Notes from the Flatlands...

On Thursday night, our girls hockey team defeated our arch rivals, The Blake School, 5-1.  This victory came as a complete surprise as the Blake hockey team was filled with older, talented players.  But, this is why they play the game - it turned out our goalie was stopping everything and in the second period we scored three goals to take a commanding lead.  Our girls weathered the third period blitzkrieg from Blake and we even added another goal, just for good measure.

In the five or six years that I have been following girls hockey - this kind of win has never happened against Blake.  They are scrappy and they never give up.  Their coach gives me a rash (He has yelled out to his girls, "Get her she is slow".  I dislike yelling at high school kids.)

I am very happy with our girls, but I am also a bit taken aback my the depth of my own hostility toward our fellow independent school.

I am taking a class on the "Teaching of Writing" from Professor Tim Lensmire, who is one of the best educators I have ever seen.  In this class we spend a fair amount of time discussing race.  Currently we are reading a book by the author Thandeka called, Learning to be White.  One of the central tenets of this book is that as white people we have spent a lot of time keeping keep poorer white people in check.  There is the hierarchy of whiteness and that developed in the early 1800's and even more once large numbers of Europeans emigrated here.  Europeans who wanted to be considered successful where encouraged to lose their ethnicity.  

These days I see a Blake school bus with, "The Blake School" written on the side of it, I think of Thandeka.  The use of the article "The" before the school gives me the impression that Blake prides itself on being an "old money" school - the kind of place that might easily make me feel that I don't measure up.  I am not quite white enough for Blake.

Food for thought.

And, oh by the way, God Bless you girls.