Cast down your bucket

I have officially finished my first semester of grad school and I couldn't be happier with my decision to temporarily leave the classroom. For me, attending grad school was not an exit strategy to leave the classroom; rather an excuse to recharge, find a sustainable work-life balance, and, possibly most importantly, redefine and discover myself outside of my students in order to be a better educator in return.  This year, has not been without its own challenges, but has thus far lived up to the expectations: a rejuvenating, affirming, proliferating, and humbling experience.  More than ever, returning and remaining a classroom teacher is the ultimate professional goal. (Apologies to all those who have bet on me moving "up" into an administer role.)  

This semester, has forced me to check my ego at the door, exposing the gaps in my understanding of my students and reenforcing that as an educator, especially as a white female within a community outside my own, my learning and growth will never be over.  One of the main lessons I have gained has been the importance for educators to honestly be aware of who their students are.  It sounds simplistic and obvious; a teacher’s job description is to help facilitate learning of their students, so clearly they should know whom it is they are helping.  However, from my own experience, we tend to group our students together and make decisions based on the generalizations (often clouded by our own egos and perceptions) verses truly gaining a better awareness of who are students are and their needs both as students and individuals. 

As an example, when I moved from Chicago, a predominantly African American community, to NYC, a predominantly Latino community, I naively thought I would have little trouble adjusting.  I remember thinking I could use the same lessons, classroom structures and management styles which I employed in Chicago in NYC solely on basis that both schools were servicing, students who were from lower socio-economic minority communities.  How very wrong I was.  Despite the commonalities, my students in NYC had their own unique identities, strengths, and challenges defined by their individual experiences and histories.

Many of the readings and conversations I engaged within this semester highlighted the importance of continuing to broaden my understanding and perception of my students as members of a learning community as well a larger society.  I was encouraged to reflect on relationships with students of years past deconstructing our interactions based on who they were vs. who they appeared and I perceived them to be. In doing so, I have also begun to discover and uncover more about my own identity and insecurities as they relate to the realities of my students, despite the discomfort. 

In the book Radical Equations, Bob Moses, draws inspirations from Ella Baker, who in facilitating the organization of SNCC, taught organizers to “cast down your bucket where you are." Ella Baker urged organizers to become part of the community, learn from it, and become aware of its strengths, resources, concerns, and ways of doing business.  Bob Moses further explains, that the organizer does not have the complete answer in advance. Instead, the organizer wants to construct solutions with the community, understanding that the communities everyday concerns can be transformed into broader questions of general importance.  Most importantly the form of these questions and the actions that follow are not always known in advance.  The organizer helps the community members air their opinions, question one another, and then build consensus.  He goes on to note that this process is a long journey, one with ups and downs and push and pulls - equating the process to a young child who is learning how to walk.  This understanding of an organizer, encompasses my current journey as an educator.  

Since schools never exist outside of the communities in which they service, nor the teachers they employ, it seems natural to view the development of educators, schools and pedagogies similar to that of small or large community movements.  No matter the community, an educator that separates themselves from the rest of the community, blinded by their own ideal visions and research, risks neglecting to honestly cast down their bucket to see where they are in order to thus move forward.  Sometimes I wish there was a do-over button; go back, especially to those first years in Chicago. Instead, as I move forward, I will strive to cast down my bucket, see my students, in hopes to move forward together, as allies.

"Urban" Education: What's that?

Usually when I tell people that I am getting a masters degree in Urban Education, the common response is "Oh...what does that mean?"  If my brother is in ear shot of the conversation, he is not afraid to chime in and tell them bluntly that I am learning how to teach poor Black and Latino students.  The first time this happened, I was taken a back and felt the need to "soften" and expand on his response explaining how it's not just that, but it's looking at the social, cultural, political, and economic factors that play within urban schools and education, in attempt to make "urban" encompass more than just race and class. But even in my explanation, I realized I too used the word urban, allowing whomever was asking to define urban in whatever way they deem fit; colored with whatever serotypes they may already have had, while not actually ever defining it itself.

The more I learn, the more I understand what it means to be white in the US, and the more I am asked what it means for me to get a masters in Urban Education, the more I realize how accurate  my brother actually is in his response.  So, why then did I feel like his definition was callous and in need of softening, in need of an explanation, when in fact learning how to better facilitate the educational growth of Black & Latino students is exactly my intention?

I recently read an a couple of articles that I think begin to touch upon my discomfort.  In one of the articles, entitled "What Do You Mean When You Say Urban," the author Dyan Watson mentions that when interviewing 17 teachers about what were, if any, the differences between urban and non-urban teaching a teacher responded saying "To me, urban students come from an environment where they can't see the value of education.  They can't see why it matters because everyone one they know, everything that they do, has nothing to do with having an education." And here in lies why I think I was quick to expand on my brother's definition on urban.  Despite the ignorance, and falsity of the statement, this teacher's response is not an uncommon understanding of urban students and urban communities.  I admittedly also held a similar view in my first few months of ever teaching. However, the more I got to know my students and their families, I began to understand just how naive and wrong I was. So when my brother points out that these students are Black and Latino, I am quick to protect, and defend my students and their communities.  I do not want to perpetuate the stereotype that urban = poor Black and Latino communities who do not value education.  To an outsider the perception of issues connected with poverty and race might seem to overshadow a student's priority towards formal education, but that should not be equated to a student's or community's devaluation of education.  

What am I then getting a masters in, you ask....I am getting a masters in uncomfortably exploring my whiteness in contrast and connection to communities of color, in addition to talking about race and examining the social, cultural, political, and economic realities of students and communities of color in relationship to me, their teacher, and the role of public education and school in general, as well as engaging in discourse around how we as a larger community, through education, can better support the Black and Latino communities most in need.  

Yes, a masters in Urban Education is certainly shorter to say, but its title only speaks to its perception and stereotypes and not to its essence and true intention.