Choices
Next year, I am moving from teaching at a “good school” in a successful school system, to joining the faculty of a “bad school” in a failing system. I am leaving a school that never has to worry about test scores. We never run out of toilet paper. Students in my school have money for school supplies and new clothes. There is an underlying belief from almost every child that their country was created for them and their dreams can become realities. I am joining a school at the beginning of the next school year in which students travel through metal detectors to get to class. My new students have to go to a “testing pep rally” every year to try and convince them to try their best on the state-mandated achievement tests that have been stacked against them from Kindergarten. They also run out of toilet paper. This move seems illogical and very risky to the other adults in my life, even when I try to convince them that there are no “bad schools”. My choice is slightly unsettling to me as well but for different reasons. I just revealed the news to my students, and most are proud of me. Some have told me how much they will miss me, and many of them have expressed how much they respect my decision as well. I have felt loved and supported by my teenagers because they understand that my new high school needs me more than they do.
One of my most beloved, most trusted students, however, had a different reaction to the news. Under her breath, she called me out as a white savior. She was quiet about it, but when she said it, it hurt deeply…because she definitely hit a nerve. This is exactly what I am most fearful about. She had every right to say it and I told her this, even as I explained how much it hurt to hear it. I am scared that I am taking this job with the intention of saving “those kids.” I write to convince myself otherwise. This student’s words have resonated and settled in my bones because as an ally and activist, I have struggled with how to use my energy to help break the systemic reality of racism without using my whiteness to overtake the voices of color who are more important than mine. I hesitate writing about this because I do not think that I should be commanding attention away from those who are in this fight each and every day. At the same time, I want to model self-love for my students and acknowledge that I owe myself a space to use my voice. I am not fishing for compliments from other white people and certainly not from people of color. I write in order to use my skills as a writer to talk about how I feel and hopefully convince others to use their privileges to help create spaces for voices of color.
I am moving schools for many reasons. Some are trivial, some speak to my privilege. I live in the city and love it. It is filled with beauty and culture and energy. Richmond is my home. My own children attend city schools. They went to our zoned school for elementary, but we have participated in the school choice program to avoid sending our kids to our neighborhood middle and high schools. My husband and I made the decision to use the city’s open enrollment system, a way for parents to choose the better schools in the city. That decision was intense and full of apprehension. We didn’t want to turn our kids into symbols of our beliefs and at the same time we also didn’t want them to think that they were better than every child in the city. I hope that when they grow up, they will make the choice to be advocates for equity but that will ultimately be their own choice. We have been very open about our decisions with them but I don’t think I have always been open with myself. I am in the position to choose the best schools for my girls and I acknowledge this publically. I did not choose to send my children to the neighborhood middle school or high school because I know that my job is to choose the best opportunities for them. Because I am white, I have more choices.
Most of the city schools are falling apart and failing. The schools are segregated to the extent that most African American students in the city of Richmond, do not attend school or interact with white students…ever. Most of the schools are 100 years old and are in terrible condition, built when segregation in Virginia was law. Lead paint is peeling, mold is rampant, students are exposed to freezing cold or extreme heat because of the lack of insulation and broken equipment. School conditions reflect our city’s historic and current low expectations and disdain for its black citizens as well as the internalized oppression of communities of color living here. Achievement in these schools is low, reflecting the trauma and poverty of the surrounding neighborhoods. Lack of transportation, fresh food or good jobs, and the systematic destruction of black communities through redlining and the war on drugs, have added to the failure of public schools in my adopted hometown.
For the last 17 years, I have lived in Richmond, but have worked in a surrounding county. After I received my teaching license, I took the first job that I was offered. The two schools that I have worked in have been wonderful places to work and my students and colleagues, for the most part, are incredible people. The school in which I currently teach, is just west of the city, in an affluent area, who’s population swelled after desegregation, by what is called “white flight”. When Virginia finally was forced to carry out the “Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka” decision and desegregate its schools after 5 years of massive resistance, most White citizens in the city of Richmond moved to The bordering counties to prevent their children from attending school with Black children. To this day, the White communities that feed into my school and surrounding county schools have covertly (and sometimes overtly) avoided confronting the extreme inequities that this history has created. My school system is beginning to work on issues of race and inclusion within its borders, as its population of families has become more and more diverse in the last few years. The county has never, however, created conversation around the vastly different worlds of county and city schools. This to me is the most pressing issue in the Richmond area.
The situation in the city schools seems hopeless. The problems are so large, that one person cannot possibly chip away at the horrific history and the unjust policies of present-day Richmond. I certainly do not claim to be that one person. I helped create this unjust system because I willingly benefitted from the open enrollment program to the detriment of the children in Richmond who do not participate. I am signing up to teach in the city that I love because it is the best thing I have to offer as an individual. I can’t convince thousands of people to care about every child and not just their own, but I can use my skills to convince every child that I teach, that they matter. I am good at teaching. I am going to become an educator in the city so that through my support, Black and Brown children, who have never felt that they have a voice, will have the opportunity to practice speaking loudly in my classroom. I will teach them about Black and Brown artists who have used their work to expose the history of racism in America. I will teach them about Black and Brown artists whose art has come to stand for the voices of the voiceless and I will encourage them to be that voice for others. They will chip away at injustice and they will become themselves in the process.
I hope that I am worthy of the children that I teach. It is all that I know how to do. It is not enough and for that, I am truly sorry.
