No matter what school system you are in, whether it is public or private, I feel that many teachers have a hard time connecting with students. I say this because I know white teachers who taught at a predominantly black school in the inner city and they have shared stories with me about how hard it is to relate to their students. Some of these teachers do not know the background of the child's life, the circumstances one's family may be in, or know of anything about the neighborhood except their place of occupation. A lot of teachers do not attempt to know who their students are due to fear, not being exposed to such conditions, but most importantly it's hard to escape from preconceived notions of their students.
In contrast, I know Black teachers who have taught in suburban schools and they have felt inferior to some students because of the cars they drive, teaching lesson involving minorities, and sometimes being the token black faculty everyone has to make sure not to upset. The Black teacher didn't realize that this was the suburban kids way of life. These students couldn't help they were born into money or were oblivious to the education minorities were receiving in his inner city neighborhood.
We must set aside our way of life, our preconceived notions of our students, and get to know the students for who they are. Knowing who we are teaching allows us to better know who we are as educators.
Beautiful statements!
ReplyDeleteI assert that we as teachers must be the "best and brightest" in our communities. Teachers must not only understand the science of teaching (theory) but also the art of teaching (practice). We must commit ourselves to meeting the individual needs of each of our students in our classrooms. Teaching is hard and time consuming work. Therefore, we must commit ourselves to providing developmentally apporpriate and culturally responsive curriculum and instruction for our students.
To achieve this task we must be fearless in the face of the challenges and communal in our approach. Meaning - pooling our individual gifts and talents with those of other teachers and members of the community to impact the minds and lives of the children in our classroom.
We must also hold our elected officials accountable to the people who elect them (US). When we embrace the responsibility to hold our elected officials accountable it is then that they will be accountable. When we as teachers become not only active inside of our classrooms but also in our communities we will be heard by the policy-makers and quite frankly feared by those who depend upon us for the votes that keep them in office.
It does seem odd that in the richest nation with the most well educated population that we would actually still allow an achievement, opportunity, economic gap to exist in our schools and communities. Essentially it comes down to priorities. We should ask ourselves each day "what have I done today to close the gap between the haves and have nots."
I live by the mantra - "think globally - act locally." If each of us were to embrace this philosophy the "local would become the global."