Anti-Oppressive Education

The article, "Toward a Theory of Anti-Oppressive Education," reminded me of a group that was formed in my high school known as PATH. PATH was a group that stood for, Promoting Acceptance Toward all Humans. My high school was a suburban school that was predominantly white, middle class students with a small variety of minorities including asian-americans, african-americans, and had a few, as the other calls them, queer, students. This group promoted accepting these minority groups and all the teachers embraced this as a powerful tool to help include and accept these students as humans who should be respected. In other words, they created a supportive space for these students who were often not supported even by their parents. Since I come from a pretty conservative city, the majority of the student body hated PATH and rebelled against it by wearing shirts saying, "Its Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," for example. While the attempt to promote unity between different groups was there, most students stuck to their ways and hated others who were different than they were. It's difficult and while be difficult for me and other future educators to promote respect for others who are different when the dominant group doesn't understand or doesn't want to understant other groups. However, I know that not all students will accept homosexuals, for example, yet they will respect them in the schools and any form of discrimination won't be tolerated.