Teaching Survivors

It seems quite wonderful that we whites are now digesting the notion of white privilege. It’s very subtle. Next, can we look at ‘intellectual privilege’? 

Can we look at a grading system in schools that brands the slower learners as ‘D-students’, making them want to contend physically for that which they can’t yet do mentally, and to bully their way through life? Can we look at competition in schools that allows the weakest to feel ashamed? 

We are told that this models the world, that we will need to compete with our peers to survive, but survival in the world today requires the ability to cooperate and adapt to other peoples’ needs to create fertile spaces where we all can be nurtured.