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  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!)
I would tell her to use that poem as motivation. Motivation that can show her that students really do understand or "feel" what's going on around them. Children are very perceptive and realize more of what's going on than we think they do, especially inner city kids. If she acts like she doesn't belong, the students will pick up on this. She should embrace what she is and teach her heart out. I think the poem is a good example of what moves the students, though. She can learn from that poem and expand her teaching from it. She can use it as reference in her teaching or have students create poems like this when they learn about certain things.
Also, she shouldn't act like she is an outcast because she is the minority of the school. Aren't we trying to teach our kids that everyone is the same and we are all equal? She shouldn't feel inadequate because then she would be a hypocrite teaching in an inner city school.