Deep Stuff

4th grade social studies in this state is all about California history. It's actually really cool stuff. I've been doing a much better job teaching the content this year than I was last year. Sigh. Anyway, for the past few weeks we studied the Gold Rush and all of the transformations that came because of the discovery of gold. This week we started a new chapter: "How Did Women Help California to Grow?" (Kind of a strange title, but the content is good). Today we read about a woman who lobbied for the rights of the Chinese and how prior to her advocacy, Chinese Americans were not able to go to school. This connected really well to discussions we've had previously in my class about segregation in the United States--which my students know is illegal under the law. The question came up today from a sweet Juliana who asked with great disbelief, "So Mrs. Haslam, because segregation is over, there are no schools that are segregated?" It was sad for me, because I couldn't answer that in the affirmative, nor could I answer proudly. I attempted to explain de facto segregation (no, not really). Instead I explained that "legally" no school can discriminate based on race but that people tend to go to school where they live and often (and unfortunately) that divides us along racial lines. I don't think I thought about such things when I was in 4th grade. One of my kids then raised his hand and thoughtfully stated, "Ya, I used to go to a white kid school." (By the way, there are 3 white children at my school. The kids told me. Clearly, they're counting).