A Teacher's Perspective...

Partway through yesterday afternoon, just as news was beginning to circulate regarding preparations for potential rioting in my hometown, a text message dinged on my phone from a senior with whom I am very close…

“Do you still write your blog?”

“Yes, but I’m terrible at keeping up with it. Why?”

“I was just thinking maybe you might like to write about what is going on right now…”

She went on to say she was scared about the riots that were occurring and expressed a true confusion about how she was supposed to feel. I think many of us currently live in that same conflicted space.

Truthfully, I had not thought about writing about it. By nature, I am an avoider. In this starkly divided, COVID angry, high tension era in which we are currently living, I have resorted to hiding in my safe home and ignoring the world because all opinions seem to be met with hostility and blame and anger.

And then I realized what it meant for a student to be asking me this. She knows that I have always said writing is an outlet, but more so, writing can be powerful -- if it is used correctly.

So here is my way of writing down my thoughts about “what is going on right now” in the only way I know how...

Teaching Memory #1: My second year teaching, I was tasked with reading August Wilson’s play Fences with my seniors. I vividly remember feeling so well-equipped to tackle the language used in this particular play because OBVIOUSLY since I had earned an A on my graduate paper that discussed how to address this exact issue in a classroom setting, I MUST have all the answers. Naive little old me came equipped with video interviews, and rap songs, and debate sheets -- and all of the makings of what I was sure would be a meaningful introduction to this play. The exact debate question now escapes me, but it was essentially a class debate regarding how the “N” word (as I referred to it) should be addressed in literature in a classroom. Holding on to my own appalling high school memories of an English teacher who had blacked out any language from our reading that she considered “profane,” I was sure that the right answer was to address this head on.

The sea of white faces in front of me almost overwhelmingly argued that the “N” word (as we all referred to it) should still be read about because of the history behind it. Phrases like, “we need to be sure history does not repeat itself” echoed throughout the discussion. I remember feeling so proud of this “real-life lesson” I had created in my class…

Until… one of the only non-white faces sitting in that sea of white pushed back his chair, slowly stood up, and said…

“Then why has no one said it yet?”

And the room went silent. The kind of silent that a high school classroom almost never hears.

“I want to hear someone say it if it’s so important to say. I want someone to actually say this word that everyone thinks should still be read, but that no one can actually say out loud.”

And the room stayed silent. Very silent. And I still remember the discomfort as this room full of “very nice kids” sat stunned.

Awkwardly, painfully, silent.

And the bell rang shortly after.

And I pulled this young man aside.

Afterwards, he respectfully told me that while he appreciated what I was trying to do, I did it wrong. I remember he told me that the conversation maybe needed to happen, but that it wasn’t a debate for a bunch of “white kids” to have because it shouldn’t be their decision whether or not a word like that should be used. He said that he personally DID think it should be read, but that he was bothered we were debating it.

Prior to this day, it was my personal opinion that it was my duty as an English teacher to teach literature as it is written. After this day, I realized that this is not really my opinion to have.

Teaching Memory #2:

After reading The Secret Life of Bees, I assigned an identify project where students had to create a visual representation of their own identity. Beautiful collages and creations were crafted before my eyes while one student hurriedly scribbled some doodles reflecting an array of (what appeared to be) stereotypical images on his white computer paper and shoved it onto my desk.

I remember my face turning hot, unsure where this young man was going with this and feeling disrespected by his lack of concern for this meaningful project. Without me needing to ask, he quickly answered my silence with, “You know. Cuz I’m black” and doubled over with laughter as he strode back to his chair.

I asked him to stay for a second after class to just clarify what he meant by that. I was so bothered by his behavior, and so confused by his actions. For the first time in all of his jokester years that I had known him, he looked at me, very seriously, and said, “You asked me to do a project about my identity. What is the first thing any person is going to say to describe me? They’ll say ‘that black kid’. Tell me I’m wrong.”

And I wanted him to be wrong because I saw so much more in him besides the fact that he happened to be a kid who just happened to be black. I saw that his humor was actually masking this overwhelming feeling he had that he was black first, and everything else second -- and that he sadly perceived that truth about him with some sort of negativity.

Prior to this day I naively assumed that a person’s identity was made up more of the things they liked, and the activities they did, and the life they lived -- because no one has ever looked at me and had their initial thought be “that white girl." After this day, I realized that I had been acting under an assumption that everyone’s experience was like mine.

Teaching Moment #3:

Laughing, giggling, and discussing our most recent book in our literature circles. Cookies being passed around the classroom and juice being sipped. Amazing, adult-like conversations regarding the experience of Native Americans in our country, and the many stereotypes they are often faced with circled around the room. It was one of those beautiful teacher moments where the stars seem to align and everything works like a dream. The bell rang, and two students hung back, slowly packing up their bags and offering to help me put the desks back into their regular formation. One surprisingly mentioned how much she liked this book, while the other happily nodded.

“You know, it’s just really nice to read a book that isn’t about black people for once.”

And that awkward warmth crept into my face as I tried to quickly think of a response to this sort of statement. Likely noticing my discomfort, the other student said, “I think she just means that almost everything we read is about like segregation or like using the “n” word or stuff like that. It’s way easier to talk about a book in class when you don’t feel like everyone is walking on eggshells because you’re the one in the room who’s black.”

Prior to this day, I thought that prefacing a novel with the historical time period would be enough. After this day, I realized that I don’t get to have an opinion on how a book SHOULD make a kid feel because I have never been the only black kid in a room full of white students when Curley in Of Mice and Men tells the “stablebuck n*****” to get back to work. I’ve never been the only black kid in a room full of white students when Atticus Finch is called a “n***** lover” in To Kill a Mockingbird. I have never been the only black kid in a room full of white students when Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie tells her daughter she’ll be the “darky” tonight and clean the table off for the family.

I can personally find the value in all of these pieces of literature. I would even argue that I love each of them. I can attempt to come up with the most meaningful lessons on earth to help students relate to the necessary and important life lessons present in each story. I can do my best to express the importance of reading each of them, but what I DO NOT get to do is have an opinion on how any of that makes kids in my classroom feel -- because I have never been them, and as much as I can sympathize, or care for them, or attempt to make my classroom a safe space, or even love them, I do not get to have an opinion because that is an experience I will never have. And that goes beyond race, or gender, or sexuality or status.... There are feelings my students (and ALL people) have that I DO NOT get to have opinions on -- people need to be given grace to feel what they feel.

I could go on, but I will end with this:

I do not know what it is like to sit in a classroom full of white kids thinking everyone is staring at me when the “N” word is scrawled across a page.

I do not know what it feels like to have people look at me and see skin color first.

I do not agree with senseless killing.

I do not agree with destructive riots and looting.

I do not know what it is like to be a police officer.

I do not know what it is like to be a black man.

I do not know what it is like to be arrested.

I do not know what it feels like to lose a child.

I do not know what it feels like to be genuinely scared for my life.

I do know what it is like to worry about family members who are currently in law enforcement.

I do know this world needs to do better.

I do know this division needs to stop growing.

I do know the world is getting scarier, and we are all letting it.

And even though I completely agree with Atticus Finch’s important life lesson in To Kill a Mockingbird when he says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb in his skin and walk around in it,” I also think there is only so much you can ever understand about ANYONE when you cannot ACTUALLY walk around in their skin. And this applies far beyond just today, or just race, or just right now.

I think we ALL need to do better, and that goes for everyone… myself included.

And to the MANY students I've had who have allowed me to become a better teacher in so many different ways, and I believe in turn a better person, I thank each of you. I can only hope you are out there in this world doing something to make things better for all of us, and I am sorry this is the world we have somehow handed off to you.