tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9143742537514581543.post5586659971346762952..comments2024-03-25T13:29:43.845-07:00Comments on A Year's Risings with Mary Oliver: Indonesia - April 11, 2010LoraKim Joynerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07305359695072392847noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9143742537514581543.post-55471392556925634492010-04-11T16:02:59.606-07:002010-04-11T16:02:59.606-07:00I live in an integrated neighborhood. Historicall...I live in an integrated neighborhood. Historically the blacks were grouped on railroad avenue and back from the railroad five or six blocks except at the East end which was farther from town and the railroad station which employed most of them. About thirty years ago a developer built small cement block houses for three streets south of eastern railroad avenue that had not been developed. Blacks who had ambition and worked hard or got college degrees or associate degrees bought these small modern houses. More recently, perhaps ten years ago to the present, builders one by one bought the remaining lots and built houses. These are mostly occupied by whites. Both races hold jobs from UF faculty, life insurance salesman, teachers, nurses, and three police officers. These are not dumb people, but some cannot afford computers. Now this is a technological era. The school teachers have learned and expect their students to produce projects done with research and writing on the computer. Typically the students are given two periods in the computer lab to do this. I, like them, would have only found and viewed two or three sources. Two of those were probably not fitting to the topic after all. The second period that is to be used to write and type it, doesn't leave time for rereading, editing, and all of those things expected For more time the school suggests the public library. Ours has five computers. If ONE teacher with 100 students assigns a three week project and half of them need to use the library.....you get the idea. They are also given the option of coming in a half hour earlier and using the school's computers. The bus doesn't make an extra run. If all teachers in Florida haven't left, we appear to be headed toward a division of the haves and the have nots. This appears to be also a racial division. The whites with access to a computer at home earn A's and B's and the blacks without a computer at home can maybe get a C. <br /><br />My small dent into the problem is that I offer the use of my computer for any school project for whatever amount of time it takes. Four students have taken me up on it, and a new set of six now know and say they will remember that with the next assignment.Sallynoreply@blogger.com