The Stepping Stool
Three kids stand watching a baseball game. They each are perched upon a stepping stool that is a foot high. One of the children–Jacob– is five foot six. He’s recently hit puberty and practically an adult. He can view the game just fine without the stool but stands on it anyway so he can tower over his dad.
Another one of the kids– Brandon– is four foot seven and still hasn’t had his growth spurt. With the step stool, he can peer over just enough to view the batter standing up to the home plate.
The last child– Adisa– is three and a half feet tall and much younger. Even with the stool, even with his tippy toes, even by straining his neck– he cannot watch the game.
Three kids attend elementary school in America. They are each given a stepping stool: The American Dream– the weak promise of an equal, integrated public education.
Jacob’s parents moved into Carroll Gardens before he was born. Both of his parents grew up in a prominent neighborhood in Boston and met in their major of engineering at Columbia University. They were able to get a good deal on a dainty Italian-owned brownstone and slowly their life began to fall into place. When Jacob was born, his mother was given four years off of work to take care of him.
She shopped at the organic shop poised at the corner of their block and Jacob grew up eating farm fresh foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When Jacob started kindergarten, his parents found out that his zoned school was fantastic. It was a ten minute walk from their house. They provided organic school lunches so Jacob would barely miss his mother’s cooking. All the kids had their own cubbies and there was an excellent PTA. Jacob’s mother quickly got involved and their family donated a few thousand dollars annually. Over ¾ of Jacob’s elementary school was white.
When Jacob entered middle school, he realized he was an exemplary student. He was never scared to raise his hand and ask for the teacher’s help, and he was able to finish his work quicker than the other students. Even the girls in Jacob’s seventh grade class started to take notice of him, and Jacob’s confidence boosted– winning soccer matches on Saturdays, acing his multiplication quizzes in class, and hanging out with the cool blonde boys after school.
When it was time for Jacob to enter high school, he knew it was a no-brainer that he’d apply to specialized high schools. He was a good test taker, after all, that’s what his teachers had always told him, and he knew that he was intelligent. His parents supported him by saying they had savings in store for private school if he decided he’d rather attend a private or Catholic school instead. Surrounded by options, Jacob was supported throughout the entire process, guided by an incredible school counselor, his friends, and his parents.
Brandon’s story was a little different. Brandon’s parents both graduated from state schools and met through mutual friends, moving into a three bedroom apartment in Sunset Park. His parents both held office jobs and had two other sons before Brandon, so Brandon and his older brother shared a room. He attended his neighborhood elementary school that was over ¾ Latinx. The school lunches were alright and Brandon made plenty of friends.
His parents always came to parent teacher conferences, but a lot of the parents didn’t. The teachers continually said that Brandon was a good kid, but he needed a little help with his writing. His teachers recommended that Brandon write for thirty extra minutes per night to help him get up to speed with his peers, and his parents agreed– but they always got home too late from their jobs to remind him to write.Brandon continued on in school, always goofing off in class and getting fine, but not great grades. In History he’d always zone out because they talked about the same boring white dudes every day. Brandon would turn to his friend Anthony and whisper;
“When are we going to give these Gringos a rest?”
When it was time for him to apply to high school, his counselor tried to help him, but their sessions were only fifteen minutes long because she had too many students to work with. Brandon’s mother would try to go online to look at the application deadlines, but his brothers would always be fighting over the computer and trying to get their college applications done.
Brandon figured that he couldn’t apply to specialized schools because he wasn’t a very good test taker– he always had trouble focusing. He didn’t have any specific talents and his parents couldn’t afford private or Catholic school. Brandon ended up at a decent public option in Manhattan where the commute was long and he was almost always late to school.
Adisa grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn with his single mother and his four siblings. His mother was hardworking and loving, cooking the kids breakfast every morning and making sure they all got to school safely– the public school that was closest to them. The public school in their neighborhood was five minutes away and 90% black and Latinx. Security guards lined the entrance of the school, sternly greeting the kids in the morning and chastising them if they so much forgot to wipe their shoes on the mat if it was a rainy day. Adisa would sometimes complain to his mom, why do they have to always be so strict? His mom would tell him to be grateful for school, because school is how you learn.
All the kids started to learn how to read in first grade, but somehow, Adisa never truly figured out how to sound out the words. The teacher would try to come around and check in with each kid, but there were thirty-five kids in the classroom and she had no way to help each of them. Sometimes, overwhelmed by the amount of children in the room, the teacher would raise her voice and yell at the kids to act civilized and shut their mouths. Adisa would sometimes start to cry– he didn’t like it when people yelled. He wasn’t doing anything wrong.
Adisa would do badly on his third grade state tests because he didn’t know how to read. He’d sometimes get frustrated and test himself on the awnings surrounding him within his neighborhood, stuttering over each letter:
“P-a-p-a-y-a K-i-n-g.”
“D-i-a-m-o-n-d B-e-a-u-t-y S-u-p-p-l-y.”
As Adisa grew older, he taught himself more and more how to sound out the words, but he was always behind the other kids in his class. He felt like he was understanding only half of a language.
Of course, his teachers would continue to yell, somehow mistaking his confusion as misbehavior. Instead of leaning down to his level and helping him sound out the words, they’d chastise him for having his hoodie on. When it was time to apply to high school, Adisa was lost. He’d been brainwashed by the world that he wasn’t a smart kid and wasn’t sure where to begin. His mom tried to support him the best she could, but with long hours of work and four other kids, she could only give him a bit of her time.
You could say that Jacob, Brandon, and Adisa were all given the same thing. They were all given the stepping stool– the American dream of equality. The NYC preferences of public school.
We live in a world where a presidential candidate who guarantees education for all is considered radical.
We live in an age where people argue that as long as everyone has access, there are no issues.
We live in a world where people deny the impact which race has in every one of our institutions.
We live in a world where we assume the Jim Crow-era is centuries in the past.
This essay is dedicated to the kids who felt like they never got it. To the kids who were the troublemakers, were always told to focus and be civilized and take off their hats and hoodies. To the kids who were never allowed to use the bathroom, even though the rest of the girls in the class were allowed to leave in hoards. To the kids who sat at the back of the class, struggling to blend in yet terrified to stand out. To the kids who couldn’t understand the teacher because they spoke too fast, to the kids who didn’t have computers, to the kids that missed too many classes because the home was more stressful than anyone at school could fathom to imagine. To the kids who stumbled as they read in third grade, managing to slip through the cracks and be cast off as troublemakers. To the kids who never learned about their family’s history or how the government worked and resigned themselves to believing that maybe they just weren’t a part of it all. To the kids who hyperventilated in class, to the kids who lost parents, to the kids who never learned it was okay to cry and instead deflected to yelling.
It is not your fault that you learned to hate school.
It is not your fault that you couldn’t succeed there.
‘Cause what the government doesn't understand is: stepping stools don’t do shit if we ain’t the same height.