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!) You should encourage your sister that she should still approach her job with optimism and purpose. I doubt if the poem had little, if any, educational effect simply because students have been taught about oppression in this sense since their early years of schooling. If anything, I believe that the students have been taught about African American oppression, and have learned to take pride in it. They have learned that to treat others unequally is wrong, and I doubt if they want to make her feel uncomfortable considering the things their ancestors have already gone through. Perhaps having a forum with the students to discuss African American oppression, as well as Gina's view as a White American will be helpful in relieving some of Gina's worries.