10: Race and Reality in Education

At the start of the 2019–2020 academic year, I was commencing my 5th year as a teacher at an Alternative Secondary School in a Washington, D.C. suburb, and my 20th year as a public-school educator. Students are enrolled in our school due to severe disciplinary infractions, which have led to short term and permanent expulsions from their traditional schools. We educate students from 6th grade through age 21, with varying cognitive abilities. My students have had issues with one or more of the following: illegal substances, weapons, fighting, chronic absenteeism, chronic suspensions, or incarceration. Despite their infractions, these students are my babies. Our small class sizes, ranging from 10–15 students, forced me to acknowledge my biases (Ahmed, 2018, pp. 45–61). Although it was challenging, I evolved from a tolerant teacher to a transformational educator. My pedagogical repertoire had expanded beyond just effectively providing strategy-based instruction, and now focused more on teaching the whole child. I had always been great at developing positive relationships with students and their families, but I became more impactful when I began to purposefully provide culturally responsive teaching. Culturally Responsive Teaching is the foundation of my pedagogy and classroom management and that is the key to academic success for students that I support (Gay, 2018, pp. 8–12).