TeachingInColor FINAL DIGITALPages - Flipbook - Page 31
“I can talk to parents on the
phone and then when they meet me;
they are shocked,” Bartlett says.
Maybe they are not used to
seeing someone who looks like her
in her position. Maybe they are not
Teachers of Color across
North Carolina
expecting the changing hairstyles
and hair colors. Maybe, like her
middle school teachers when she moved from Virginia to
North Carolina as a child and was supposed to be put in
Math I, they assume she is not capable or ready.
“Being a teacher of color, I have to prove that I am
knowledgeable of what I am knowledgeable of,” Bartlett
confided.
For Saletta Ureña, a World Language teacher from
0% to
10%
11% to
20%
21% to
30%
31% to
40%
more than
40%
another can be daunting.
“As a male teacher of color, they always look at you
to be one thing sometimes — to be the disciplinarian.
To hold them down. But I’m not just a disciplinarian,”
Greensboro, throughout her 20 years in the profession, the
Sutton says. “I’m a whole educator first and this is what I’m
slights have had a similar hue.
bringing to the table.”
“Walking into a staff meeting, it was evident that some
Another challenge comes when trying to stand in
people did not feel like they needed to listen to you. Like
solidarity with students of color and give space for them to
you were not as important of a speaker even though the
reckon with the social issues and injustices that take place,
Language Arts teacher just spoke and everyone was quiet.
Ureña says.
And then you speak after them and your colleagues start
“What teachers of color will probably consistently
talking,” she remembers. “And it’s like, ‘don’t do that to me.’
struggle with is identity and inclusion. School buildings are
Or you go into a parent teacher conference and from the
accepting of your talents and convey the message that you
beginning the parents are consistently undercutting your
are wanted. ‘We want you to be here. You have athletic
expertise. They tell you what they have Googled about
prowess–you can coach, you are a little sassy, you can sing
curriculum or pedagogy, or they tell you what their good
so we can use you in the teacher choir, something like that
friend that teaches in California recommends that you teach
but leave all other aspects of ethnic identity to the side. Do
instead.”
not discuss current events, discrimination or injustices. We
Sometimes there is the subtext, sometimes it is more
blatant like a conversation with the administration about
appearance or curriculum choice, teachers of color say.
don’t want you to talk about it. We don’t want to hear about
[that],’” she says.
“There were definitely environments for me as a
Always, there is the weight of having to navigate two
teacher of color that when something happened I was
extremes.
told ‘shh, don’t talk about it,’” Ureña added. “I was just
“Being a teacher of color — a black and male teacher
expected to go on with my grammar lesson as if this huge
of color — has not been an easy journey. On one end, you
monumental moment was not a reality for me, or a reality
have one group that looks at you and they gravitate to you
for many of the kids I was teaching.”
the most because not only are you serving as a teacher
for them, you’re serving as a father figure, you’re serving
as a bigger brother, you’re serving as a mentor. You’re in
Teaching in these times
other roles than that one group but not only in the building
At a time when students of color are experiencing
but outside the building,” Sutton says, adding, “You have
disproportionate adverse outcomes due to the COVID-19
people who are not from your community who are not
pandemic and teachers of color are battling with policies
people of color who don’t understand that struggle. It’s like
you have to work extra hard just to prove yourself to them.”
Dealing with colleagues who underestimate
them on one hand and misplace their expectations on
