I'm really questioning the path I'm on at the moment. As a middle-aged, middle class white woman, (and a Canadian, to boot) who am I to walk into an American, urban, poor, predominantly African-American classroom full of middle school students and try to teach them anything?
Who do I think I am?
The problems I see in the lives of these kids are unreal to me. They're the stuff of late night news reports and tragic newspaper articles.
What am I doing?
I guess my answer is, I'm there to attempt to give them voices that they otherwise wouldn't have, in terms of expressing themselves through the arts. It all sounds great, but the reality? I don't know if I'm making an impact. I'm an itinerant teacher who goes from school to school for a week at a time, attempting to cram theatre arts and self expression into the short hour a day that's allocated for me. I know that today, I reached a few kids, for a few minutes. I think. I hope.
I'm also there to give a shit about the kids. That's something, too, isn't it? Because I do care. I care a lot.
Maybe that's enough.
And the Oscar Goes to. . . .Yawn
2 years ago
Sadly, the problem is that teachers have become expected to do so much more than actually TEACH. Who you think you are is an educator--nothing more, nothing less--and frankly, that should be enough. You're there to educate and enrich, not to save. The saving is incidental.
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