Question 4

I think this question is very important for every potential teacher to answer and to be honest to themselves and their students, so that those teachers can understand why their students might think differently. It is essential that teachers and upcoming teachers need to recognize their backgrounds and how they might differ from their students because it will help the students understand material easier and the teacher can also learn from the students. In regard to my own personal background and history it will be a challenge to understand where some of my future students will be coming from. Since I want to be in an urban, diverse school my upper middle class, white, Christian background will be different from many of my students. I believe that if I want to be an effective teacher in a diverse school like this I would have to confront the white privilege that has taken root in our school system since the beginning of public schooling. Here, I agree with Alan Johnson and his argument that teachers and administrators must change the system to champion diversity, celebrate difference, and promote tolerance. As a white teacher it could be easy to just fall into the status quo but I feel that it is essential to follow a strategy like Johnson explains in “Our house is on fire”. The teacher that I had examined and worked with in my VIPS classroom was of Hispanic dissent which gave her a different perspective then mine because we had different cultural backgrounds. In that class there had been no white children but a variety of other cultures that I had not faced in my own high school. Being in this class had let me see that these children, that were in an inner-city school, were just as smart and able to learn as anyone in my other schools, in which there was no diversity. There are many myths about urban, diverse schools that I am happy to have dismissed myself through this experience. Just as Johnson had stated, I felt that the system of white privileged was more the problem in this school than the children’s capabilities. What I mean by this is that people of color are not considered when school or curriculum related decisions are being made. Since our society has been dominated by a white presence in positions of power the diverse population is overlooked and underprepared for schooling and life after school. As a future teacher I want to give every student the chance to succeed at a high level no matter what their background or skin color. As a result, I would fight the status quo, lined with white privilege, and try to make positive changes helping the school system evolve. I was able to be in the classroom when the ten students had taken their standardize tests and what I saw really shocked me. The students were confused and frustrated because they had not been prepared for the test. What I mean is that the students were not given proper guidance through their academic life to absorb the proper skills they need to be successful on the test. The teacher of the class told me she saw the same thing every year in her extremely diverse classrooms and it had nothing to do with their intelligence or effort level. These tests are flawed in their design to accompany all cultural backgrounds and learning skills. The students in the class had been passed up through each grade without additional help or understanding that these kids had come from a different background then most of their white teachers. I was really surprised at how many misconceptions that this one class had let me unwrap and find the truth under the grossly misunderstood system.