Think, then think some more!

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Today was very interesting, as it started out with a intracommunity discussion about the problems in each of our schools. I felt the biggest thing personally to me about the Park School was that while I feel like we’re privileged in receiving a lot of wide variety in personalizing our education, it doesn’t really prep us for the real world. It feels redundant to say that I live in a Park bubble, but that is the reality! We’ve been taught how to form our opinions well, and were very good at researching and building arguments for those opinions. However, I don’t feel like Park preps is well enough for dealing with friction against ones own opinions. I feel one of the biggest examples would be when Dr. Carl Hart presented to us. Now while he may have been biased towards one side, he definitely had pure facts laid out for us. The idea that him and his assembly turned into a joke for most of the Park student body makes me feel inclined to believe this is how students react to topics such as race. With drugs and other controversial topics, I think that most students are more concerned about appearing to be on the right side of an issue than to consider other points. And if they’ve done some research, they are more likely to shut you down or even not engage in conversation because of your opinion differing from theirs. Now this is not to say that I think Park students should be engaging intellectually with hate speech and the like, as that ultimately makes intolerance tolerant. I just think our community would benefit more from engaging in uncomfortable discourse and learning more about themselves as a result, rather than a performative flaunt of intelligence. Going to the school in Rosedale also made me realize that our community might be failing in terms of education, which is mostly what my thoughts above are about. While I wish I took a risk and voiced my opinions above this morning, I also feel that it’s a risk to even write this out.

-Tyrese

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