tennis

Reflection 11-31-05
I feel very fortunate to have grown up in the home that I have. I am upper middle class, white, male, making me the most privileged in the education system. Most changes in my life based on class and geography, race, or gender would have had a negative impact on my quality of education and self esteem. I attempt to guess what my life would be like if these were to change, but because of the area in which I grew up I find it difficult to see myself in such situations because of the few examples around me to compare with my life.
First I thought of how my life would be different if I were in a different class. If I were in a lower class my education would have suffered because my parents moved me from a very bad public school system to a private school second grade. Had my parents not had the means to move me into a private school, I am sure that my education would have suffered. Before fourth grade I moved to Kansas and was placed in the nationally recognized upper middle class Shawnee Mission school district. I received an excellent education from this school system despite my constant complaining about inadequate teachers. Being higher class probably would not have made an impact either way on my education because I had such a good education to begin with. I wonder how my self esteem would have been affected if I were in a different social class. My guess would be that because my education would have suffered that my self esteem would have been diminished as well.
I think the geography of where I grew up had a much larger impact on my education and self esteem than my class. I can see that I benefited from the move from Pennsylvania to Kansas. My home in PA had several kids that eventually ended up turning down the wrong path of life and got themselves in a lot of trouble. The surrounding forest and railroad tracks made for a perfect place to get into trouble. If kids are given the perfect opportunity to misbehave, they are much more likely to do so. It is because of this that I am very happy that my family moved away from the tempting situation.
It is very difficult for me to examine the effects of race on my life because there was a very small number of minorities through my education. I had a couple of close friends that were African American and a couple that were Hispanic. I didn’t notice any discrimination in education based upon race with these friends of mine. They seemed to be on par with everyone else in my classes. Unless there was a language barrier I do not believe that there is much of a difference in education in the schools that I attended. My self esteem may have suffered because there was some teasing, just as there was between all of my friends, but since it was about race it may have had a larger impact on me than the average joking. If all other things were equal, I do not think that being a different race would have had much of an impact on my self esteem or my education.
Gender may have had a large impact on my education and self esteem. There were so many highly intelligent girls in my classes that I don’t think there would be much difference in my education if I were female. A difference may have been due to self esteem. A result of that may have caused girls to work much harder than boys throughout their education to give themselves more confidence. Because of this extra effort they would consistently perform better in classes. With the extra effort I may have gotten better grades and been placed in higher classes and therefore received a better education. On the other hand I saw plenty of girls fall to pieces because of their lack of self esteem. Their