Open Says-a-me!

I have been thinking about equality myself. Working in a special education classroom in a more affluent area has provoked many questions for me. Is it right that one school receives a grant for $60K while other schools don't? Is it right that the special education students are in a wing away from all of the other students in the school? Are those students getting the same education that other students their age, in the school, are getting?

That doesn't even get into the ideas of homework, after school programs, and physical structural issues. The one thing that is clear to me is that there are schools with more resources than others. Some might argue that those schools have gained some of their resources, the 60K grant for example, through their own hard work. But even the idea of extra resources brings up issues of inequity caused by access and gatekeeping.

It makes me wonder how the playing field can be leveled? How can schools in less affluent areas create similar networks of volunteers and money? How can they be given the access that they are seemingly denied? It also makes me wonder whether those are questions that need to remain latent for me, as a student-teacher, because it is beyond my scope?! Should I not actively worry about those questions, the questions that are systemic in nature, and focus on the change I can affect as a classroom teacher? It is a struggle of wanting to move a mountain but only being able to move a few wheelbarrows of dirt.