The City

I went on my first interview yesterday, I have two more this afternoon. It was overall an unique experience, in that some of the questions I was prepared for and some totally caught me off gaurd and a few were the classic interview questions that somehow still surprised me. The most unsettling question was this: "Some of our students have never had a white teacher before and it will be an issue in the classroom, how will you respond when the children start to call you names?"

Now, having gone to Buff State and lived in Porter hall where I got called names every day for being white, that part is not the unsettling part to me. Nor is any real classroom management issue because I'm a hardass and I'm fine with that. I'm not sure exactly why I was surprised by the question but I realized that it had never occured to me that some children never have white teachers. Why this hasn't made it into my brain...who knows... but it just was a totally foreign concept. So I sat there like a stump for a few seconds, reeling at the new info before pulling myself together and giving out a good teacher answer. Then the principal asked me if I understood the question, at which point I faltered because I thought I had but now I wasn't sure. He rephrased and added a translation of what the VP had said since he assumed I hadn't understood the slang she used in her original question. I smiled and then without thinking said, " Listen, I know I'm pale but I still know what's going on". This caused the entire room to laugh and relax and that was that.

I haven't been reminded of my whiteness in a long time, not since school #3, where the kids assured me that I wasn't white, I was pale. This was a critical difference to them and I learned slowly what they meant by it. Now, it seems I must start again with children who have no experience with white people, this is a scary thought. Am I up to this task? Am I a good ambassador? Can I relate and teach them well?

This is a really intense experience for me and I am filled with qualms but also excitement because I do think I can handle this. HH is very unhappy about the situation and actually threaten to get 3 jobs when i told her I went through a metal detector to get into school. I tried to tell her that this will be true of all the schools but she is having none of it. She has also threaten to make me wear a flack jacket to work. I think she is exagerating.....maybe.