I attend a highly rated public charter school that provides a terrific educational experience. My friends and school staff are from almost over a dozen different countries including Korea, Venezuela, Ghana, China, the Philippines, Japan, Russia and some other European Countries. I always liked the way we talk and share about our culture and traditions to know one another personally.
Everyday, I go to the school and learn with fun and I guess it is the same for my friends too. We are all hardworking students and lucky to have skilled teachers from all over the world. This small school of four hundred people shows how the world is capable of getting along, despite our differences which, I think, is a great richness. Every teacher knows the name of every student and we all respect each other’s innumerably different ways of life.
I am very proud that my school has had one of the highest standardized scores throughout the entire state. We won several awards for competitions such as Math Counts, Lego League, and the FIRST Tech Robotics competitions, Science Project Competitions, AMC 8, and AMC 10 e.t.c.
My school conquers everything from small disciplinary issues, to disaster relief fundraisers, to championships at nationwide competitions, and even unreasonable accusations by the local media. Recently, a few blogs that are using other blogs as their sources, had published stories that must be brought to them by unknown sources, accusing of hateful purposes. It is a home away from home for me and I was heartbroken when someone tried to spoil my school’s image based on their media-fueled fear. According to them, my school is a part of a group that they brand as Gulen charter schools.
Actions speak louder than words, louder than the words we use as classifications. My teachers are professional individuals who teach math and science and language arts to me and my peers, so that we can go off to good colleges, get degrees, and follow our American dreams.
Why do people keep judging people based on their color or creed? After all this country has been through, why to characterize people based on their race and religion? I’d also appreciate if someone could explain the logic (if any) behind this hateful approach. Why do we find it so hard to accept that NOT everyone is the same as us?
It is true, there are bad people in the world today, however they are not called the poor, immigrants, the homeless etc., but criminals, outlaws and so on. Some people may have improper actions, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who comes from the same background are similar to them. For instance, I, an American and a Christian, would never do what Timothy McVeigh did.
I remember learning about American melting pot, a great cultural mixture including a little bit of everyone from around the world. In a sense, there is no one, other than Native American, who is one hundred percent American. Even the families descended from the first settlers in the original colonies came from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Spain. In this country, almost everyone has ancestors from somewhere else. This is our common ground. It gives us something to talk about. People love to talk about where they’re from. Everyone has stories to tell about where they or their family comes from. Those stories bring us together. Sharing our origins is a great way of enrichment in our communities. Our differences are what make us unique and interesting. Honestly, our backgrounds make us who we are, they are what make us American.
Why would we want those differences to tear us apart? We should be accepting of other cultures. We should embrace them into our lives and learn the best things they have to teach us. However, we sometimes choose to look at others, as if they were very different from us -as merely media labels- and thus as dangerous and immoral. We let fear keep potential friends at a distance. I know that I don’t want to live in this fear. I want to be considered as a potential friend to the people I meet.
Despite the differences we have, people are people and should be treated accordingly. Everything else is commentary.
