A Good Teacher

      Greg Michie, the author of Holler If You Hear Me, is a very inspiring figure for me.  He represents the exact kind of teacher I hope to be some day, and he reminds me of a few teachers in my life who have truly impacted me.  It is so evident throughout his writing that he cares deeply about his students, and I'm sure his students could feel that too when he was their teacher.
      Some people underestimate the importance of this quality in a teacher that Michie so clearly embodied.  In my opinion, however, it is absolutely the most essential quality of a truly good teacher.  There is nothing more motivating to students than knowing that their teacher cares about them, respects them, supports them, and is there for them.  Students can feel their teacher's evident desire for them to succeed, and it is a very powerful thing.
      The lack of this quality in a teacher can be quite detrimental.  I don't see how any teacher could be a great teacher or even a decent teacher without being like Greg Michie in this regard.  How can students learn from someone who clearly does not respect them or expect anything from them?  They can't.  When the bar is set low and the teacher expects the students to fail, it takes away any motivation for students to achieve.  They know that their teacher thinks they are failures and incapable of success, and this affects them greatly even if they do not notice it.  They will not try to do their best if no one expects much from them at all.

Stages in Racial Identity Development

      As the various stages of racial identity development were being described in class today, I was definitely able to relate certain memories of past instances in my life that somewhat "fit" a certain stage.  As a kid, I can recall a few times that I remember actually thinking about race.  I grew up in Wauwatosa, a suburb of Milwaukee, and my neighborhood was predominantly white.  I went to Catholic grade school which was also mainly whites.  For the most part in my early school age years, I probably would have fit into the category/stage of "acceptance of status quo."  I went to school with people who were "like me," so I did not have many diverse experiences.
      However, I think there were definitely a few times during that same general time where I did "notice" my whiteness, falling into the "uncomfortable" phase.  My dad's sister married a black man, my Uncle Claude, and I remember being confused when I was little as to how I had cousins who looked black.  My Uncle Claude is a really big, happy guy, so he would always play Santa at the family Christmas party.  Although I don't actually remember it, my family has told me that when I was 4 or 5 years old, I did not want to go sit on Santa's lap, because he didn't look like the Santa I was used to seeing so I was uncomfortable and confused.
      Now, as a college student in a diverse city and community, I feel as though I fit the "acceptance of self" stage.  I am comfortable being white, and I understand that not all white people are or have to be racist.  Also, I find myself very interested and excited about diversity and meeting new people who might be different from me.  One of my roommates is Hmong, and I love talking to her about her culture and learning about the Hmong religion.  However, although I would put myself into the acceptance of self stage overall, there are also some occasions that I revert back to previous stages.  Last year when I was picking up my 4 year old neighbor from daycare because I had to babysit, I remember a somewhat "uncomfortable" situation.  When I got there, I asked him if he had been a good boy that day.  His teacher was right near us, and he replied "yep I was. that brown lady told me so and she's my teacher."  He is obviously just an innocent little kid just saying things the way he sees them, but I still felt uncomfortable because I didn't know how to address the situation or if I even should.  His teacher started laughing and said that Parker has said that to her before, so it ended up being just fine.  However, I was definitely at least a little uncomfortable with how to handle it.

White Privilege

      In her article "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," Peggy McIntosh discusses the existence of a certain "white privilege" in our society.  She compares it to a more familiar privilege: male privilege.  Males, she says, are raised in a way to be unaware of the advantages that they have as males.  Many men will acknowledge that women are disadvantaged, yet they won't also say that they themselves are particularly privileged.
     Similar to this situation is that of white privilege.  It is "denied" and "protected" so that whites are not aware of their advantages.  Because of this, whites are raised in a way that makes them unlikely to recognize that they are at an advantage.  She describes white privilege as "an invisible package of unearned assets," which is a unique - and quite true - way of putting it.  Often, she says, white women appear to be oppressive in the eyes of women of color, even though they are completely unaware of it.    
     She analyzes how white privilege (or lack thereof) plays into every day life.  For example, she mentions things such as acceptance from neighbors, shopping without harassment, and ability/freedom to criticize the government.  These are things that I would never think of as being advantages in my life because I am white, and this is exactly the point of her article.  We often do not recognize advantages and privileges that we have simply because of who we were born as (whether it be gender, race, religion, etc.).
     One of the most interesting things that McIntosh includes in her list is that she is "never asked to speak for all the people of [her] racial group."  This reminded me of a scene in the movie Freedom Writers in which a black female student talks about how she is often singled out in class and asked to speak on behalf of "her people."  White people are never asked to represent all white people, so why are African-Americans supposed to be representative of their entire race?  It just doesn't make sense.
      Lastly, I found it intriguing that many white students are under the impression that racism has no effect on them, because they do not even view "whiteness" as a racial identity.  This must have something to do with the way our society teaches and raises white children.  White children are indirectly taught to view themselves in a certain way, without even realizing it.  Because of this common belief that is embedded in white students, whites often appear to be oppressive, but they do not even realize that they are privileged.