This February, students across the country celebrated Black History Month. They read books by black authors, wrote research papers on civil rights activists, memorized Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech and watched videos about the Underground Railroad. And as they learned about the struggle of the past, they began to recognize it in their own present – when a cashier squints suspiciously when they walk into a store, when they turn on the news and see another person who looks like them lose his life to senseless violence. These lessons are anything but history.
My students know this well. They are bright and talented, but many of them never considered college or trade school a viable option after high school. They just didn’t know many people that had gone to college, and it wasn’t part of the narrative they had heard from society about what was possible for people that looked like them.
In the face of this reality, we have no time to waste. This school year marked the first in which the majority of public school students are minorities. Our generation has a responsibility to work to ensure each and every one of them is moving through a system that affirms their identities, shows them they’re valued and allows them access to the opportunities they have been denied for far too long.
While the “whites only” signs of the 1960s have come down, the reality of separate and unequal endures. Alongside glaring gaps in educational, employment and economic opportunity, people of color in this nation face a variety of subtler, no less damaging assumptions. A successful black lawyer hears whispers of affirmative action. A young black boy on a corner is seen as lurking, while his white peers hang out. A black college student is asked to give the black perspective to a seminar full of white students who are never asked to speak on behalf of their entire race.
In spite of these injustices, my kids have the potential to do incredible things. That’s why I push them so hard to reach our classroom’s high expectations. They tell me they want to go to college, so I hound them about staying on track to apply. Every day, I wake up in the morning determined to do everything I can to make sure my students have opportunities to do what they want to do. I want their futures to be shaped by choices they make, not circumstances or chance.
I joined Teach For America because serving on student government at Mississippi State University opened my eyes to all that was possible for me. It was truly a life-changing experience, and I wanted to give other kids like me growing up in Mississippi access to the same type of rewarding, fulfilling experiences. Every child — no matter the color of his skin or the number on her parents’ paycheck — deserves this.
We have a long way to go as a country before we truly achieve justice for all. To fix the systematic oppression that has created the gross inequality of the present will take the hard, dedicated work of countless leaders and change-makers — many that have experienced it first-hand, others who bear witness to it from further away. We must work toward these long-term changes as well as the immediate, urgent opportunities to change the way our students view themselves and their futures.
As educators, we can play a central role in this. Every day we can remind our kids that their thoughts, ideas, identities and opinions are important. We can share our own stories so that when our kids look to the front of the room, they see a little bit of themselves reflected back. We can remind them they matter. They always have and they always will.
