{"id":6809,"date":"2024-04-11T12:24:16","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T17:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/?p=6809"},"modified":"2024-05-31T09:49:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-31T14:49:07","slug":"culture-shock-at-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/culture-shock-at-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture Shock at Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tara Eagan \u201916’s seventh-grade human biology class at Harlem Academy. Image courtesy of Ms. Carpenter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am not worthy.\u201d A simple statement that carries enormous complexity and encapsulates the experiences of Tara Eagan \u201916 at Grace.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s safe to say that for all incoming high school students, the months leading up to September are filled with a mix of dread and excitement. Even the most social of the cohort struggle with the idea of adjusting to a completely new environment. However, the transition to Grace, a predominantly white institution (a PWI), can be particularly jarring for students coming from middle schools where the majority of their peers are people of color. Tara was the first student from Harlem Academy, one such school, to matriculate to Grace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Tara\u2019s former dean, MiChelle Carpenter recalled, \u201cit was immediately apparent, not just to me, but to all of her teachers, that she was having a very difficult time on a day to day basis just being here.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Carpenter, now the school\u2019s Director of Operations, noted that \u201cHarlem Academy is very rigorous, so it wasn’t that she couldn’t keep up.\u201d Indeed, in an interview with Tara, she characterized her struggles at Grace as \u201cmore of a battle within myself, rather than what I could do academically.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather, Tara was experiencing culture shock following her induction into a predominantly white and wealthy environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Zamira F. \u201924 noted in her Gazette <\/em>article, \u201cThe Hidden Class Divide at Grace: Awareness and Responsibility\u201d: many Grace students \u201cmaintain a nonchalant attitude towards monetary based privileges.\u201d  Indeed, on any given day, Grace students can be found wearing jackets studded with Canada Goose logos and $500 AirPods Maxes or talking of summers in the Hamptons or vacations abroad. These material displays of wealth were one of the most isolating facets of Grace for Tara, making her feel like she \u201cwas not supposed to be there\u201d and that \u201cthese people were innately better than me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview, Tara touched on the wealth gap between her and her peers, describing seeing her peers \u201cleave school saying \u2018we’re going to a Soul Cycle class\u2019 and \u2018let’s go to dinner\u2019\u201d while she \u201cwas like, well my mom gave me 10 bucks for the day.\u201d There were also non-wealth related privileges that Tara struggled with, such as her peers having two parents in their homes, multiple homes, and disposable income. Although Tara\u2019s peers were friendly and well-meaning, they led lives that felt inextricably distant from Tara\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Racial composition was another factor that distinguished Grace from Harlem Academy. As Ms. Carpenter described, when students are surrounded by people who look like them and share similar experiences, they feel a sense of \u201ccultural affirmation.\u201d Grace\u2019s student body primarily consists of white students and thus, subjected Tara to a dramatic shift from the community at Harlem Academy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dante, a current eighth grader at George Jackson Academy, expressed similar fears about finding these pockets of cultural affirmation at a future PWI. In an interview with Gazette<\/em> staff writer Alejandro I. \u201925, Dante stated, \u201cI just hope I find people who share my experiences. If not, I’m scared I may be alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of an effort to reduce the culture shock that Grace imposes on incoming students, Grace has formed a close partnership with Harlem Academy. Every year, Ms. Carpenter, along with Grace students who formerly attended Harlem Academy, visits the academy to answer seventh and eighth graders\u2019 questions. Their questions range from concerns over racism like: \u201cAm I going to be called the n-word?\u201d to others about their abilities like: \u201cHow will I know that my teachers know that I’m smart?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Ms. Carpenter, the goal of these meetings is to ensure that they form \u201cexpectations that are in alignment with reality\u201d or, in other words, to reduce the shock that often accompanies a transition to a PWI. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of that effort, Grace also invites students from Harlem Academy and George Jackson Academy, another school that primarily consists of students of color, to the annual MLK Symposium. Spending the day at Grace, mingling with students, and eating lunch in the cafeteria, is supposed to provide prospective students with a preview of their potential futures at Grace and to mitigate some of their culture shock.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a current teacher at Harlem Academy, Tara shared that she encourages her students to \u201cbe who they are, regardless of what room they stand in, because people are going to love them no matter what.\u201d She also likes to \u201clet them know that these grades and these things do not define me because I think that, a lot of times, academics is painted as the only thing that matters, and I get that, but who you are matters, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s impossible to completely eliminate the disorienting, oftentimes traumatic effects of plunging headfirst into Grace\u2019s predominantly white, wealthy environment. As Tara\u2019s experiences demonstrate, the transition to Grace can be riddled with self-doubt and questions of belonging. That being said, it\u2019s clear that Grace is making strides toward preparing students from schools like Harlem Academy and George Jackson Academy for life at Grace. However, it\u2019s still largely up to Grace students to remain conscious of their language surrounding money and to maintain socio-economic awareness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Miranda Chao Hwang \u201824 is a Senior Columnist for<\/em> The Gazette.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tara Eagan \u201916’s seventh-grade human biology class at Harlem Academy. Image courtesy of Ms. Carpenter \u201cI am not worthy.\u201d A simple statement that carries enormous complexity and encapsulates the experiences… Continue reading “Culture Shock at Grace”<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":6810,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,200,7],"tags":[180],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-6809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-recent","category-school","tag-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-1LP","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_2797-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6811,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6809\/revisions\/6811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6809"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=6809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}