I find it hard to elaborate about my positionality, because it is difficult to see myself from

the prospective of someone else, particularly from the perspective of someone who has had
fewer privileges than I. Teaching in high-needs schools and exploring the communities around
them has given me at least a little more insight into my positionality. However, that insight is
still based around my perception of how others view me. I am constantly aware of my whiteness,
and my financial privileges, which although a privilege, do hinder me from truly understanding
the positionality of my students and the people in the communities I teach.
One dimension of my positionality that greatly affects me is my gender. I am a female
with strong views about my own femininity. My mom raised me as a single-mother for most of
my childhood. She is a retired mathematician, who worked with almost all men at NASAs Jet
Propulsion Laboratory far before there were many women working in the field of science. I have
never questioned my place as a woman. My mom showed me that women cannot just do math,
but that we can lead a department of men and still make time for family if that is what we want.
When she got married in high school, I experienced some culture shock having a man in the
house. My moms husband is a little older than she is, and even though he truly does believe
women are equal he sometimes takes on many of the more traditional masculine roles; He does
not cook, but is always the one to drive in the car. My mom secretly likes to drive, but she has
never said that she would like to take the wheel. I was appalled at first by these gender roles,
which I once thought only existed on TV Land. Now, though, I see them every day. And
although I will want to espouse my feminist beliefs with my students, I realize that this is another
area where I need to be sensitive to cultures and family traditions. I was raised in a single-mother
home, but most children are not. As a teacher, I will need to balance my own beliefs, provide all
my students with strong female models and voices, while at the same time acknowledging that
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their background may be different from my own. How can I teach feminist values while
acknowledging the values of all my students families?
Although I have been keenly aware of my whiteness at many times during student
teaching, it had not occurred to me beforehand how aggressively my whiteness can appear. I did
not realize how it has affected my own positionality that I carry into the classroom either. I have
grown up with many privileges in racially and economically diverse public and private schools,
where I did not understand the privilege in my whiteness. However, it is due in many parts to my
skin color that I have been able to have access to everything I have had. My family has had the
financial stability to always save for the next generation for as far back as I can see on my family
tree. My family was not discriminated against for jobs or when they wanted to buy a house. My
grandparents went to college during the Great Depression, and they set the foundation for a long
line of college graduates. My privilege is embedded in me. I have been able to go almost
anywhere I have wanted, without anyone stopping me or questioning why. In fact, the only time
anyone has ever suspected me of anything remotely suspicious was when I tried to cross the
Canadian border in college. I have traveled and seen what life is like in many different cultures,
but this does not mean that I am cultured.
As a white, middle-class female, like so many urban schoolteachers, I sometimes feel
estranged from my students because of my positionality. Although I am not constantly aware of
my whiteness in the classroom, I have realized that my students often are. My blonde hair is the
topic of many more conversations than I would like and several of my students, even in fifth
grade, feel very comfortable asking me if I am rich. I have talked about this with peers in TEP,
and realized that most of them have not had this happen, even some who seem to wear their
wealth in the clothes and accessories they take to school. Even though I am frugal and dress
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accordingly, I am bombarded with these questions so often. I wonder, is it how I talk? Is it
because I drive my own car? Or maybe, that they know I live in a different community? Or is it
because of my light skin and blonde hair? When my students talk to me about my skin, or hair,
or the van I drive to school (I keep trying to tell them it is not a van, just a round car) I shy
away from the conversation. I feel uncomfortable in these instances, like I want to ignore our
differences and just highlight our similarities.
I know how harmful this reaction is, though, and I try to be more honest with my
students. Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994) talks about the typical reaction of white teachers to race
issues in her book The Dreamkeepers, and says that race is often ignored or considered an
ambiguous factor in their students education. I know that this blinds us too from how we must
teach our students. Ladson-Billings discusses the harm of ignoring racial differences: If teachers
pretend not to see students racial and ethnic differences, they really do not see the students at all
and are limited in their ability to meet their educational needs. (p. 33) Even if I acknowledge
my students race and background on my own, I need to encourage them to recognize not just
their own race, but mine as well. I should encourage them to be critical of my teaching and
recognize that what I say also stems from my positionality and how I have been taught.
Even though I would like to talk with my students more openly about race, it is still a
challenge for me. Last quarter I faced a very difficult situation in particular, and I shied away
from an important conversation that my class really needed to have. On my last day of
Observation & Participation my class was on a field trip, and we were lined up next to a
Christian school that was almost all white, and strangely, almost all blond. One of my students
asked if I had gone there, since I am also white and my hair color is also blonde. I said that I had
not. His response was, Theyre all racists. My student did not mean that aggressively or even
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angrily, but he assumed that a large group of white children must be racist, and I understand why
he made this connection. I did not point out that our classroom might not look exactly diverse
either (my class is 98% Latino). What concerned me most about this interaction was that this
student, who I have a close relationship with, might have assumed that I too must be racist. It
was the final day of my placement that quarter, but I wanted so badly to talk with my students
about race and racism, religion, and wealth. I talked with my advisor about what lessons I could
bring back to the classroom this quarter that would cover these issues and engage my class in a
conversation about race, stereotypes, and positionality. However, I knew my guiding teacher
would not want me starting these conversations. When I planned a lesson around Martin Luther
King Jr., she forgot I had planned it and did not leave enough time for me to teach it before the
holiday.
What is worse is that once my guiding teacher forgot about my lesson, I felt relieved. We
had not yet read Griffin, and I did not know where to start an important conversation about race,
which made it so much easier for me to just quit. I am still not sure where to begin in my own
classroom next year, but I think with the help of peers and the articles we have read on
facilitating social justice courses, I am ready to be bold. As Griffin (2007) mentions, these
classes require ample support from outside and in, and as I lead discussions about race and
positionality in the future, I would like to have the support of other teachers, administrators, my
UCLA professors, and even parents to facilitate these conversations. Since my positionality
limits my true understanding of my students, I will need to be honest with them about where I
come from, and how these conversations will help us come to a better understanding of one
another. As Griffin (2007) emphasizes, these conversations cannot happen right away, but will
need to come once we have established a safe classroom climate (p. 283). Griffin provides
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participation guidelines that can help our classroom to establish a safe environment that will give
way to honest, passionate discussions.
As I have considered my whiteness this quarter, I have realized that in the career I have
chosen, my whiteness is not always such a privilege. I come from a very different positionality
than many of my students. Just the fact that I am commuting into communities for student
teaching limits my understanding of my students. Reading Alim (2004) in Language Acquisition
reinforced my insecurities about this:
In this context, Black youth in Haven High will often comment on how they only
see their teachers (mostly White) when they are exiting or entering the community
on the nearby freeway ramp. The fact that White teachers dont spend time in the
community only reifies feeling of social distance and distrust between students
and teachers, which can be a major source of tension in the schooling experiences
of Black youth. (p. 181)
I was troubled by this passage, and what the Black youth said to the interviewer about their white
teachers in this article. I pictured myself driving off the freeway off-ramp at my first school site
and leaving most days during class or right after school. Is this how my students see my
participation in their school? Is that how their parents see me? I want to be a part of the
community, but I do wonder if I will ever truly be a member of these communities as long as I
do not live there, and as long as I come from my background. While we are in this program, how
do we become members of the communities where we are only temporarily placed?
However, my worries and insecurities go beyond TEP. In our Identities class this quarter,
you posed the question, can white teachers truly be effective with their non-white students? One
of my peers answered, I hope so. I think so. I did not say anything during this discussion,
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because only two days before this class, I had read Alims article and had a strange incident on
the way to my school that made me begin to think of myself as an intruder (I dont want to go
into details about the incident). I was starting to wonder if I am doing students and communities
a disservice by teaching in urban schools. I believe there need to be more teachers that represent
the communities and cultures of our students in our urban schools, and yet I am undermining
that. I started to have conversations with my fianc and mom about whether I should be looking
at schools where my own background is represented, schools that are more diverse like those I
attended in Pasadena. However, in doing so, I would be buying into a culture of segregation and
division that I want so badly to pry apart. But is this system mine to break when it was my
historical counterparts that created it in the first place?
I have no question about whether I can be an effective teacher, or whether I can connect
with my students on a level that will affect them and make them feel cared for. I know I can,
because this quarter I was an effective student teacher and I did connect with my students. There
were times I questioned this, but on my final day of student teaching as I said goodbye to my
students (for now) and heard their words of encouragement (and fell into a wall from the force of
their giant group hug), I could see that I had affected them and there was no question that we had
connected. I have taught my students geometry, how to write a third-person expository essay (a
skill they will be expected to use the rest of their school careers), and why water conservation is
so important. Even more importantly, though, I have taught them that there is a place for curse
words, but that it is not in the classroom, and that every one of them has something important to
saya few of my students had probably not heard so in school before.
For now, I need to think more about what impact I can and should have as a teacher and a
member of the greater Los Angeles community. I feel a devotion to this city and its people, and I
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will not continue to view myself as an outsider of, because I am not one. However, I need to
continue questioning my role and how I can best serve our students. To do so, I will continue to
develop and warp my positionality, and will need to stay in touch with how it changes over time.
I am thankful for our Identities class for guiding me through this process. Like with most of our
classes in TEP, I am left with more questions than answers, and so ensues the adventure that is
teaching.

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References

Griffin, P. (2007). Facilitating social justice education courses. In Adams, M., Bell, L., Griffin,
P., Teaching for diversity and social justice. (pp. 279-298). New York: Routledge.

Alim, H.S. (2004). Hearing whats not said and missing what is: Black language in White public
space. In S.F. Kiesling & B. Paulston (Eds.), Intercultural discourse and communication:
The essential readings (pp. 181-197). Malden: Blackwell Publishing.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The Dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African-American
children. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc. (33).