It was hard to earn her praise,which reminded me of the limitedpraise in my own South Asianhousehold. I craved the easy praise Igot from other teachers, but workedharder to earn her praise, and herclassroom had a familiar unfamiliarityto it. Her primary focus was on studentgrowth, not student entertainment. Icredit her for my own early and lastingfocus on high expectations in theclassroom.As a teacher, what is one thing youcan’t live without?Down time away from people! Mystudents and many of my colleagueswould never believe it, but I’mextremely introverted. I can easilyflip a switch and become incrediblyextroverted, talkative, social, and evenlead equity presentations in front ofhundreds of people, but I recharge bybeing away from people, sometimesfor days. I take international vacationsalone (I’m actually typing theseresponses from my hotel in Panama,where I’m working on improving mypretty impressive Spanish skills, giventhat I’ve never taken a Spanish class).At lunchtime and during planningtimes during the school day, I canalmost always be found in a room witha door closed, far away from otherhumans. I’m learning that introvertededucators aren’t necessarily rare; wejust don’t tend to talk about it, but Ilove finding others who can relate.As a teacher of color what arewhite spaces. I’m not suggesting that my limited experiencesome of your biggest challenges? How have youin such spaces is indicative of most or all white spaces,overcome them?but I’ve just dealt with situations that didn’t occur in moreHaving mostly taught in rather diverse settings, I recentlydiverse settings. I’ve noticed that in predominantly whitetook a detour and found myself teaching in predominantlyspaces with few classroom teachers of color, I havemore students who are not used to consistently highexpectations, and more caregivers who wish to shieldchildren from challenge, productive struggle, and toughtopics.
It seems that your browser's pop-up blocker has prevented us from opening a new window/tab. Please click the button below to open the link manually.
