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Abigail Wierenga
Professor Walcott
IDIS 205
December 12, 2012
Final Reflection
For my group project I went to Tall Turf Ministries. Tall Turf is a non-profit
organization that is centered around bringing the gospel to inner city children. They
wanted to give impoverished children a safe haven for spiritual and personal growth.
One of the programs that they first started was a summer camp. They wanted to give
children who would not usually have the opportunity to go away to summer camp the
chance to experience it. Over the years they have developed many different programs
including more summer camps and different organized groups and activities in their
main building. Their main building is a refurbished fire house located off of Madison
between Eastern and Division. There they offer many different programs, including a
homework help program that they offer for high school students. There they help
students with homework, work on standardized test taking skills, and do a Bible study. I
had the opportunity to visit this program with a couple girls from class.
We arrived a little late so when we missed homework help time. When we got
there there were about 20 high schoolers all playing a game, all of them were black.
We were introduced to them by one of the leaders of Tall Turf named Miriam DeJong.
We played with them for a while then we split up into boys and girls groups to do a Bible
study. In the girls Bible study we talked about self image and self worth. An activity that
we did before the lesson involved cutting out pictures from fashion and teen magazines.
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We cut out picture that we thought showed what cultures definition of a perfect woman
was. I was intrigued by what all of these girls though was a perfect woman. Most of the
collages that they made depicted skinny white women who were well dressed, had long
curly blonde hair, beautiful big eyes, full lips, and perfect skin. I wondered why they all
chose white women to be their collages, I didnt know if it was the lack of black women
in the magazines or if they thought that was truly what beautiful looked like. We then
talked about why we all picked the pictures that we did. While one girl was talking she
said that she picked the girl she did because White is beautiful. I was stunned. I
wondered what was wrong with our society if these teenage girls thought that white
was beautiful and black was not.
After we finished the Bible study I started talking with some of the girls. They
were all very pleasant, were dressed nice, and seemed to have fun together. I asked
what schools they went to assuming that they went to public schools from around the
area. I was mistaken, I got answers varying from Grand River Preparatory School to
Grand Rapids Christian High School to Potters House. There were a few students who
went to Grand Rapids Public Schools but not as many as I assumed. Since Tall Turf is
an organization that reaches out to students from impoverished neighborhoods I
incorrectly stereotyped the kids before even getting to know them. As I continued to talk
to them I realized that most of them did not have strong ebonics, as I assumed they
would. The all mostly spoke standard English, although I noticed that when they were
talking in groups to themselves their ebonics came out stronger. As I reflect back on
this I realize that I learned a very important lesson from going there. Not only was the
Bible study that we did a good reminder for me, it opened my eyes to what these girls
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faced in life. Also, as I talked to the kids after Bible study and incorrectly assumed
things about them I realized all the stereotypes that I had coming into this experience.
These kids live in a world of stereotypes that they had to prove untrue. Society expects
kids who live in impoverished neighborhoods to go to poor public schools and to have
strong ebonics. These kids broke the stereotypes that were placed on them by society.
Race is a touchy topic no matter how you look at it. Whenever the topic of race
is brought up people tend to shy away from it. History has not looked fondly upon the
treatment of different races. Even as the racial gap became slimmer and slimmer and
people became more accepting, race was, and still is today, a touchy topic. Although
racial tension is seen everywhere, a place in which it is really clear is at schools.
Schools educate a broad spectrum of children. They educate children of different
ethnicities, races, learning abilities, and cultures. Schools must be structured to reach
all of their students satisfying all of their needs. Although schools are expected to do
so, and many do, there are schools that fail to satisfy all of their students needs. Not all
schools are able to guarantee the success of their children due to the circumstances
that the school may be facing. Some schools arent given the aid or the resources that
they need to be able to reach out to all their children. Schools such as these need help.
Students are being ostracized because of the lack of funds and aid given to the schools.
Students that are being ostracized are not given the opportunities that other students
are.
Another way of ostracizing children can happen within the schools. Other
students and sometimes teachers can ostracize minority students either with or without
knowing it. One of our readings was about black culture and the many influences that it
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has on culture. One of the sections on black culture is about the impact it has on
schooling. Black culture is the culture that is associated with people who are black.
Examples of black culture could be from talking ebonics or dressing like a gangster.
There are students who feel that life in school is not supportive and affirmative. They
shared stories of problematic relationships with teachers who seemed to have low
expectations of them and their classmates (Mantsios 2009). Students in minority
settings are sometimes held up to lesser standards by their teachers and authority
figures around them. This is not fair. Every student should be held up to the same
standard and those standards should not change depending on their economical status
or their race. There are students who felt teachers notice: dress and demeanor.
Through the lens of race and culture, Nina perceived that teachers evaluated students
as deficient based on their own personal standards of cultural decorums, as well as
those of the schools administration (Mantsios 2009). Although this is not fair, it is true
that this sometimes happens. Students are stereotyped by what they wear, how they
talk, and what their attitude is. This is not a fair way of evaluating students. It gives
them perceptions that they are not good enough or that they are not capable of
achieving things that their non-minority peers are able to. This not only gives them
perceptions that they are not good enough, it makes them believe it. When minority
students are battered and bruised emotionally and are then susceptible to further
emotional damage. Emotional damage and tear down like this at such a young age will
affect these students negatively later in life.
This project really opened my eyes to the injustice around me. It helped me to
realize the own stereotypes that I had. As a prospective teacher I realize that I should
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not hold stereotypes agains people. We talked a lot about social theory in this class
which you defined as, use of abstract and sometimes complex frameworks to describe,
explain, and analyze the social world. Through the class discussions and now writing
this paper I have developed my own theory, a theory of schooling. My theory of
schooling involves structure by students, teachers, and administrators. These three
elements help form the structure. Also in the structure should be intertwined with
discipline, academic growth, and overall a strong administration team. These all will
work together to create a school that will be effective in educating its students and
functioning as a whole. A good school should be able to reach all of its students no
matter what their needs. No child should feel ostracized or feel that they are less
important. If this happens the school administration must get together to address this
problem. Once this happens it is imperative that the school put this change into action
to make all of the students education equal and fair. As a prospective special
education teacher this is especially important to me. I never want my students to feel
different because of their disabilities. I want to see the school that I work in have this
structure so that my students will always feel welcomed into the school community.
Through this final project I was better able to see how easily people can get
stereotyped into groups. I myself fell victim to this as I hung around with the kids at Tall
Turf. This was neither fair of me or right. I myself was the person that other people talk
about, the stereotyper. I put these students into the bubble that society told them that
they should be in. Now that I realize my wrong, I will work harder to make it right. I
want to treat everyone as equal. Just as God intended.

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Works Cited
Mantsios, G. (2010). Class in America--2009. In P.S. Rothenberg (Ed.), Race, class,
and gender in the United States: An intergrated study (Eighth ed., pp. 177-192).
New York: Worth Publishers.