Blog entry: Your race, your teaching. Imagine yourself teaching in an urban school in Chicago in a class that has nearly 100% African American students. Of the challenges you’ll face, some will be related to your race. Can you describe a couple race-related challenges you are particularly concerned about at this time? Illustrate your concern by sketching some hypothetical situations you might imagine for yourself.

I really enjoyed all of the articles that were assigned for today. In the first article, Still Crazy After All These Years, By Charles Payne, Payne discussed the baggage that each teacher brings with them to the table that usually has to do with race. The baggage that most white bring with them to the classroom I believe is the fear that they are going to be called a racist. They fear that they are going to be judged by the school. Nobody wants to bring baggage with them when they walk into the classroom but it happens. So being a white female teacher I need to be able to leave my baggage behind me when I walk into the classroom. Obviously this is something that I believe is going to be hard to do because everyone has fears and they don’t just disappear but you need to try to leave them outside of the classroom. I am excited to have the privilege to learn how to be able to properly teach in an urban area. I want to be able to do it and I am excited for the opportunity. In one of the articles we read it talks about how there were two black boys fighting and a white teacher breaks them up. One of the boys says something to the teacher about getting his white hands away. The boy says this because he has learned from experience that saying something like this he will get a reaction. The teacher didn’t react in the way the student expected him to which was rather surprising. I think if I was actually in the situation I wouldn’t have known what to do. You want to show your kids that you have authority but also it does offend you when you know that they are specifically trying to make you mad. I want to be able to show my students that I am not against them in any way. Another thing that I read about was how students can think different things if they see a teacher being shy. I feel that I may be shy when I first start teaching not because I am intimidated by them but just because it is scary to do something new. I am going to have to over come that. Another thing that I think may be difficult is some of the cultural differences. It says in one of the articles that the Black teachers were mad when the students wore their hats in school because they are use to back when they were kids and that was completely unacceptable. Versus white teachers who don’t see anything wrong with wearing a hat. I want my students to know I respect them and I want other people in authority to know I respect them too. I may have different ways of showing affection and other things but that is because I grew up in a different culture. I am going to have to adapt to understand how they accept affection and other things.