Tuesday, September 29, 2020

I taught about being anti-racist yesterday and now I want to quit


Ok so I never post here (I mostly lurk and hand out awards haha.) I am having the worst day in my teaching career and that’s a pretty big deal because I have had A LOT of bad days. As we all have.For context, I teach 1st grade and we are totally virtual. I have two white students in my class, and I am white.Many of my students had been asking me about Black Lives Matter last week, and it was weighing on me to do a lesson about racism. I did some research and found a lesson on TPT about the PICTURE book Chocolate Me! It’s a great book and I’ve read it before. So yesterday I was “building background knowledge” and talking about what racism is and how it’s kind of like bullying. A lot of kids shared stories about experiencing racism, and I thought it was a pretty great lesson.Fast forward to today, while I am teaching, mind you, a parent texts me and says that I had no business bringing racial issues into my classroom, and that him and his wife have taught their daughter not to “see color” and I should leave the teaching up to them. I wanted to respond “Ok, so why is she in my class? Homeschool.” But I didn’t and let admin know.During my prep I get a 3-way call from my principal and assistant principal basically asking what the lesson was, what the parent said, and that they would address the issue with the parent. I never got an update.I move on with my day and then after school, I get a text from my other white parent telling me they needed to know if my “racist” lesson was part of curriculum because if it wasn’t they were going to report me to the board. Clearly the two parents talked.Now, after being on the phone with my assistant principal for hours sending her my lesson and materials from yesterday, I have a meeting with all admin tomorrow about “straying from the curriculum” and I’m just FRICKIN’ TIRED.Like I said earlier, I teach mostly minorities. I have TWO white students in my classroom. Those TWO students didn’t care about what I was saying, their parents who hover and scrutinize everything I teach got mad, and now I will probably never be allowed to talk about racism again because of their white privilege. Oh and curriculum.I need help, words, hugs, anything.EDIT: Ok this actually may not be my WORST day because a lot of shitty things happen as a teacher, but this sucks. via /r/Teachers https://ift.tt/3mYXhqt

No comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts