No one said life was going to be easy.

Suck it up and keep moving forward. If we get through the struggle we’ll be able to shine through our success. 

Today we talked about privilege, more specifically white privilege and had a true, honest conversation about it that stimulated my mind and had me deep in thought.

Some of the questions that came up:

1. What is it? How does it look?

2. And to me, the most important: how does this affect our students within the classroom. 

One of the comments that was addressed was that one of the students blatantly said that one of our corps members was better because she was white. A fifth grader, already has this mindset that white is better. As I was reflecting, I too realized that as a child, I felt the same way. 

As the conversation continued, we talked about how this affects our classroom and the topics covered in class. Key points:

1. Very little minority history is ever covered in class. I heard about Japanese people only twice: 1. Pearl Harbor 2. internment. THAT’S IT. How is this possible?! 

2. This point is one that I actually want to begin to implement and to start changing mindsets. Slavery is talked about all throughout education but what one of the corps members pointed out was that when talked about slaves are not addressed as PEOPLE. What she has begun to do is to stop saying “slave” and to begin saying “enslaved people” to remind students and remind ourselves that they were PEOPLE not just another piece of property. 

3. I currently work in a predominately Hispanic community, yet, inside the classrooms who is teaching? Primarily Caucasian women. My question, how can we encourage and inspire more minorities to pursue becoming educators? We need role models, we need teachers where minority students can feel represented.

Just some thoughts, great discussion that definitely needs to be explored further.

“I know you think this world is 

too dark to even dream in color, 

but I’ve seen flowers bloom at 

midnight.

I’ve seen kites fly in gray skies

and they were real close to 

looking like the sunrise,

and sometime it takes the most 

wounded wings

the most broken things

to notice how strong the breeze

is, 

how precious the flight”

-Andrea Gibson, “The Moon is a Kite”

I always like shows that end up getting cancelled.

This is why I shouldn’t even watch shows.