I gots me a pretty little bias

So, here's my story.
I was eating at an outdoor restaurant with a friend.  A car pulled around the corner at incredible speed.  The car was being followed very closely by another car.  When they both stopped, the driver of the second car jumped out of his car with a baseball bat.  He reached into the second car and hit one of the passengers with the bat.

My first thought was "What did those guys do to make him so angry?"
No, I did not say "Who hits people with a baseball bat?" Nor was it "Violence is not the answer." or any non-violent things that I would normally think (because I am all hands-across-America like that).

The first car was an expensive sport's car filled with young, white men.
The second car was a clunker with one brown driver, the same skin color as me.

So, here it is.  Somewhere deep inside, if I see a conflict between people of different races, I assume it's the white person who is the aggressor.  Kind of the opposite of the norm, but still not right.

I do know where this came from.  Growing up, I went to three major schools that had very distinct racial breakdowns.  From first grade to fourth grade, I went to a school that had a population that was basically half black and half white.  From fourth to sixth grade I went to a school that was half Asian and half white.  From seventh through high school, I went to a school that was half white and half Latino.

In that time I was bullied, my friends were bullied, and fellow students who weren't friends were bullied. If the bully and the bullied were of different races (as they often were), the bully was always white.  Somehow, that planted the seed in me that all conflicts between races will have the white person as the bully.

What does that mean for me as a teacher?  Alot.  I have to be objective and see every conflict on its own.  Will it make me think any differently if the conflict is between people of different races?

So, I work at a school  that has a completely different race structure than the one I grew up in.  I teach drama which has plenty of conflict, but really no bullying.  So, if there is a conflict, it's probably not going to be racially based, but the situation may not always be this way.

There we go.

a british guy draws on a dry erase board

I am seriously trying to think of the video we watched last week in class and respond to it critically.

Some points that came across were:

School is Expensive

the System is outdated

The System is based on the model of industrialization.

So this leads me to the question of value.

At this point we respect education because it is supposed to get us a job.  

Then you go to college and realize that almost everything you major in won't really get you a job, so you learn the idea of the value of education for the sake of education.  You don't need to go to college and major in art, you can be an artist without the education, but there is value to you personally to learn from people surrounded by your peers.

Really, there are very few jobs out there for someone who majors in Piano, American Studies, Chicano Studies (ahem, theatre), religious studies. women's studies, queer studies, dance, ...perhaps I should break it down by college. 

In the university setting there is value to education for education's sake.  Is this because more than anything Universities are still a business?  Have they falsely created the value in order to have more buyers for their product? Or is there really some value and we just don't see it in the rest of the world.

If there is value in just education, then why does it not translate down to the high school level?  If that were the case, then I would not be the only one forced to put lessons of other subjects in my coursework, there would be teachers from Math, English, and Science having to slyly introduce lessons in theatre and pottery in their classes.  They don't, because Math, English, and Science are the classes that will push you forward, they are the classes that will get you into a good college, get you a good job, and buy you a house.... or something...I think that's the end goal.  I am a bit foggy on the American Dream.  The goal is a house, right?