 |
Home
| How It Works
| Stats
Login | Register |
|
Case: White Intern in a Black inner-city school My sister, Gina, who is a young White girl, started her student teaching in a predominantly Black school in inner-city America. She initially approached her job with optimism and purpose. However, she began to experience her first doubts with the presentation of an emotionally charged poetry reading at an all-school assembly. The poem painted a picture of the oppression of the African Americans by the European American majority. My sister was moved by the poem and accepted the historical truth of its message. At the same, she said she wondered what educational effects of the poem were and whether it would affect her legitimacy as a White teacher in a Black school. She talked to me about her experience. I am an experienced teacher, but I could not answer whether poems like that have any educational value, and whether or not my sister should worry about her legitimacy as a White teacher. I don't what she should do in this specific situation. Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) A person's value is not found in his or her skin color, nationality, or gender. If your sister has had adequate training and is qualified to work in an inner-city school, then she is fully able and worthy to teach in an all black school. She may have to work to gain the trust and respect of her students, but if she is fair, honest, and respectful she should not have many problems. It is important for her to create intriguing lessons that her students can relate to and that will give them a multicultural view of the world and history in general. It is important that her students understand that many things that happened in the past are a product of society's way of thinking. They also need to understand how everyone has experienced discrimination at some point whether it is racial, social, religious, or gender related. Above all else, she should not allow herself to feel guilty about a past that she had no control over. If she wants to teach her students successfully, she needs to go in believing that everyone is equal and have high expectations for both her students and herself. |
||
Rating
|
||||||||||||||||||