A Tale of Collective Achievement

Abstract

When I first started teaching public school in New York City over a decade ago, I was concerned with how I would be perceived as an African American male elementary school teacher in a climate where most of the teachers in public schools were, and still are, white females. I will never forget when I was a student teacher at the same school the year before one morning a visibly shaken Latina mother approached me as I was taking down desks off the tables saying, “I know this is a progressive school and all, but I have to draw the line at this.” She handed me what appeared upon first glance to be the classified section of a local newspaper that was filled with ads of naked women (except for strategically placed black dots covering certain parts of their anatomy) and I looked at her with a puzzled look. She then told me that her son–who had come into the classroom a few minutes before she arrived and was, at the moment, on the other side of the classroom at the lizard tank in the science area–was looking at these pages of ads at their home and he told her that I had given it to him.