Orlando schools need more black teachers.
Too often, when I set foot on a school campus in Orlando’s low-income communities, it conjures the memories and frustrations of my own educational experience. I see a diverse student body but not enough African-American teachers reflecting that diversity.
Growing up in Orlando, I longed to see more adults in my school who looked like me and shared my heritage. Instead, the adults in the building rarely reflected the students in class. I hungered for African-American role models when I was a child. It became a driving force in my decision to become a teacher myself. Despite the incredible diversity of the nation’s students, only 7 percent of public school teachers are black. Seven percent is not enough, and I believe that all modern classrooms are paying a profound price.
As black woman and as a Teach For America corps member in my first year of teaching, I experience the challenging, rewarding role of a middle-school educator. I also witness the many ways in which classrooms have yet to change since I was a middle-schooler. Like the classrooms I sat in as a public-school student, they are still designed to teach students to silence the complexities of their identities. As a result, schools and teachers are losing the ability to give individual students an education that also offers an understanding of where their power truly lies.
Simply put, we need teachers who do not strip away their identities at the door. We must prepare teachers to acknowledge their own backgrounds and biases and celebrate the cultural richness of their students. We need teachers who can offer students an emotionally and physically safe classroom that inspires them to lead, and who can empower our students to understand race, power and privilege. These are imperatives for teachers of all backgrounds, but black teachers have an additional, powerful role to play as they demonstrate the power and potential that black students have inside themselves.
When I was in school, I used to believe that all of my teachers were the most intelligent people. To me, they knew everything. But having had only two black teachers in my entire public education experience, I equated intelligence to the “whiteness” of my other teachers. I believed that in order for me to be smart, I must literally perform “whiteness.” I believed I had to deny an aspect of who I was to be smart and successful.
If we truly want to put an end to racism, we need black teachers to empower and represent the students that look like them. Equally important, we also need students who enjoy privileges to experience black role models in the classroom, so that all of our nation’s future leaders, regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds, respect the value of diverse identities, experiences and perspectives. All students need black teachers.
In this latter half of my first year of teaching, I’m beginning to understand that as a teacher I am just one part of a movement to dismantle the entrenched systemic barriers that disproportionately limit AfricanAmerican students’ access to the educational opportunities that allow them to build a future of their choosing. It takes a village, but my role is impactful, and it’s important — I can offer a loving classroom that makes them feel safe to express themselves. No matter their color, I have opened the floor to encourage meaningful discussions about race and to understand our country’s systems of power and privilege. This is the education I needed — one that couldn’t be confined by the walls of a classroom, or the fences of a school yard, because it inspires change. But, again, this kind of education wouldn’t have been revelatory only for me, or even just for my black students.
All students need black teachers.
Black teachers demonstrate the power and potential that black students have inside themselves.