Slice of Pisces
Rookie
- Oct 4, 2014
- 30
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(I misspelled dilemma in the title of the post... oh, well) Having given an initial post on empathic listening/reading, and a second post that explains a bit of why I think as I do, I would now like to express my current circumstances and dilemma of spirit. Perhaps some positive advice could be gleaned from the opinionated and helpful group of people on this forum.
I am a psychology student in graduate school at a HBCU (Historically black college/university). A number of the students in my classes are bright and promising counselors-in-training. At the same time, there are a number who have a great difficulty in even writing a paragraph, much less an actual paper. There used to be a GRE (Graduate Record Examination) requirement to be accepted; however, that was done away with, and the only requirement aside from 2 recommendation letters, is a GPA of 2.0 (C average) in undergraduate studies.This generates a lot more money for the university from financial aid allotment, but greatly lowers the overall classroom level of thought. There are positives to both sides. I just wish that the students on average were better educated in general.
For a number of my classes, students have been passed along regardless of their actual test scores, perhaps for their entire lives. A 'B' average (an '80') is required for passing each course in graduate school, and many of the test scores students have shown me range from the low 40's to the upper 60's. One of the theories that may influence the lack of applicability of their true scores, which is sociologically supported, is that tests are often culturally-biased; however, most of these tests are written by the black professors teaching the classes. In one class I scored a 97 on my final exam, and saw a 68 and a 54 on the score sheets of the two students closest to me. Somehow, I received a 'B' for the class and so did they. I don't know how that math worked out, but it certainly doesn’t seem to have been a fair evaluation.
Just the other evening, the students around me were actually passing around notes to one another during our midterm, which was disallowed and is tantamount to cheating, but the teacher did not notice, and it's not a healthy idea to 'whistle-blow' or 'snitch' in such a situation. The social atmosphere is already heavily biased against me since the philosophy of the campus is (perhaps understandably, if one watches the news or talks to any of their African-American brothers or sisters about their life experiences) very anti-white, especially anti-male, anti-white. Please remain aware that I am not being hateful towards those who hold prejudice or begrudge me for my ethnicity and gender. In fact, I understand why one would hold such opinions, but they are based on prejudice and not on who I actually am, and thus perpetuate prejudiced thought and behavior. It's almost as if it would be unhealthy for a student attending the university to NOT hold such an opinion, at least in view of other students - it is the overarching philosophy of the campus, often even shared by the professors. The fact that the school is labeled a HBCU is in itself a testament to the unfair and prejudiced history of the United States. I do not live on campus, but at my own home within the larger city, and for that I am glad, although if I was more involved in the campus living, such prejudice might also be alleviated. There is no way to know at this point.
In my first class at the university, “Counseling Diverse Populations,” for one of the class periods, the professor showed us a sociological experiment on prejudice performed by a white teacher on her white students from the 50s in which only blue-eyed students were able to participate in recess, got to go to the front of the lunch-line, etc. The next day in the experiment, the situation was reversed and only brown-eyed students gained these benefits. It is a good film and experiment and I’m glad our professor showed it to us; however, she assigned the black students in our class to subtly observe the white students and their reaction to the film. I seem to have been the only one to have picked up on this out of the 5 white students in the class. Encouraging and accentuating prejudice and discrimination is a bad idea in my opinion, but she made different assignments for different students in that case based on race, which is ultimately unethical. Many, many things throughout history have been unethical, but it does not justify being unethical oneself by referencing a past example. To me such behavior is vengeful and is destructive to positive evolution of race relations. The professor is career military and herself came of age in the 1960s in Mississippi, and so such a ‘fight fire with fire’ philosophy befits her approach. It seems that Martin Luther King’s approach towards a positive direction regarding race relations may have died to many African-Americans shortly after he did. He said, “Hate cannot drive out hate – only love can do that.” Could it be that like many other things, MLK’s philosophy has been rejected by so many African-Americans because it has become so accepted by so many white people?
Once again, I am being a bit long-winded, and am using this forum as a way to air out my spiritual dirty-laundry, also referred to as ‘unfinished business.’ I know the possibility for negative responses is very likely, but I’m taking the chance that one or more responses may help me to understand more fully how to assimilate and overcome the negatives of spirit that are often presented to me in my daily experiences, most often at my HBCU graduate school, and move past such thought processes to once again maintain a higher level vibration within my spiritual self so that I may also continue to raise the vibrational level of those around me and with whom I interact.
I am a psychology student in graduate school at a HBCU (Historically black college/university). A number of the students in my classes are bright and promising counselors-in-training. At the same time, there are a number who have a great difficulty in even writing a paragraph, much less an actual paper. There used to be a GRE (Graduate Record Examination) requirement to be accepted; however, that was done away with, and the only requirement aside from 2 recommendation letters, is a GPA of 2.0 (C average) in undergraduate studies.This generates a lot more money for the university from financial aid allotment, but greatly lowers the overall classroom level of thought. There are positives to both sides. I just wish that the students on average were better educated in general.
For a number of my classes, students have been passed along regardless of their actual test scores, perhaps for their entire lives. A 'B' average (an '80') is required for passing each course in graduate school, and many of the test scores students have shown me range from the low 40's to the upper 60's. One of the theories that may influence the lack of applicability of their true scores, which is sociologically supported, is that tests are often culturally-biased; however, most of these tests are written by the black professors teaching the classes. In one class I scored a 97 on my final exam, and saw a 68 and a 54 on the score sheets of the two students closest to me. Somehow, I received a 'B' for the class and so did they. I don't know how that math worked out, but it certainly doesn’t seem to have been a fair evaluation.
Just the other evening, the students around me were actually passing around notes to one another during our midterm, which was disallowed and is tantamount to cheating, but the teacher did not notice, and it's not a healthy idea to 'whistle-blow' or 'snitch' in such a situation. The social atmosphere is already heavily biased against me since the philosophy of the campus is (perhaps understandably, if one watches the news or talks to any of their African-American brothers or sisters about their life experiences) very anti-white, especially anti-male, anti-white. Please remain aware that I am not being hateful towards those who hold prejudice or begrudge me for my ethnicity and gender. In fact, I understand why one would hold such opinions, but they are based on prejudice and not on who I actually am, and thus perpetuate prejudiced thought and behavior. It's almost as if it would be unhealthy for a student attending the university to NOT hold such an opinion, at least in view of other students - it is the overarching philosophy of the campus, often even shared by the professors. The fact that the school is labeled a HBCU is in itself a testament to the unfair and prejudiced history of the United States. I do not live on campus, but at my own home within the larger city, and for that I am glad, although if I was more involved in the campus living, such prejudice might also be alleviated. There is no way to know at this point.
In my first class at the university, “Counseling Diverse Populations,” for one of the class periods, the professor showed us a sociological experiment on prejudice performed by a white teacher on her white students from the 50s in which only blue-eyed students were able to participate in recess, got to go to the front of the lunch-line, etc. The next day in the experiment, the situation was reversed and only brown-eyed students gained these benefits. It is a good film and experiment and I’m glad our professor showed it to us; however, she assigned the black students in our class to subtly observe the white students and their reaction to the film. I seem to have been the only one to have picked up on this out of the 5 white students in the class. Encouraging and accentuating prejudice and discrimination is a bad idea in my opinion, but she made different assignments for different students in that case based on race, which is ultimately unethical. Many, many things throughout history have been unethical, but it does not justify being unethical oneself by referencing a past example. To me such behavior is vengeful and is destructive to positive evolution of race relations. The professor is career military and herself came of age in the 1960s in Mississippi, and so such a ‘fight fire with fire’ philosophy befits her approach. It seems that Martin Luther King’s approach towards a positive direction regarding race relations may have died to many African-Americans shortly after he did. He said, “Hate cannot drive out hate – only love can do that.” Could it be that like many other things, MLK’s philosophy has been rejected by so many African-Americans because it has become so accepted by so many white people?
Once again, I am being a bit long-winded, and am using this forum as a way to air out my spiritual dirty-laundry, also referred to as ‘unfinished business.’ I know the possibility for negative responses is very likely, but I’m taking the chance that one or more responses may help me to understand more fully how to assimilate and overcome the negatives of spirit that are often presented to me in my daily experiences, most often at my HBCU graduate school, and move past such thought processes to once again maintain a higher level vibration within my spiritual self so that I may also continue to raise the vibrational level of those around me and with whom I interact.
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