Re-vision and Ritual

Schools in the United States have been trying to integrate both black and white students in one classroom by reorganizing a space in which “racial, gendered, and economic power are self-consciously analyzed and interrupted; and a space in which re-vision is insisted upon”. In a ninth-grade World Literature classes in Montclair, the author observed a shift from separated to integrated, from segregated to respect, from single-perspective to multiple-perspectives, and from being ignored to being heard. At first, students could only take a perspective (they say Lennie as a loser and worth being killed) according to their social status, race, and economic background which was denoted as standpoint theory; social hierarchy was deeply rooted in children’s mind. As Faucault argued, “power is always in and around classroom”. However, as teachers patiently taught them how to view things from different perspective, especially from the bottom, students gradually changed. At the end of the school year, students stretch, as a collective, to cross borders of race, class, gender, and “difference”.
Although it seems that the integrated classroom has succeeded its goals, I was wondering if it truly succeeded or not. The author said “it is at this point when students assert positions from a standpoint. And they shift”. But what do they mean by they shift the positions from a standpoint? What do they mean by viewing things from different perspective? If taking different perspectives means completely understanding what other people with different social status feel, I think it is really difficult. From my experience, I cannot truly understand how others feel unless I have same experience with them. For example, I never know how it feels like to have a cancer unless I actually have the disease. Similarly, white, rich students may not be able to fully understand, or take a perspective of, black, poor students, because they just didn’t experience what others have gone through, and the idea of race and social construct are deeply rooted inside of them. There is evidence on page 177—how white student and black students reacted to the teacher’s immediate rejection of them entering to high honors level. Although at this point white students and African American students equally spoke in the classroom, their reactions were totally different; a white student reacted with full of anger, insisting he would call his parents and appeal the teacher’s decision. In contrast, the African American boys quietly accepted to be in lower level class, because they didn’t believe it was worth it, didn’t believe they deserve it. The author said “no matter what the interior dialogue, the micropolitics of race and class operate through bodies, the minds, the resistances, the assumptions, and the resignations of youth”.
The micropolitics of race and class were shaped by rituals conducted in class room, as the author in “Schooling as a Ritual Performance” said. According to him, “rituals may be perceived as carriers of cultural codes that shape students’ perceptions and ways of understanding”. I remember when I went to an elementary school near from SUA for internship, students and teachers started to recite something related to Christianity (I forgot exactly what they said though). The classroom demography is one Latino American, one African American, one Asian Americans, one from Bangladesh, and 23 Americans with white skin color. The author said culture is fundamentally formed by interrelated rituals and ritual system—then doesn’t conducting rituals related to Christianity reform the culture of students who do not believe in God?