Asymmetrical Information

Megan, some of us just plain won't register to read a news story. And I wouldn't even follow the link if I knew registration was required.

So I'll never know why the teacher had reason to be embarassed.

You can always lie.

Name: Moe
Gender: Neuter
Year of Birth: 1886
Zip Code: 78666 (it's valid!)

and so on. How are they going to confirm it?

As for the teacher, he/she/it (I didn't read the whole article) assumed that because the student was black, he should've been on one of the busses that take students to the majority black neighborhoods of Boston. Turns out the kid didn't live in that neighborhood. Error was discovered, kid returned safe and sound. No harm done.

It always has to be about racism.

It couldn't possibly have been a simple mistake.

From the article, it's not clear that the teacher has confirmed or denied having directed the student to the buss for the suggested reason.

A lot of kids probably got put on the wrong bus the first day of school. Could it not have been one of many random mistakes that occur with imperfect information and thousands of kids on the first day of school?

If it was the race of the child that led the teacher to assume he was destined for a specific destination, then that's horrible. But just because a black child was guided to the wrong bus and the bus also happened to be going to an area with a higher percentage of African Americans doesn't spell racism on the part of the teacher.

Of course, I'm one who would rather focus on progress in the direction of unity rather than the divisions which remain.

Marie: concisely put. And I assure you I didn't see your post before making my own. :-)

Michael Johnston wrote:

From the article, it's not clear that the teacher has confirmed or denied having directed the student to the bus for the suggested reason.

A lot of kids probably got put on the wrong bus the first day of school. Could it not have been one of many random mistakes that occur with imperfect information and thousands of kids on the first day of school?

But if we try to find a simple and logical explanation for something that probably happens all over the country (new children being put on the wrong bus on the first day of school), then we cannot lament the obvious effects of residual racism.

Frankly I’m surprised that Jane bit on this one and seems to agree with the writer that the teacher was acting out of racial discrimination when the article doesn’t really prove it. Unless she’s read or heard something else on the story that we haven’t.

Oh and BTW, when I register with the WP, I’m always a male born in 1965 in the 20171 zip code. I wonder how many people just fill in the default settings and what affect that has on their tracking. It might be interesting to see what would happen if they varied these settings from week to week to see how many other people just fill in the first thing they see.

I got to see the article without being asked to register, which I would never have done.

I believe that much racial tension would go away if people would simply apply the principle sometimes known as Hanlon's Razor: never attribute to malice (i.e. racism) that which can be explained by stupidity.

The article suggests that the relatively low percentage of Blacks in Boston's suburbs is evidence of racism. They offer a couple of snippets of anecdotal evidence to support this, but it is not always true. Chicago has a large number of Blacks living in the suburbs, but this is not proof of integration. Robbins has been all Black since the '20s and almost none of the suburbs have a racial mixture along each street. Milwaukee has almost no Blacks in the suburbs, but in our experience as whites living on the edge of "da hood", this city is far less racist than Chicago. My wife's coworkers (who call her The Caucasian Lady) concur.

As the parent of a kindergartener taking a schoolbus for the very first time this week, I hope that the teacher is not just embarrassed, but punished and held as an example for the others.

I don't care if the reason was latent racism or merely an error. Putting a 5 year old on the wrong bus is an extremely dangerous act. A five year old on his first day of big-kid school is already very nervous, scared, and vulnerable. It's certainly not the case of 'No harm done' Imagine the kid's confusion and fear, not to mention that of his mother/father waiting at the right bus stop and not seeing him on the bus. We are talking about a young, young kid here, one who likely isn't able to tell a helping adult his address and phone number. We are talking about a child with no ability to distinguish between a kind adult who is trying to help and one with other intentions.

A responsible school will double, triple check that the youngest of children are on the right bus. Yes, it's a big country and several errors like this probably happen each year, but this error is not at all minor.

Marc:

It may be serious, but it's receiving far more press than most murders. If there's evidnece of racial motivations, it should be provided. Otherwise... the story can be condensed to the few paragraphs actually talking about the five year old boy and it's not nearly as sensational.

Also, it's not exactly consistent that you single out the teacher for criticism and later place the responsibility on the school. In the latter case, it's just as much the responsibility of every other teacher present.

You also have to ask: what is your tolerance for error and can you pay for that?

What Marc said. Whether racism or inattention, this was not a small matter. If it hadn't been for a very attentive parent at the other end of the line, god only knows what might've happened to that kid. The teacher, and school, involved deserve extraordinary sanctions for this.

So why wasn't a parent or other responsible adult/older child there with this !!5-YEAR-OLD!! to make sure he got on the correct bus on his very first day of kindergarten?

When my siblings were taking the bus for the firt time, my mother was required to put an index card on their jackets with their name, telephone number and BUS ROUTE NUMBER on it.

Or is that too simple a solution?

Note to self: Carefully read article before commenting. It was the end of the day, not the beginning. Sheesh...sorry!

I lived in Boston's MetroWest for three years, and I've never seen anything but white people in the Newton-Wellesley-Weston corridor-- maybe a hispanic maid or landscaper, but no residents of color. It's simply one of the whitest places in America.

(Insert rant about how the wealthy liberals in Massachusetts pay lip service to diversity while living in lily-white neighborhoods)

While putting the child on the wrong bus is inexcusable, I would bet that at least 1 out of 100 people would make the same mistake.

Is this some kind of 'ink blot' test? Jane never mentioned anything about racism....

No, Lurker, but the article did.

Well, Massachusetts *is* one of the whitest states in the nation. As far as mid- and large-sized states go, Massachusetts and Minnesota are pretty much in a league of our own.

The 2000 Census says that Massachusetts is 5.4% African-American. The proportion in Newton is 2%, which would indicate the effects of high housing prices on diversity more than anything else. The Asian population in Newton is twice the state average at nearly 8%, or 6,500 people. Perhaps Bob considers them "white."

There are, of course, problems with segregation and racism in the state, as with anywhere in else in America.

Anyone interested in crunching data for Massachusetts can visit here:
http://www.boston.com/census/longform/mass/

There was supposed to be a friendly smile after the sentence "Maybe Bob..." but it was read as an open html tag.

hi all,

the thing i liked about the article was that a kind adult helped out a kid in distress. i think we think most often of "what might have happened--horrifically." as a parent myself, i am aware of the fact that i, as an adult, make mistakes all the time, with my kids and others. they may not be quite as eye-brow raising as this teacher's mistake, but i have found that those around me have been willing to help me (momentarily misplaced child in supermarket, etc). the beauty of our world is that (even if there are human predators) most folks are good. i would even hazard to guess that the teacher has a good heart. and that matters. i feel uncomfortable racing to judgement on this teacher. and uncomfortable in the rush of some to "punish."

i would rather rush to congratulate the kind big person who helped a small person in a spot, and the small person who took a chance to speak to answer a stranger...

Don't you get it? Anything bad that happens to a black person is because of racism. If he gets fired, it isn't because he was too lazy to get any work done, it's racism. If DC police chief Moose gets asked to show his room key at the exclusive private beach of a Marriot resort, it's not because security has to check everyone or the beach would be overrun, it's because he's black. And obviously when I got the school bus numbers mixed up and wound up 10 miles south of my home - no, I'm white so that was a simple mistake.

I don't care if the child was bright green and the teacher was purple. The teacher wasn't paying attention, which is part of what we pay teachers for, to CARE for the children in their care. The child could have been dropped off in a strange neighborhood, far from the parents who were waiting for him.

Funny, I thought we paid teachers to teach.

How can you teach them without also caring for them to some extend as well?

The lunch bell rings: "See you kids later. I'm only allowed to teach, can't be taking you back and forth to the lunch because that would be caring for you."

Just saying............

What you're not understanding about this case is that the bus he was put onto was intended for a "we're shipping kids from the inner city to a rich town they live nowhere near to help them out in life"-bus, not merely the wrong section of the same city. It's akin to asking where a certain NYC city bus goes and being directed to a Greyhound bound for Texas because you're wearing cowboy boots. I don't believe racism lurks around every corner, but this was not an "easy" mistake.

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