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!) Since your sister Gina, the teacher, accepted the historical truth of the poem, it seems obvious that the reading of the poem has the capacity to provide an educational message. Gina also mentioned that the poem moved her and after hearing its recitation, she doubted her legitimacy as a White teacher in a predominantly Black school. Because she had those range of emotions and questioned her own abilities as a teacher, the poem does have relevance. Good teachers are reflective and are always in the pursuit of learning new things. Gina seems as if she is on the right track because she reflected on the poem and its significance, and her validity as a teacher. She even took it a step further by consulting with an experienced teacher, her brother, in an effort to gain more insight into the situation. Because Gina has done these things, I would ask her to think about the characteristics that make up a good teacher. I would then illustrate to Gina that she has those characteristics due to the fact that she reflected upon and questioned the validity of the poem and how it relates to her as a teacher. This could also be a good opportunity to discuss with Gina the educational effect the poem had on her perspective as a teacher. This could help her to answer the question as to whether or not these types of poems have educational value and it would also allow her to explore her legitimacy as a teacher.