It’s official, I’m officially official! I’m sure there’s a different and, perhaps, more appropriate forum to share my thoughts, but I’m taking some liberty to do so here. So, bear with me as I share one of the highlights of my week. For the past 7 years or so, I’ve been trying to work as either a teacher or an administrator in an urban school. For those unfamiliar, urban is PC for Black or predominantly minority. The majority of my teaching experience has been in magnet schools for gifted and academically talented students. While the schools were diverse, they’ve all been predominantly White school environments. Black admin of the schools I wanted to work in would look at my resume and ask, ‘uh, why do you want to work here?’ and White admin responded “we’d love to have you!” And, so, there you have it. I suppose some background points would be helpful to better understand me and why it’s such a big deal to me. So here’s part of Shantah’s story… While applying for medical school, I, we learned we were pregnant with our 2nd set of twins whom I affectionately refer to as ‘my little detours.’ My husband had just started law school and somebody had to take care of the babies. Well, thank the Lord for daycare, I don’t sit still very well! I returned to school and found myself in the psychology department at UF where I met Dr. Tucker or Dr. T. In short, she changed my entire professional career path in just one conversation and I’ve been chipping away at my big ol’ rock of Gibraltar ever since. As her research assistant, I learned how significant the interaction between children’s health/well-being and academic achievement was for all children, but, specifically, for children of color. Our research focused on teaching teachers how to create classroom environments which fostered trust, respect and high expectations for diverse populations. In real talk, we taught White teachers how to, not only relate to their Black American students, but, how important it was to include their students’ experiences in their teaching so that students see how the content relates to their real lives. Yes, sadly, this has to be taught. Still. Ultimately, from her, I learned that mastery teaching is both an art and a science; and, our work as educators (teachers and school leaders) is to not only model both forms, but to create best practices which positively impact our children’s achievement for others to learn and apply in their given learning environments. After working with Dr. T, I had decided that I’d work in every level of education (instructional, non-instructional and administrative) so that I would know first hand how what we, as educators, did effected academic performance. I’ve worked at every level of education and within a relatively short amount of time, however, I didn’t have the experience of working in an urban school, which matters; it’s like street credibility. Lemme cut cross the field. I’ll spare you the detailed analysis of research on multicultural education, the positive effects of minority educators teaching advanced/college prep math and science courses on closing the achievement gap for all students, yada yada yah. Instead, I’ll share some short clips of two other Black researchers who have committed their life’s work to this mission. Your girl, Shantah, is finally teaching at an urban school with a real Black principal! Virtual fist bumps and high fives are welcome I’m teaching IB Biology (seniors) and biology honors (freshman) at Ed White Sr. High School and I couldn’t be more excited! People thought I was crazy for leaving my AP position, but I had to go for this challenge, this opportunity! These students have no idea how great my expectations are for this to be the most amazing year of their entire high school career. My goal is to have the greatest gains and highest IB performance in the state. Dare I mention 180 days of Wu-Tang, Mos Def, and A Tribe Called Quest. It’s going to be on and poppin’! I’ll spend the remainder of my day finishing up my vision board, but I wanted to share my happy heart news with a few good FB folks! Have a great weekend!
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 15:57:55 +0000
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