When was the first time you had a teacher whose race or ethnicity was different from your own? Reflecting now, did that experience impact your thoughts or feelings about the world or education? by Paul de Barros

MsDozier — 2025-01-13 22:06:55 UTC

Dominique:

When I started third grade, my teacher was from Germany. He always ended class by counting to ten in German and saying, "Auf Wiedersehen." It was different. I didn’t think much of it at the time because I remember seeing all the different teachers in the auditorium. Looking back, I now value having had the chance to experience PreK, Kindergarten, and first through second grade with African American teachers. It wasn’t until middle school that I had another African American teacher. But I appreciated being in his class and having the opportunity to learn from someone with a different worldview and perspective. This should be essential in education to promote diversity and inclusion.

pdebarros — 2025-01-13 22:21:49 UTC

I grew up in a blue-collar town where neighborhoods were basically segregated, but not the public schools. My kindergarten teacher was a Black woman and her assistant was a white woman, and the class was very diverse, unlike my neighborhood. I remember noticing, and my mom said, "well, some people have white skin and some people have black skin." So, as a 5-year old, I just took it in as another simple fact of the world, like some people have blond hair. I learned that a Black woman could be in charge of things, that a Black person could be the boss of a white person, and that kids just played together. The next year I went to a Catholic school with 500 students and only 2 black students. I noticed that too and thought it was strange. When there was an assignment to write a story What are Hands For, I traced my hands, and thinking of my friend Frank from kindergarten, colored one pink and one black, which seemed matter of fact to me, but the teacher made a fuss - not really a negative one, more like how could I have come up with such a novel idea. Much later in my professional life, I attended a diversity workshop where the question above was asked. I was appalled how many attendees had not had a Black teacher until college, and they were shocked I'd had a Black teacher in kindergarten. I still think about Mrs. Perkins and the world I entered in kindergarten, and wonder how different my perception of the world might be if I had not had the great fortune of being one of her students.

2025-01-13 23:40:09 UTC

The first teacher I can recall whose ethnicity differed from mine was Mr. Chow, who taught a creative writing class that I took in summer school, while I was in high school. He was Chinese American and a published poet. Those two facts are hard to separate in my mind, because he expanded the possibilities in my mind of what a teacher could be in a lot of different ways. He didn't really focus much on his ethnicity in the way he taught the class, though it might have expanded the choices he made in the poems and stories he had us read as part of the class. He was the first teacher I can remember to introduce me to very contemporary literature by living authors, some of whom definitely challenged the status quo.

My first experience with a black person in a teaching position happened the summer after I graduated from high school. This was at a four-week summer music camp at the University of the Pacific. The teachers changed every week, and one of the weeks the teacher in charge of the choral program was a black man. He had us singing spirituals and other choral literature that was different than what I had sung in music classes in school up to that point. He was a well-known and highly respected figure in the field of choral education, and I'm sure my opportunity to work with him that week expanded my notions of the songs people sing in choruses in many ways.

2025-01-14 11:07:46 UTC

Growing up in Germany all my teachers were white. In my hometown of 5000 there lived two black children. Their dads were in the US military. The first teacher I had who was of a different ethnicity than myself was Dr. William McDonald at the German Department at the University of Virginia, where I studied in my junior year. He taught medieval German. I found it surprising that this was his chosen area of interest and expertise. I was too shy to ask him why this was the case. He was a great teacher, we had good times.

2025-01-14 21:00:17 UTC

I was born in Maryland, but I spent my first few years in the Philippines, where I attended school up until the end of 1st grade. All my teachers were Filipino and they looked like me (i won't touch upon the issue of colorism in the Philippines....).

When i moved back here for second grade, I don't think I recall a single teacher that looked like me...

This was also in Orange County so who knows. I tell people this all the time that I didn't think about my race and it's impact on my life until i started my first full time job out of Library School. it just wasn't top of mind for me.

In some ways I feel behind on that journey - like everyone had these transformative life experiences while i lived my sheltered little life in OC.

2025-01-14 21:54:51 UTC

I went to a lot of different schools growing up, including a magnet school in a primarily Black neighborhood. The magnet programs were essentially a way of trying to integrate San Diego schools by bussing students from different neighborhoods, which were pretty segregated. My teacher there was also Black. She would talk a lot about the Civil Rights protests and marches that she had participated in, and directly about race, which I hadn't experienced anywhere else. I learned a lot by being the 'minority' in the room.

2025-01-14 22:06:13 UTC

What comes to mind for me are the two leaders of a youth group I was part of starting in elementary school. Though they weren't classroom teachers, both of these women were teachers and mentors and role models in important other ways for me. The organization was similar to Girl Scouts, with a group that met regularly outside of school for service to community, learning, personal development, and peer connections. Lourdes and Jackie are both women of color, and my teachers up to that point (and after) had been predominantly white. Their leadership and mentorship taught be a lot about inclusion and creating spaces for students/mentees to flourish and grow. Their commitment to community service and social justice also really informed me as a young person, looking back on it now.