My History vs. Student's History

Today I am responding to prompt four. My personal history might intersect with that of my students. I grew up in a small town. Our high school was all white and most people in the town were wealthy. My school experience was vastly different than of what the students in my school are experiencing. My school could afford books and my school may have been old, it was well kept. This school is run down and in desperate need of new supplies. When I become a teacher, I might teach in a district similar to this and I will understand that these students will not be experiencing what I did. I also had a very good home life. My parents are still together and I grew up well. My family might not have been the richest family in the neighborhood but I lived comfortably. These students might not have that luxury. Some of them come from working class families and they might not get to see their parents as much. Money might be a scarcity. Some of these students could come from a broken home. I'm not familiar with all of them enough to know how it is at home. I know one little boy he smelled really really bad one day. I wondered why his family let him out of the house smelling like that! It was in the morning too so it was clear he had not taken a shower in a couple days. The teacher would make fun of him which I didn't think was appropriate but I didn't say anything. The kid did not want to be made fun of but he really really need a shower. Where is his family? I wondered this all day.

I feel like my biggest advantaged as a teacher would be that I had a not bad experience in school. There were tons of things I just absolutely hated about my high school but knowing these things will help me make the students I teach a little better off because I can avoid the bad. Another advantage would be that I have taught children of all different ages and backgrounds throughout my life. I tutored 1st grade when I was in high school, I just tutored 6th grade for my service learning project, and I taught all levels of swim lessons when I worked for a YMCA. I taught inner city and small town settings. The children I tutored were very diverse and I feel like this makes me a stronger person and teacher because I truly believe that these children helped me open my mind. I learned (and still are learning) about different cultures and behaviors and I feel like this knowledge helps me teach better.

My biggest challenge would be that I have become authority to these children. I want to be in that position of power, however I also want my students to trust me. Sometimes teachers can be a bit intimidating and a child won't ask for academic help (or otherwise) if they really need it because they believe that the teacher just doesn't care. I will have to push the idea that the children can come to me if they need anything. I also might not understand everything they are going through because every one's experiences are different. This can be a big problem because I might not see something as a problem for a student but they might think it is horrible. I hope that more experience in the classroom will make me even more culturally knowledgeable and comfortable and help to ease the challenges.

As for misconceptions about cultural groups I have encountered, I'm not sure what to say. It is obvious that stereotypes are wrong and I can't really say I went to that school thinking a certain way about the children that lived there. I knew it was a poorer neighborhood and since I worked not far from the school at one time I knew who lived around there. So I had an idea of what I was faced with but I didn't think the worst. However, I did know that there was a police officer that did go to the school everyday. This made me think at first that there might be a lot of violence there. I did hear some pretty scary stories. One kid stabbed himself to try to blame it on someone else. One girl beat up another pretty bad a little while before I arrived one day. I was a little worried that I was going to have to see something really dramatic but things couldn't be more wonderful in my classes. All the periods are really well behaved. They tease each other a bit but that is normal for that age. I am really really proud of all of them for how good they behave because I had posted another day about that really horrible class I visited. So I guess you could say that the only misconception I had was that I thought the students might have behaved bad at times. They did get a little more impatient as the day went on but I am still impressed with how they behaved.