Dear Diary,
I love my job.
I just started my teaching experience this semester. To say it has been eventful is… an understatement. Fortunately, I have not had any bad experiences! My students are actually hilarious but a little unhinged.
About two weeks ago, one student came up to me and told me about how her and her friend (*cue British accent*) quite litchrally asked their math teacher why his butt was so big…
My student: “It was just so huge and round; I just needed to know!”
Me:
Last week, one of my students asked me to use the bathroom before class. She was gone for 30 minutes and all of a sudden, my teacher got a Remind message saying THIS:
“Hi, I asked the pretty lady with the mask to use the bathroom: I’m currently taking the fattest dookie ever, I’ll be in soon”
There are so many funny things in this statement. 1) Why did she refer to me as the “pretty lady with the mask” when she knows my name???? 2) Why did she refer to it as the “fattest dookie ever”? 3) Why did she tell my teacher this??? I was almost in tears for 20 minutes when my teacher showed me the message. Every day, I chuckle about it just a little bit. My Black students make me laugh the most!
Here is the kicker: I am one of the few Black adults in the building and I can count the number of Black students in each class on one hand. During pre-planning last semester, I only saw one other Black student teacher. We made eye contact and just knew… Since the school is predominantly white, there is definitely a cultural disconnect between my non-Black students and my Black students. If I am being honest, there is a cult-like culture in the school and I do not know how to navigate it. However, I am having a good experience and my kids love me. I wish I had the opportunity to have more Black teachers when I was in middle school and high school.
Black kids need Black teachers. Period. As a future Black educator, I want to create safe spaces for my Black students. I want them to view me as a role model and to see themselves in me. I want to be a support system. I want to be the representation that matters.
Black educators matter– forever and always.