Prompt #4: Johnson

My high school was dominantly made up of white students. In fact, I don’t think there were more than a handful of minority students in the entire school. Growing up in a mostly white community, and then coming to tutor at this school where there is maybe one white student per classroom, was an amazing difference. It took a couple visits to get used to it and get comfortable there, but once I did it really opened my eyes to a whole new way of life.

I brought in a different tone to the classroom being one of three white people in the entire classroom, including the teacher. And each student had something different to bring to me. Two students one day were fighting about whose step-dad was better, like it was second nature for anyone to have a step-dad. From my background it was, not unusual, but uncommon to have parents that were divorced and remarried. Most of my peers’ parents were still together. My students had a whole conversation about their step-parents and many of the other students in the class joined in as well. It was definitely something I wasn’t used to.

I know, after the whole step-dad talk, it was difficult for me to talk to the children comfortably about any home life. Not that I was uncomfortable because of their race, I was uncomfortable because I didn’t know who had moms and who didn’t, who had dads and who didn’t. I didn’t want to upset anyone if I said something like, “well can’t your mom hang the picture on the fridge for you?” and have a child respond in tears because her mom died. I tried to avoid the conversation in general, but being a future teacher I knew that I couldn’t avoid the problem, because ignoring it wouldn’t make it go away. Whenever I had a response I would simply just ask them first who lives at home with them, and then use one of their guardians to refer to.

There are many misconceptions and stereotypes about minority groups, and whether we realize it or not we all make stereotypes unconsciously, and not just referring to race, either. One misconception that I have come across, by using infoworks, from hearing people talk, and from many other sources, is that minorities aren’t “smart.” Looking at infoworks, in dominantly African-American schools, the drop-out rates are sky high, and the test scores are extremely below average. Even when I walked into my tutoring school the very first day, my supervisor warned me that these students are very far behind. But when I sat down with my students, after hearing that and reading what I’ve read, I was shocked at how well my students did. I was also very appalled at myself for letting stereotypes get to me. These students did so well reading and writing, I had no idea where these below-average test scores were coming from, and why everyone says they are “far behind.” I suppose that stereotypes have some truth to them, because there are, of course, students you could tell needed extra help. But they are not all like that.

This whole experience reminded me of Allan Johnson’s article, Our House is on Fire. He talks about the privilege of being white and what it gets you. He gives examples of colored people walking into a convenience store and how they are automatically assumed to be stealing, or when over the phone they are told an apartment is for rent, but in person are turned down. There are so many misconceptions about different races and expectations are very low of those of color. Johnson says nothing else can threaten our survival as a society more than the privilege or race. He says that we cannot sit back and just pretend it’s not happening, because ignoring the problem won’t make it go away. In order to fix this problem we need to change how we look at the world and how we participate in it.