Sept. 7, 2005
A 9th grade girl asked me last Friday in front of the whole class, “Miss, I want to know how come you wanted to be a teacher and work with bad kids?”
The class went quiet for a second. I was speechless. I wanted to ask her why she thought this group of kids was “bad.” I wanted to know if she thought of herself as “bad,” what the word “bad” meant to her.
My gut instinct was to say, “You’re not bad kids. Don’t ever call yourself bad kids.” Maybe she was referring to the age group — the boisterous, hormone-driven demographic called “teenagers.”
Luckily, I stayed silent because then a few kids said “We’re not bad kids” under their breaths.
How is it that my students in New Haven think of themselves as “bad”? Where do they get this impression? Why is it okay for them to come in labeling themselves as “bad”? And they own that label.
How can I get them to remove it?
Today in History class, my class got into a discussion about white privilege and dominant culture. These are 10th grade students, and, I swear to you, I’ve never been in a discussion that has silenced me more than with these students. Even in grad school I was never as silent.
I heard them call themselves “minorities.”
Granted, when we talk about numbers, perhaps the term “minority” applies to a group of people who numerically are fewer than the majority. But my students were referring to themselves as cultural minorities. What a loaded term: minority. It implies a “less than” status.
I don’t want to hear them say that they are “less than” another group. I don’t want them to believe they can’t do things because of who they are. But here I am, listening to their voices, listening to them believe they are “bad,” and listening to them believe — as one of my students said, “all we have to do is prove to white people we can be better than we are.”
My god. I don’t even know what to say to this.