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!) Depending on the subject matter, she may want to have the students discuss in a brief essay what the poem meant to them from an educational view. However, she will have to define that this not an opinion type of assignment but whether what did they get out of the reading. There are so many different viewpoints on whether oppression of African Americans still fully exists, but I do not feel that she has an issue in regards to being there. The question is, she is the only white teacher at that school? Do the other teachers have the same concerns as she does? She just will have to take a stand and if a situation arises then she will have to handle it just like any other situation and allow students to understand that the punishment is not because of race or culture issues but of what incident occurred and needs to be handle appropriately.