Something I would like to acknowledge in conversations about race is that all
white people are racist. We all benefit from racism, and we all have socially ingrained prejudices. In the past few years I have been working hard to unlearn my prejudices, educate myself about diverse influential people, and increase diverse representation in my teaching. However, it is important to keep in mind that I am not “off the hook” from being racist because I did City Year and worked in a diverse urban school. I still grew up with extremely prejudiced and racist influences, I am a member of a society that promotes whiteness as ultimately superior, and I see primarily white or stereotypical representation in the media everyday. I still benefit from white privilege even if I am trying to work against it. So what are my prejudices? Awareness of my thought processes and mindfulness will help me figure out what I still need to work on. Despite my experience, I still grapple with being a white teacher in a diverse urban school. I don’t want to be a “white savior” teacher because I know that urban students of color don’t need saving. All students need to be met where they are at, and taught in a way that works best for them, which is often not happening when white teachers come in to work in a community and culture they do not understand. A white teacher may come in with “good” intentions to educate the poor youth of color, but will teach in a way that perpetuates oppressive structures and is not engaging or accessible to their students. I do want to work in urban schools and help in my own way by providing excellent instruction in schools that are struggling. I want to learn how to best teach students whose backgrounds are different than my own, and help my students gain confidence and succeed. The last school I worked at was in a low income neighborhood in a very diverse, but majority hispanic and latino, area of South Seattle. Seattle has historically been split into North Seattle and South Seattle. An interstate highway running through the middle of the city east to west was an actual physical barrier and people of color were segregated to the south end until the 1960’s. Obviously the effects of this are still seen today, and schools in the south end are typically high-need, and under-resourced. My school, Highland Park, has a particularly high prevalence of poverty, low test scores, students behind in math and reading, and struggles with extreme behavior needs. Despite this, the student and family community was strong, bonded, and beautifully diverse. Race and ethnicity identities were fairly evenly distributed, and students were supportive and accepting of differences. With nearly 40% of the students being ELLs, students were exposed to many different cultures and learned a lot from each other. That being said, this school had many other problems, and students there are not getting the quality of education they deserve. A majority of the teachers, and all of the administration, at Highland Park are white, and I was also one of these white educators for two years. I wonder if part of the school’s struggles have to do with teachers and administration who do not understand or value the cultures of the communities they serve. I saw many issues there, including the principal and assistant principal openly not supporting BLM t-shirt day, a teacher bad-mouthing students behind their backs, a teacher telling a student of color he is going to end up in jail, restrictive and stringent behavior management strategies, racially biased disciplinary practices and suspensions, and more I can’t think of at the moment. I worked with a wonderful, caring third grade teacher, but she did approach classroom management in a way that may be oppressive to students with backgrounds in more verbal cultures. I look up to her as a role model in many ways, but hope to also grow from what I’ve noticed. I want to teach again in a community similar to Highland Park’s and do feel comfortable working with diverse groups of students. I have spent many years of my personal and professional life in communities of color, specifically Latinx and Asian. While I of course still have much to learn and unlearn as a white person, I am more comfortable working with these communities of students. However, I have not lived in a mostly black community until now, and my summer placement at White Rock is the first time I have worked in a primarily black classroom. I believe that I can succeed in this environment, and want to acknowledge my whiteness and teach in a way that is best for my students. I know that my experience at Lea will be extremely valuable, but before I start, I want to consider a few questions. How do I manage my classroom and student behavior in a culturally competent way that works for all my students? What should I do to better understand my Lea students’ community?