Now What?

As this class comes to an end, I find myself asking what now? What should we do with all the data that we gathered and the discussions that we had? Do we just forget about it and move on with our lives? Do we just bury this knowledge while we focus on our classes next semester and let it slowly escape our minds? I don’t speak for everyone but I do know what I am going to do with it.

It all starts with the now. I go to Colby freakin’ College. A college where I am still a minority but I have a louder voice. In class I can voice my thoughts and experiences to more and more people. I show people who come from elite backgrounds, or different backgrounds in general, what life in someone else’s shoes is like, to a certain point. I am making a change here by telling people about my schooling experience at KIPP: Austin Collegiate while they went to Catholic schools, boarding schools, private schools, etc. I am using my resources in order to bring about a change. When I am out in society people choose to engage in conversation with me or not but in class we all choose to be in these conversations. Now is the time to voice my opinions, which would be silenced elsewhere.

The student that we interviewed, Alejandro, said that he didn’t realize that he was privileged until he was 10 and noticed that he had maids working for him. He said that he was aware of his socio economic status. Not once did he say that he thought that good teachers should be available to all students rich or poor. Nor did he mention the students who are protesting for tuition free colleges and universities in Chile. He acknowledged that he was part of the elite but at the same time he didn’t. As part of acknowledging where you are is to see how other people live. You have to acknowledged that there are people struggling to provide food for their kids because they can’t get good jobs as they didn’t have the money to go to college. Their parents, too,  lacked an education because they needed to work to make money for their family.  All of this happened because we live in a society that simply reproduces socio economic status! We can’t just acknowledge that there’s an issue and then proceed to walk away from it. At this point you must be asking yourself, “well what are you going to do about it”?   

“I come from an underprivileged background”,  that is what I used to say but that has changed in a way. I am attending a PRIVATE liberal arts college. I have some layer of privilege now. I have a title that means something to people. I may not have a masters or a doctorate but I do have my foot in the door now. Before, that door was shut and had a padlocked on it but now I have my foot in the door. I plan to go back to my underprivileged neighborhood and helping the kids out there. I don’t know if I will be a teacher, a counselor, a principal, a layer, or open the next KIPP school but what I do know is that I will make a change in my neighborhood. I will be a positive role model for all these underprivileged kids. I will show them, and coach them, in any way I can that no matter what society says about us or where we come from we can make it out.

The research that we have done as a class will reach out to hundreds, if not thousands of people. All these blogs will reach eyes that are millions of miles away from us. So I ask you, the person that is reading this blog and the research on this website, what now? What are you going to do about this?