Monthly Archives: July 2013

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That Racism Over There, or, the Fetishization of Racism

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It’s weird being in a city where there are so many publications reporting on so many different stories. Back home, I can literally read every news source for local news in any given day. That’s virtually impossible in a place like Chicago.

Today, one of our mentors directed some of my peers to an online blog’s report of an alleged crime committed on July 4th. The blog reported that a black 18-year-old man allegedly stole a woman’s phone. It identified this 18-year-old as a student who graduated at my mentor’s school. The article is very slanted and, well, racist, portraying the recent graduate as a thug. Certainly, stealing is wrong and, if he did in fact steal the phone, he should be reasonably punished. But this article judged this young man by this one, albeit very dumb, action, and attempted to paint a picture of the young man as someone with a history of problem behavior. And the comments are worse–there are literally too many comments to count of the “there goes the neighborhood because of those people” type. (I didn’t post the original article here because I’m so ashamed by its bad journalism that I can’t bear to signal boost it.)

In my CMA group, we had a moment of righteous anger while one member of our group read the article and the comments. And while it felt good to have an example of relatively clear right and wrong in front of me, it also made me a little uncomfortable. I’m not completely sure why, but I think it has to do with the privilege it gives me. By observing and noting someone’s blatant racism, I get to distance myself from racism. I get to feel better about myself. What I’m actually feeling when I think about the young man’s trial is not empathy for the hate he is experiencing but rather relief that I am not as racist as those people.

One of my favorite writers, Ta-Nehisi Coates, writes about how most racist people are good people because Coates interprets racism broadly. It is not restricted to anonymous comments on a blog. It also occurs every time I make an unwarranted assumption about someone based on their race or when I’m complicit in someone else’s racism.

In some ways, then, observing the kind of bigoted racism that is so easy to find on the Internet is a form of fetishization for me. It enables me to experience relief about my own insecurities. It allows me to box racism in and other it, pushing it far away from me. It’s terrible that this young man has to endure the kind of racism that has been aimed at him, but racism is not fixed by a room full of college graduates groaning over anonymous comments. It’s fixed by every single person examining personal assumptions, biases, prejudices, and, yes, racism.

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The Long Game

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Tomorrow I’m teaching equations with variables on both sides. My CMA (corps member adviser) has asked me to redo my lesson plan. She is concerned that my current plan limits creativity and devolves math to rote memorization. She’s absolutely right.

I’m having a lot of issues walking the line between wanting to make concepts as easy as possible for my students and letting them develop their own logic and creativity. I have a list of fifty objectives I was asked to make a good faith effort to get through in 19 instructional days (each with 100 minutes of instruction), and it’s immensely tempting to boil down each objective to steps to be memorized and speed through two or three a day.

But, also, my students are all enrichment, meaning that all twenty-five of them are going to be getting Algebra in the fall. And so one of my visions for the class is that, above all else, students will be able to think critically–to work difficult problems out that they haven’t seen before just by knowing how math works. If my students leave me with that ability, they will be in really good shape to succeed in Algebra next year.

My CMA calls this playing the long game. Obviously, achieving mastery on my objectives is important, but if I keep my class challenging (providing the right kind of support, of course), I can teach my students that math is much more than a rote skill. And that, in the long game, is more important.

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Here Is Real

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I’m going to be honest: I’m not totally sure how I’m going to use this blog. When I started it, I was cynical. I knew that TFA wasn’t perfect. I knew that I myself had joined for some very selfish reasons. And so I thought I would try to point attention to it in every post. I would try to poke holes in TFA’s glamorous veneer in an effort to find salvation for myself. If I said often enough that I did not agree completely with TFA, perhaps I would not be blamed.

I thought maybe I would write about my students. But their stories aren’t mine to tell. The things they say in class, the math concepts with which they struggle, the math concepts they’ve mastered, and the lives they lead are not owned by me.

I thought maybe I would write about how horrible of a teacher I am. (Because I am oh so bad after just two days.) But that didn’t feel professional. And it’s not news. This is my first time really teaching. I’m going to be bad. No one is great at the beginning. (What other profession constantly tells the world how bad they are? What other profession is expected to?) I’m going to get better.

I’m crazy about saying something original. About being someone who gains some kind of fame for my words, for critiquing TFA from the inside, for being insanely honest. But the truth is that any post like that (like the first post I drafted in this one’s place) is about me trying to find acceptance. I want TFA-critics to think of me as the exception. But I’m no exception. I’m just Mr. Smith.

I’m so exhausted from critiquing. My students need quality lesson plans. They need a teacher who fully believes in what he’s doing. They need to learn Algebra. So that’s what I’m going to do. No more wondering if I’m in the right place or not. That’s the difference between being here and pontificating in a dorm room. Here is real.