University Student High School History Teacher-in-Training Mexican DREAMer Heterosexual Male First in Family to Attend College Q: What do you have in common with your teachers? A: Growing up in the southmost part of the country, I believe that I have had a unique experience. The majority of my teachers have been Mexican Americans. I sometimes see myself reflected in their stories about their childhood. We share the same culture and traditions. In Christmas time we all look forward to eating tamales and sharing time with our large, extended families. Although most of my grade school teachers looked similar to me, in college at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley things changed. Suddenly I was surrounded with Anglo and Asian professors. Sometimes it was difficult to communicate and relate with them. They would tend not to understand the culture of the students. However, I always felt I had home field advantage because they were the outsiders. Recently the University has doubled their efforts to hire Latino professors. Although we do share a common language and Hispanic heritage we are very different. Currently I have a Cuban, a Cuban American, and a Puerto Rican professor. Our customs are very different but it is always interesting to learn about their traditions. I usually find myself making connections between their traditions and mine. I’ve also had Mexican and Mexican-American professors. I can relate more with these professors but even then, they are usually not native to the valley. They come from California, Chicago, and different parts of Mexico. Ultimately, I have always looked up to the few professors who are from the area and are teaching in the area. They usually share the same stories and “have been there done that”. Disclaimer: This is not to say that teachers from other backgrounds and cultures are bad teachers. At the end of the day they have all been great teachers. A teacher’s role is to teach, and I have learned… A LOT! Q: Does it matter that students and teachers have things in common? A: I think it is very important to have that connection between student and teacher. As a future teacher, I want to build that rapport with my students. I know that in the question above I focused on ethnicity a lot because that is what came to mind at first. But thinking about it we do not have to be from the same ethnic background, race, religion, sex or socioeconomic status to have things in common. The key is to respect and celebrate each other’s differences rather than point them out or try to hide them. My whole teaching philosophy is centered around the ability to celebrate diversity and be proud of the differences in the classroom and in our community. We live in a great country that even with all its flaws, it still remains the land of opportunity for all, although some have more opportunities than others. But that is what education is for and that is why I want to be an educator. I want to give all students the tools necessary to have an opportunity to succeed and close the achievement gap. Once again this is where having something in common comes to play. I am part of that achievement gap and have lacked opportunity so I can relate. I believe that the only thing that a student and teacher should have in common is acceptance. If the teacher and the student have acceptance of each other’s differences then they will forget about pint pointing differences and focus more on finding things in common. Similarities are not always dependent on racial factors. Wilbert is currently a university student preparing to become high school history teacher. He is a DREAMer--born in Mexico and raised in the Rio Grande Valley since he was 3 years old. He plans to stay in The Valley to teach with the hopes of giving back to the community that supported him. Photo (c) 2017 Kristin Leong
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University Student Korean-American First Generation American Female LGBTQ Q: What do you have in common with your teachers? A: Often, I don't have that much in common with my teachers, unfortunately. I respect all of the teachers who have been in my life, and I've been lucky enough to have been in the care of several who were exceptional, but I'd be hard-pressed to name a teacher I could be grouped with in a game of Guess Who without tipping the whole board. What I share with my teachers is typically what I share with my city: we're WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). In short, traits that don't really do much, on their own, to expand students' horizons or kindle a real desire to sacrifice the wealth we take for granted to spark change in the world that levels the playing field. Q: Does it matter that students and teachers have things in common? A: Yes, when--as exceptions to the rule--I find that I share identities with my teacher, I am often also blessed with a mentor who can help me navigate my identities as they did at my age. Teachers have such a unique, pivotal role in the lives of so many students. Students turn to their teachers for help on so many things, especially as they're stumbling through elementary, middle, and high school and learning to suppress their "unfavorable" identities and express others. This is the period of life where kids come back home upset that their packed lunches are "too Asian", that their way of dressing or acting is somehow "gay" and therefore offensive, or that their economic standing is something to be ashamed of. Since they seek to discipline us and guide us, our teachers are in effect 6-hour+ daily stand-ins for our parents. And like parents, love them or hate them, they shape our relationships with ourselves immensely. For better or for worse, they hold this sway when we are at our most vulnerable and most desperate to fit in. Unfortunately, with a primarily cishet female, white, able-bodied, and college-educated pool of teachers, this influence may be for the worse. This group is the group to shape students ideas of how they or their parents should look and act in an America where white, straight, rich and able-bodied people are still upheld as the golden standard. This group is so often unhelpful when the really tough questions come up--the ones that make or break a student's desire to succeed in school, the ones that at their core ask "do I belong here?" or "is the way I'm feeling valid?" This group is ill-equipped to handle transitioning students, first-gen students, students of color, and all others who don't fit neatly into the Guess Who board. This group needs to change, so that students can find mentors to connect with and rely on. Bae is getting ready to start her second year at Stanford University where she is the Co-Chair of the student group Queer & Asian. See her beautiful and meticulous notes from class on Instagram at @its_the_bae_area. Photo (c) 2017 Kristin Leong Middle School Student African African American Female First Generation American Q: What do you have in common with your teachers? A: I have moved to various different schools in three different school districts and most of my teachers did not relate to me by where I came from. I had mostly girl teachers. I had one teacher that was a male in the first grade. However, all of my teachers were white. While I was born in America, my mom and dad were born in Kenya and they moved to America for work. Now I can tell you that none of my teachers were African so it was hard to relate to them culture-wise. Although some teachers I could get something in common with. For example, my fourth grade teacher loved to read and write and get creative, so I could talk with her about books and poets and get to know her and create a bond. But then I moved to a new school and that bond had been mostly broken and I had to create another bond with another teacher in a new school. All my teachers had various personalities so it was hard to pick out every piece of myself to understand how to talk and relate to them. None of my teachers really tried to get to know me better, or to ask me question about myself or childhood or anything, and they didn’t really take much care in telling about themselves and showing me a side of them. There were even times when I could not talk to my friends or I could not make friends so easily partly because I moved a lot and partly because I did not relate to other kids. What I had with my teachers was not much but I seemed to connect to the other staff much more. The office assistant was an African American so sometimes I would like talking to her and have help from her. Another thing that helped is that my mom was mostly in the school I went to so I could talk to her but sometimes you might want to get away from your mom and talk to someone new. Q: Does it matter that students and teachers have things in common? A: I think it is very important for teachers to have something in common with their students. Coming from a person who has moved to many schools, for me, I think it would have been easier to learn from my teachers if I did connect to them. Although having differences with my teachers did start up conversations about my different experiences. Also, I got to learn a little more about their culture and what they liked and how it even related to my experiences even though we are from two different places. The only thing that bothered me a little is that my teachers were usually all from the same place and the same culture so when I kept moving I was thinking maybe I would learn something new and I didn’t. But I learned their likes and hobbies. I had one teacher who was a little tough on the kids and I thought to myself, maybe if I started a conversation with her I can get her perspective, but I never found anything in common with her. Later on that made me realize the importance of having something in common with someone. Middle School Student Male First Generation American Q: What do you have in common with your teachers? A: When we first immigrated to the United States, I was only three-years-old and I had just learned how to speak my primary language--Turkish. At the playground, while the other kids played Bakugan, Pokémon, and Beyblade, I just sat in the corner and watched. When the time came to go to pre-K, I did not know what to do. This was because I had just mastered Turkish, which made it harder to learn a second language without mixing the words up. In addition, it looked like every kid around me was a master at English. Apparently, my teacher was just as I was. She had also just moved to the United States a couple years before. My pre-K teacher knew what I was going through, so she gave me extra support. She taught me almost everything I needed to know. Eventually, by the time I went to Kindergarten, I was the first kid there who learned how to read. On one of my first experiences with the American school system, I learned that having things in common with your teachers is very important. Q: Does it matter that students and teachers have things in common? A: Of course! It does not matter how many similarities you may have with your teachers. Any similarities can help start a bond between the two. As a student, I think it is very important to have similarities between each other. By having similarities with your teachers, this creates a friendship that is very important to have. Additionally, I think it is much easier to learn from a person who has similarities with you, know or trust versus a person who you have never seen in your life. |
ROLL CALLHumanizing the gaps separating teachers and students. Archives
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