Showing posts with label diversity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diversity. Show all posts

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Hasidic School in New York

 NYTimes recently ran an article, seeming to show that because of their political clout, Hasidic schools spend most of their time on religious subjects, slighting the basics, which mean their students, particularly boys, do not pass state exams. The article has led to a lot of discussion.

When you have a diverse society, we have a problem in drawing lines. Over my life the society has often backed off an original decision: no facial hair for military, no afros, no turbans for Sikhs, etc. The Amish do schooling up through 8th grade only, and don't participate in Social Security.  There's no problem with the hijab and the burka, the sari and the whatever, though low-slung jeans that show underwear are, or were, controversial.

There's always been controversies over books in school, not to mention the behavior of teachers.  No pregnant teachers in the past, no beards, etc. We once wanted books which embodied the Protestant version of Christianity.  I don't remember whether, when we said the Lord's Prayer every morning in my school, whether we said "debts" or "trespasses". 

There's always tension between the authority/teachings of the professional teacher and the authority/teachings of the parents (and these days, between parents who are separated or divorced).

I wonder how nations who are more diverse than the US, such as India or Indonesia, handle the lines.  I doubt we'll ever get consensus on the lines.  

Monday, December 17, 2018

They All Look(ed) the Same

Saw a picture related to a review of a book on Calhoun, Webster, and Clay.  The picture is here.


I've long been aware of sameness in people.  Back in the day,all mainland Chinese wore Mao jackets, and there were no Yao Mings then.  Visiting ballet companies from the Soviet Union didn't present much diversity in size or complexion. Military parades showed soldiers almost uniform in height.  We still see some of this when viewing reports from North Korea, although my impression is that there's more diversity at least in dress there.

I've always related this uniformity to cows and hens--visitors to the farm could not see how we could recognize our cows by sight--to them all cows looked the same.  We of course knew different, but when it came to our hens they really did all look the same.  (Not really--when looking at group of hens I'd recognize differences while I was looking, but it wasn't possible for the differences to make enough of an impression for me to remember individual hens the next day.)

Anyhow, what's interesting to me in this picture is how similar all the Senators, and onlookers, look.  They're all dressed the same, and their faces look the same--typical WASP faces.  Compare the picture above with this showing the new House members: