Diversity In We Real Cool By Gwendolyn Brooks

"We Real Cool" is a short, yet powerful poem by Gwendolyn Brooks that sends a life learning message to its reader. The message Brooks is trying to send is that dropping out of school and roaming the streets is in fact not "cool" but in actuality a dead end street.

Diversity does not simply refer to race or even culture; it’s everywhere. We are all diverse, meaning we are all different from one another. The book The Other Wes Moore we see two kids with the same name, but very different lives that they live. Wes and Wes are similar in ways, but in the end turn out nothing like each other. One chose to lead his life in a better path, while the other sticks with a path that ultimately destructs his life. In this paper, I will discuss what diversity means to me, messages that I learned about various minorities or majorities when I was a child, if my views have changed, when diversity influenced my life, and the situation when it influenced me. Some other things that I will discuss also are the main characters of the book, examples of diversity involving the main characters, and which character I related with the most in this book.

INTRO: Prompt: What should “diversity on campus” mean and why? Hook: Does diversity help liberate narrow-mindedness? What exactly is diversity? To say that diversity is approached on school campuses is an understatement to the level of understanding in this increasingly globalized world. By its definition, “diversity” requires inclusion. Are school’s really working toward the inclusion of everyone? This means including color, national origin, socio-economic status, and sexual orientation. Looking at court cases and polls shown in the short articles, “Introduction from Place, Not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity in America” and “The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality,” their approach to strengthening

The poem 'We Real Cool' by Gwendolyn Brooks is a stream of the thoughts of poor inner city African-Americans who have adopted a hoodlum lifestyle. Though many can have different interpretations of this poem, it is fair to look at the life and career or the works and influences of Gwendolyn Brooks.

The United States is a diverse country, racially and ethnically. Six races are officially recognized: White, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and people of two or more races; a race

Diversity is valued at Washburn University for the simple fact that it encourages a thriving intellectual environment. This opens the space for an abundance of new and innovative thoughts. The most important line in the diversity statement is the listing of all the different ways a person can be different and unique. All these differences bring in fresh ideas and various points of view allowing us ourselves to become more cultured. Scholars must have and support diversity simply for the need to keep an open mind. If you can’t accept the differences of those who surround you how can you hope to learn anything worthwhile?

The Diversity Committee has been actively working to bring a track of sessions to the upcoming PACRAO Conference that promises to focus on the most prevalent diversity issues of our times. As part of this track, we will be offering a book club session that we believe will encourage interaction and thoughtful discussion on stereotypes and how they affect all of us – including how they affect our students while they are attending our institutions.

The most memorable time when I was impacted educationally by diversity would be my freshman year in High School. I had gone to a private Christian school from Kindergarten through 8th grade. My mom thought that it would be a great idea to send me to public school for my freshman year. Mind you, I lived in Dallas, TX at the time and public school is quite different than private school there. I was not only the minority in school, but I was one of five Caucasian kids in the entire school. I was made fun of for being white, coming from private school, and for being smart. Just like the article, Helping Diverse Learners Succeed, I had to learn about my new environment. I didn’t understand why the kids were mean to me and why

As a member of several clubs and organizations, I have always valued the wide range of people you can find within the walls of my high school. If you walk into my Physics lab, you will find me collaborating with a dancer strongly involved in his cultural heritage and a volleyball player in the engineering academy. If you come to my Calculus class, you will see me calculating derivatives with a football player, a snowboarder, a National Honor Society officer, and a painter. The word “diversity” is often used to describe a cross-cultural population, but it is so much more than that. At Bartlett High School, students originate from hundreds of different cultures, with an abundance interests, and participate together in an assortment of activities.

A writer named Jacqueline Woodson once said that; “Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.” This means that diversity is all about differences, because no two people are exactly the same. This includes, races, ethnicities, gender, religions, beliefs, favorites, opinions, style, learning style and anything else that makes someone who they are as a person. This definition of diversity coincides almost identically with inclusive ideas in regards to disabilities. The question I have, however, is whether or not Inclusive Theories can be used when there are no children with disabilities present in the classroom. In an attempt to come up with an answer I interviewed a second grade teacher, Ms. Smith* at a Quaker school.

The influence of Education Education is a quality that everybody needs to obtain but, not many people receive the level of education that is necessary. In “We Real Cool” many readers may question the grammar throughout the poem, but in truth, it may be showing the lack of education the children had during that time. “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks could be reflecting how the lack of education can greatly affect people’s lives. The poem could also reflect which school system is given more disadvantages than the other based on the phrase “We left school”. By examining the speaker in “We Real Cool”, many readers may consider the children we readers going down the wrong path, it is, in truth, showing the lack of education can lead too.

I believe that "Diversity" plays important roles in our lives. Without diversity, we cannot widen our field of view. Diversity helps us to open up our eyes and our world. From reading the essay "How diversity makes us smarter", written by Katherine W Phillips, I learned that there are some negative effects brought up by the social diversity where dialog of inclusion is advanced, but mostly diversity is something that has positive effect in our society and even individual. I could also reflect and make connection with my experience of moving from non diverse community to diverse community.

In the poem “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1959), the author speaks for the group of teenagers who, perhaps, are skipping the school in the pool. Possibly, the “Seven Pool Players” are represented the Carpe Diem ideology. They are the people who live their lives day to day without any confidence about the future. Their future is unclear, together with their identity. As Brooks puts it in one of her interviews, “These are people who are essentially saying, ‘Kilroy is here. We are.’ But they're a little uncertain of the strength of their identity”(An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks in Contemporary Literature 11:1).

The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult. In the U.S., where the dialogue of inclusion is relatively advanced, even the mention of the word “diversity” can lead to anxiety and conflict. Supreme Court justices disagree on the virtues of diversity and the means for achieving it. Corporations spend billions of dollars to attract and manage diversity both internally and externally, yet they still face discrimination lawsuits, and the leadership ranks of the business world remain predominantly white and male.

Diversity has been a focus of literature for quite some time, and I believe that was a strong foundation for many of the authors that have in contact racism during a time when it was more then evident. When you read some of the poems from authors like Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, you feel the emotion behind the words that the use to describe how we as a people have been treating for so long. Diversity comes in many different ways other than just race. When you look at the workforce in this day and time you see how many companies are sure that they focus creating a diverse work environment. Hearing Langston Hughes discusses how things were many years ago make me wonder why it was so