Deflating

In six years of teaching, despite working in a school that is about 95% Latino, despite all I do there for my students, I've been accused of racism by parents *twice*. As in, "My kid is getting in trouble all the time. It must be because you are racist!" even though their kid is Latino, and every single other kid in the class is Latino, and the other kids are doing just fine.

The first time was 3 years ago, the year I taught sixth grade. A boy was getting in trouble in my class frequently - he was always goofing around, talking, etc. He was staying after school nearly every day for some transgression or other. I have high expectations for my students, and when they fail to meet those expectations, there are consequences. But I received a voice mail message at home one night from his mom. She just couldn't understand why I didn't like her son, why I always was punishing him. Maybe it was because, in her words that I'll likely never forget, "maybe you don't like Latin people."

Well, you can imagine that upon hearing that I felt like I had been hit in the stomach. Hard. I called for a meeting with her and my administrator where I vigorously and emotionally defended myself and explained the truth of what was going on with her son. She was still convinced that I had some racist vendetta against her son. Two years later, she asked me (!) to write a letter of recommendation for her son to get in to a prestigious private high school in East Palo Alto. I did, and he got in.

And so today I was accused of being a racist again. But this time, not to my face. Interestingly enough, the mother came to my classroom just before the bell rang this morning and simply asked me how long summer school was (how many days). She didn't ask me how her daughter was doing or how she could help support her daughter's learning at home. Of course, that would be the most prudent thing to do. Her daughter is extremely low, in all academic areas. You'd think that might be a big concern for her. But no - she justed to know when summer school would be over. Five minutes later she was in the office, furiously demanding that her daughter be moved out of my class because I was too mean and racist. Our summer school director told her she should come talk to me and discuss her thoughts and concerns, but she told him that she's afraid to talk to me.

Well.

I take my job very seriously. I consciously choose to teach at Garfield because of the student population there. Rather than take my Stanford education and Orange County upbringing to some suburban school for middle and upper class white kids where I wouldn't need to "teach" so much as just create activities for kids to do, or to some elite private school where I can get more respect and more money and more resources (where they actually have post-it notes and pens for FREE, and I wouldn't have to spend an average of $1,500 of my own money on school related supplies each year), I *choose* to work at Garfield with all of its challenges and difficulties because schools like Garfield are the ones that have the greatest need. Frequently, schools like Garfield have the least qualified teachers, the least experienced teachers, and knowing this I have made the decision to stay for six mostly rewarding but at times (like right now) extremely frustrating years.

I guess being accused of racism just twice over that span of time isn't so bad. It's not common, but it's not rare. Teachers like me that have high expectations for behavior and academic performance and hold students accountable to those expectations are, from what I've seen, more likely to be accused of racism. One of my former colleagues left Garfield to teach at a school near Sacramento that was majority African American. She is STRICT, and one of the best teachers I've ever worked with. But she's also a white woman, and by the end of her very first day there, a parent of an unruly child had already accused her of being racist. But I even know Latino teachers who have been accused of racism, though all of their students are also Latino.

So what do I do? My first instinct is to fight back, to fight for my reputation, to confront her ignorance, to give her a talking to. But also to listen. I want to listen to what she has to say. I'd like to know what her daughter told her that led to this conclusion. And I know that Latinos and other minority groups frequently do experience racism, so I can understand that she's probably more sensitive in interactions with white people.

But baseless charges like this are deflating. And it's so backwards to accuse me of being racist for pushing her daughter to work harder and do better.