Sociologist and Public Schools in Numbers
That's very sad. I was informed the other day that public schools in New York City are named by numbers. (all the non-New Yorkers were shocked.) They use this number system almost exclusively. So I went to Google Earth tonight and check if it was a joke, but it was not. They are in fact named by numbers: District 2 Public School 116, District 14 Junior High School 126, District 6 Public School 187, etc.
When I take a step back and think more about it, there is no reason for me to be sad. I was imagining what will happen if people start calling me by my social security number, and identifying my schools in numbers, not names. But it is cultural difference. For these urban kids, school-name-numbers are part of their lives, part of their culture. These numbers are quite normal for them from their perspectives. I was, in a few minutes ago, in the same league with the ignorant, Eurocentric colonizer who looked down on Indians, Chinese and other 'primitive' societies in the 19th century. I was that dumb anthropologist (article by Horace Miner in the 1950s) who look at Nacirema and see things from a piegon-hole point of view. I'd need to get into, or be assimulated into their way of living, get into their schools (which I will, starting next week), and understand their beliefs, norms and values before I make a judgement on their school-numbering system.
When I take a step back and think more about it, there is no reason for me to be sad. I was imagining what will happen if people start calling me by my social security number, and identifying my schools in numbers, not names. But it is cultural difference. For these urban kids, school-name-numbers are part of their lives, part of their culture. These numbers are quite normal for them from their perspectives. I was, in a few minutes ago, in the same league with the ignorant, Eurocentric colonizer who looked down on Indians, Chinese and other 'primitive' societies in the 19th century. I was that dumb anthropologist (article by Horace Miner in the 1950s) who look at Nacirema and see things from a piegon-hole point of view. I'd need to get into, or be assimulated into their way of living, get into their schools (which I will, starting next week), and understand their beliefs, norms and values before I make a judgement on their school-numbering system.