1. The importance of going to college.
[Derek Black] decided he wanted to study medieval European history, so he applied to New College of Florida, a top-ranked liberal arts school with a strong history program.
2. The importance of simple, unafraid compassion.
Matthew decided his best chance to affect Derek’s thinking was not to ignore him or confront him, but simply to include him.
October 25th, 2016 at 6:54PM
I agree. But I think that a third important factor was the remark that the young Derek, despite his racist beliefs, liked most people that he met, regardless of who they were.
October 25th, 2016 at 7:12PM
I think that point two is exactly right as generalized.
Point one can be generalized more as the importance of people spending time with those different from themselves in settings as conducive as possible to developing an understanding of the world around them, including an understanding each other. My experiences in public primary and secondary schools and in the Army are examples of such settings. Brown v. Board did a great deal along these lines. Home schooling and, in some cases homogeneous schools, trouble me as stunting a child in ways for which severe sensory deprivation might be a metaphor. And, of course, higher education allows knowledge of others and their contexts to deepen. The great difficulty is reconciling society’s interest in this sort of socialization, education and development with parents rights and interests, understood sensitively, and with those of the child as s/he develops into a person with autonomous interests and perspectives.