There are some days in which I question school and if students ever learn anything from it. Is any of the information actually sinking into their heads? As students we have been taught many things from first grade to high school. In elementary school, we learn the basics of life. For example, sharing crayons, cleaning up your own mess, paying attention when the instructor talks, getting along with others. Many of these we can incorporate into our own lives. In middle school we are faced with the freedom of thought and we start to process feelings and thought into our work. Middle school teaches you how to get along with others better and solve problems. In middle school, growth takes place.

Now the wonderful world of high school. High school is probably the place to complete the entire training for life. It ends the training for how to face life and all its difficulties. Through high school we are suppose to mature into what we will become in the future. With each grade, knowledge will be gained and understanding will finally dawn on our thick skulls.

It seems to me that some people still don’t understand most of the things they learned. Living in a middle class community, we have a very diverse school district. This is a place where diversity seems to thrive and we seem to get along well with every race. Maybe there are still things I didn’t know.

One morning during homeroom, I was talking to a friend, Irene, in Cantonese. I decided to lend my Swallow CD to her (Swallow is the Taiwanese album’s name). After she had it in her hands, she started to fuss over the songs that she knew and even sang a chorus. All I did was chuckle and maybe join in on a line or two. Our homeroom started to take interest in our actions. Somehow a guy in the homeroom got hold of the CD cover and was flipping through it. He made up sounds for a language that he didn’t know or understand. It came out something like this “ching chang, chin ga chang”. Afterwards, he and several other people laughed. I have known this boy for three years. Not very personally, but I know him well enough to be able to call him a friend. It shocked me to know that he was even capable of doing what he just did. We both were in a class all about tolerance. And last year the whole freshmen class had taken a world cultures class. Didn’t all these classes show him anything about being ethnocentric?! I guess not.

Then just today, in the cafeteria, another incident. I sit with a different group of people at lunch. Since I am Asian, I sit with Asian people. Sure maybe some of them are not clear of ESL yet, but we talk and have a good time just as everyone else does; maybe not in the same language but we are different because we can say things that not many people can understand. These are not the same people I hang out with though. These are just the group of people I grew to be friends with.

The table is split into two sides. On one side is the Asian group which consists of about 6 people, and the other side consists of mostly Caucasian males. One of the guys from down at the end of the table started to point and snicker at one of our “newbies” on our side of the table. This went on for about ten minutes. I didn’t say anything or go down there. Mostly I just glared with the darkest glare I could conjure up. I was seeing red. When the period for lunch was over I stormed out of the cafeteria like there was no tomorrow. I just had to get out of there and all that.

My image of school is not so great as it once was. A culturally diverse school is great because there are many different people to meet and many viewpoints to be shared. Our school has over some sixty nations existing within it without a problem. I had always thought of it like that. Now my image of the school is different. No matter where we go, no matter where we are, and how great we seem to exist with each other, “it” will always be there. That “difference”. That certain outside and maybe partly inside element that makes us just a bit different than they are. It will always be there, no matter where you run.