I was talking to a teacher at another high school.
I teach at a high school on the south side of coors and I-40. He teaches at a school on the north side of coors and I-40. They are a five minute drive from each other. They are both high schools. That is where the similarity ends.
I teach at a title I school with the majority of the student body being of color. He teaches at a private school with the majority of students being white.
My school is public. His school is private. The students who go there spend more on one year of schooling than I spent on my first degree in college. Should they decide to stay in the state to go to college, they will pay less for tuition than they did in high school. Sorry, their parents will pay less for tuition.
In the discussion, I told the other teacher where I worked....he then did that thing where you suck air through your teeth (this is the same response you get when you tell people the time a billy goat rammed you in the nuts or you tell someone from Santa Fe that you live anywhere else in the state of New Mexico).
It was a reaction of sympathy, pain, and whatever...overall it was offensive. I am not a violent person, but it made me want to hurt him. He may have thought he was telling me that he understood. To me it was a reaction of superiority. He apparently had heard "how bad" things were over there.
To me it was just the general dissapproval that the haves give to the have nots. As if something the have nots have done put them into the position that they are in. More than anything I was not pleased with the way he somehow made me a part of his team. Somehow, he failed to see that I was no different than my students. I come from the same background, I earn about the same as their parents do. Am I supposed to nod my head and say "yeah, it's rough. They speak Spanish and stuff..."
I think this is also a problem with our educational system. People in charge are the haves. They somehow blame the have nots with laziness, lower intelligence, inability to organize and continue to contemplate the problems of their own.
Yes, I am a little angry.
I don't know Leonard, West Mesa has an international student body with it's own share of brillance. It fells safe there, and is probably a lot more interesting a place than the white bread school down the street. It's also free from rigid theology (are you refering to St. Pius?). I don't know if the teachers are any better, but I wouldn't assume they are. I would rather be at West Mesa any day.
ReplyDeletep.s. It's cool to be bilingual.
Yours is a great example of how demeaning people can be toward schools with what they consider “lesser privilege”, as if those there and that teach there are of lesser status. The reaction that you got after telling him where you teach does seem offensive. I laughed out loud when reading the “billy goat rammed in the nuts” description, although my reaction would be much greater than sucking air through the teeth. Something more along the lines of uncontrollable shouting of profanity while crumbling to the ground would be more indicative, but I got the point . The haves seem to possess no desire to really get into the trenches, but instead further the benefit of upper echelon.
ReplyDeleteLeonard, I'll tell you, I have heard remarks like that about your school for some 30 years or so. My father was an assistant principal there for many years before moving to APS Central Office (what is now City Center). Even back then, many viewed is at as a less than desirable school. During my high school years I constantly heard my father defending the school to colleagues, or telling other adminstrators of schools in the NE Heights how much he loved it there. I remember him visiting the homes of his students in the evenings, with me waiting in the car. I was given strict instructions to honk the horn and keep the doors locked in case anyone tried to break in because we were in a "rough part" of town. It's funny, the irony of it. He loved that school and felt it was his job to empower the students there, but sent me to a high school as far in the NE Heights as was possible at that time. Being born to the family of migrant farm workers, my father felt very connected to the Hispanic population at the school. However, it's obvious he did not want me to be so connected. Intersting.
ReplyDeleteLeonard of course you should be angry! I'm angry just reading your conversation. How sad is it that a teacher is so incredibly ignorant that they would put down your school or any school. Its one thing to say something concrete but to look down on a school that they feel is lesser for whatever reason is just ridiculous. You have more restraint that me…I think I would’ve lost it.
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