like people group together

In my health class today I asked the kids divide themselves into groups of 4 for our project on different types of families. Bar none every group divided themselves racially...minories in groups and whites in the other groups. I have 32 kids in here right now.....one group of 4 is mexican and black boys, another is asian girls, some groups of all white kids and one group of all hispanic girls.

I wonder why this is? So many of these kids don't even know each other but when asked to get into groups, automatically segragate. It fascinates me. I am having them flex their artistic muscles by drawing their families in whatever way they would like. I'll post a couple of their works this weekend. It helps me to understand them and where they are coming from.

Tomorrow ought to be interesting here as well b/c its the 1yr anniversary of this kid who got shot in a gang fight. All hell broke loose here last year so we were issued a warning to keep our wits about us in case there is any retaliation. And people say teaching is easy! Dude, I'm like Michelle Pheiffer from Dangerous Minds!