Prompt #4

First Day of Tutoring Checklist

Purse? Check.
Wallet? Keys? Pen? Checkity check check.
Notebook and tracking sheet? Check twice over.
Personal history/bias? Big check.

Walking into the classroom on Day One, I wasn't walking in empty handed by any means. I had taken the race test which showed I had a moderate preference for European-Americans. I had previous tutoring experience within the school district, and I had my experience in an urban education system for the duration of my K-12 schooling.

Since I started school in kindergarten, I was exposed to a multicultural and diverse classroom setting. I lived right down the street from "the projects", and my school's section of city contained a few different neighborhoods; mine, which was mostly apartment buildings, "the projects", and beyond both of those was an area of single family homes. This resulted in students from different socioeconomic statuses.

I knew all the racial slurs (save for a few) by the time I was eight years old, and even called one classmate a derogatory term for someone who is homosexual, even though I didn't have a clue what it meant; I just knew that everyone else called him that. I was eight and wanted to be just like everyone else.

I am not saying all of this to say that urban schooling is dirty, or inattentive to issues going on within the classroom. I was disciplined for the homosexual slur as soon as he told the teacher. Rather, I am considering this as my personal history. I have experience in a multicultural classroom as a student and after this semester, as a teacher and mentor to the children of my class.

I cam into this tutoring position consciously trying to eliminate any bias I could; Hispanics are loud and obnoxious, African-Americans are lazy and never work hard to achieve something, and Asians are extremely smart (just a few of many). I wanted to come into the classroom with no expectations other than the best of every student. Every student is their own individual self and does not represent the whole of the group to which they belong.

One of the major challenges I will face as a teacher is communication with my students and whoever is there for the students' support systems at home. I have already addressed this in a previous prompt, but I will stress again that communication with a students and their parent/guardian/main support system is crucial in their schooling and success.

I believe that with my experience in a multicultural urban school district as a child, I will be able to address the needs of students in such a system, should I decide to teach in one, better than someone who only experienced a mostly homogeneous school setting because I will be able to draw on actual situations that I have been on the opposite side of (aka being the student as opposed to being the teacher). I will be able to ask the student who calls another "faggot" if he/she knows what the term actually implies and whether he/she thinks the other student felt good when they were called a derogatory name.

If I had come from a school system that was not diverse or multicultural, I think I could have possibly come across the same situations that I did, but the chances I would have would have been much slimmer, and I don't think I would feel as comfortable on the "teacher side" of the situation because I probably wouldn't have ever been on the "student side" of the situation.