Considerations of an urban setting from June 17th

Have you ever considered teaching in an urban school, especially a school that has a high proportion of low-income students? Have you ever considered working with African American students or students from a different ethnicity than yourself? What are your candid thoughts and feelings when imagining yourself as a teacher in these situations?

Unfortunately it’s because of stories in the media, normally negative, that I generally think about teaching in an urban setting. I feel this is not giving the urban setting a fair chance, however, not being familiar with anything close to an urban setting I have a hard time envisioning what it would be like. I have thought a bit about a low-income teaching situation in some depth. I was introduced to the concept of low-income teaching by a friend who had taught in southern California and said she did not give homework. I was surprised by this until she explained that so many of the children were immigrants and didn’t have stable living situations or have adequate resources available to them. This brought a realization to me that I was grossly unprepared to deal with situations like that. I would like to be able to work with African American children and other minorities, especially with Native Americans. I think it would be very satisfying to be able to give these kinds of students a sense of self-worth and empowerment. I would like to be able to communicate to them the importance of culture and history through art, also the relationship between education and power. My only reservation is like I stated earlier, that I’m simply not equipped with the knowledge of how to communicate effectively. I suspect as I progress through the education program at MSU, and into student teaching, the knowledge will come. It will be up to me to further my cultural understanding and prepare me for the cultural diversity in my teaching that was lacking in my public education. I believe I have the desire to further my cultural understanding, how that will translate to an ability to communicate effectively, is obviously unknown.