TeachingInColor FINAL DIGITALPages - Flipbook - Page 16
It was hard to earn her praise,
which reminded me of the limited
praise in my own South Asian
household. I craved the easy praise I
got from other teachers, but worked
harder to earn her praise, and her
classroom had a familiar unfamiliarity
to it. Her primary focus was on student
growth, not student entertainment. I
credit her for my own early and lasting
focus on high expectations in the
classroom.
As a teacher, what is one thing you
can’t live without?
Down time away from people! My
students and many of my colleagues
would never believe it, but I’m
extremely introverted. I can easily
flip a switch and become incredibly
extroverted, talkative, social, and even
lead equity presentations in front of
hundreds of people, but I recharge by
being away from people, sometimes
for days. I take international vacations
alone (I’m actually typing these
responses from my hotel in Panama,
where I’m working on improving my
pretty impressive Spanish skills, given
that I’ve never taken a Spanish class).
At lunchtime and during planning
times during the school day, I can
almost always be found in a room with
a door closed, far away from other
humans. I’m learning that introverted
educators aren’t necessarily rare; we
just don’t tend to talk about it, but I
love finding others who can relate.
As a teacher of color what are
white spaces. I’m not suggesting that my limited experience
some of your biggest challenges? How have you
in such spaces is indicative of most or all white spaces,
overcome them?
but I’ve just dealt with situations that didn’t occur in more
Having mostly taught in rather diverse settings, I recently
diverse settings. I’ve noticed that in predominantly white
took a detour and found myself teaching in predominantly
spaces with few classroom teachers of color, I have
more students who are not used to consistently high
expectations, and more caregivers who wish to shield
children from challenge, productive struggle, and tough
topics.
