Read on Twitter
We need more teachers who live in and belong to the communities where they teach. Otherwise, we'll continue to have situations like the one I'm about to describe.
I once attended a faculty meeting where a colleague aggressively complained about a Latina student. During his rant, he consistently and flagrantly mispronounced her name.
That is a form of degradation.
That is a form of degradation.
I said to him, "You are mispronouncing her name," and then I modeled for him the appropriate pronunciation. Of course, it incensed him to be corrected by a Latina in front of others and so he snapped, "I *don't care* how her name is pronounced. I care that she does her homework."
If a student's teacher doesn't care about her basic humanity, how can she learn in his classroom? In an environment hostile to one's *very existence* it becomes a struggle to merely survive.
The same teacher then went on to make disparaging remarks about the neighborhood to which our school belongs, repeatedly calling it "very ugly." I finally said to him, "I live in this neighborhood. I own a house in this neighborhood."
The teacher looked at me pointedly and said, "Well, you have to admit that its UGLY."
The only ugly thing in that neighborhood that day was him.
The only ugly thing in that neighborhood that day was him.
