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!) My first response to Gina if she approached me with this situation would be a few questions. First of all, why was this assembly called? What was the period of time that poem was referencing? Who was the presenter? I believe the answers to these questions could seriously impact the answer to Gina's question. However, with the limited information in this case study, I have formulated a response. The answer to her question is yes, it absolutely will affect her legitimacy as a white teacher in an all black school. This situation is unfortunate. There is a difference between understanding and appreciating social problems from the past and embracing them as defining principles in the present. The sad truth is that for many young black people, they are fed so much false rhetoric from race mongers about how oppressed they are in today's world; it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. When you paint a picture of that white people are oppressive without articulating that the world is different now and that's just not the case, then you are instilling a hate that is unjustified and detrimental to the development of a young person. Conditioning young black students to falsely understand and believe they are oppressed is bad enough but to then paint the white person as the source of their oppression is even worse especially in today's world where it's just not true. So yes, there is great potential for Gina to lose her legitimacy as a teacher and leader when her students could possibly see her as the one "keeping them down". As for educational value, yes there is potential for this situation to contain some. Again, that is all dependant on the context of the presentation. If the presentation was historically accurate, presented in a manner that was meant to show a situation that long before today, helps to show how far we have come, encourages young black people not to squander opportunity, then yes there is educational value. If the only thing the students took away was an understanding they are oppressed with the white person to blame, then no that has no educational value. Her response to this situation should be to talk to her students about their understanding of the presentation and bring to light that which is reality and that which is merely inflammatory rhetoric. She should also discuss with them the advancements of society and how the material applies (if at all) to the world today.