it was partially because I wanted to "see if I measured up" and partially because I believed my "success" and "happiness" would come from a simpler route than the one I had watched them take with my sister.

I spent my freshman year of high school at our public school; I was a color guard member, excelled in my classes, drove with my neighbor, had a crush on a senior drummer in the marching band, and took their only private voice class. In retrospect, I remember feeling frustrated that some of my classmates did not seem invested in learning and were at times disrespectful toward the teacher. Many times I walked through the hall and felt as if I were part of a large cattle herd being shuffled from one corral to another, from classes to college to a job. That being said, I also hold memories of dancing in front of hundreds as the soloist in color guard, learning how to tell my crush that he didn't have any right to touch my stomach without giving me the time of day to say hello and see how I'm doing, laughing with friends at homecoming, and knowing when to let one experience be just that, an experience, and when to be open for a new one.

I transferred to Mercy High School, the school my sister was attending and the one she had chosen with my parents. All that research and time paid off. Mercy was an all-girls Catholic school that recruited students from all different communities and faiths in the Metro Detroit region. The Mercy mission states that it "educates and inspires young women of diverse backgrounds to lead and serve with compassion" (“Mission & Vision”). I was drawn to their Cultural Sensitivity retreat, their Tri-M music honors society, Mercyaires singing and dancing group, as well as their motto to be "women who made a difference" (Kreger, qtd. in “Make a Difference”). I can't say that Mercy was "better" than the public school I attended because I don't necessarily believe in one over the other in this instance, but my experience at Mercy provided a space where I felt that I was learning about myself and the world around me as a whole physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual individual. My teachers' passions for the subjects they taught, alongside my classmates' drive to excel in their pursuits, in turn inspired me.

While my parents' desire for my sister and I to be "happy" in our educational choices was not explicitly stated, it was implied by the hour drive to and from Mercy, the small notes in lunch boxes, and encouragement to get some rest when we stayed up too late working. Their teachings were subtle.

"Somewhere between 'the drowning and love-making models'" - Dr. Tal Ben Shahar