School diversity: A world of its own

USA TODAY, May, 2007 by Patrick Welsh

I teach at a wonderfully diverse high school: T.C. Williams in Alexandria, Va. The racial, ethnic and socioeconomic mix provides a rich foundation for our students and faculty. But when left to their own devices, kids self-segregate. A lost cause? Hardly. This reality doesn't diminish the life lessons that take root in this rainbow of learning.

At a basketball game this spring, the opponents of the T.C. Williams High School where I teach let loose with a unique cheer: "Se-gre-ga-ted, Se-gre-ga-ted," they chanted as they pointed in unison to our cheering section across the court. What brought on the chant was the fact that about 200 white T.C. students dressed in white T-shirts were packed together to one side of the stands and the black students to the other.

That was not exactly the image a school that ...