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!) One of the worst mistakes an educator can make is to devalue what they do not understand. Legitimacy as a teacher is not rooted in one's comfort level, but the willingness to be educated even while operating as an instructor. The teacher has an opportunity and obligation to meet students at their respective places of understanding and challenge them to think and see beyond the surface. The teacher has an awesome opportunity to marry theoretical knowledge with practical people skills. This effort legitimizes teachers and pushes students to use any and all creative methods of expression to report facts for both teacher and student growth.