I've been teaching this class for the last two weeks where kids are blogging their own stories on blogger. The stories are relate to Oakland, the East Bay, their perceptions of other neighborhoods around the Bay Area, and and how people perceive them.
The idea to teach this class came after an encounter I had with a fellow teacher, who had been teaching in a suburban school in Utah for about as long as I've been alive. She lived in Oakland about twenty years ago, and her views of kids from the Bay Area were really stuck in the past -- based on her old ideas about how kids "should" behave, as well as her understanding of race relations, youth culture, and the educational system. She actually said to me that kids from Oakland are dangerous, and asked how I could keep sane trying to teach in such a dirty, scary place. She asked how I managed -- as a white, female teacher in a "non-white community" (her words), and how I could teach kids who "invented their own language so that white people wouldn't understand what they were saying". I guess I shouldn't have been shocked, but it really hurt me to hear her say that. She is still a teacher. She is educated, and has travelled.... but, instead of educating herself and trying to understand where my kids were coming from, she was perpetuating sterotypes with her students... teaching them to be mistrustful of students like mine.
I didn't know what to say to her. At first, I just nodded and smiled and didn't say anything.... but when she really started coming down on Oakland and my kids, I just looked at her and said "I don't think that point of view fits Oakland anymore. My kids are wonderful, and it really hurts me when people say things like that. They're beautiful, thoughtful, bright kids who need more people to beleive in them and listen to them. I strongly urge you to learn more about it, because things have changed since you lived there".
Okay, so I acknowledge that Oakland is in the top ten "most dangerous cities" in the USA... but it's not without beauty. And I think that my kids forget this, too. That's why this class exists -- so that they can see the beauty of where they live, and so that people from other areas around the Bay (and others who read their blog) can meet them and see how great they are.... and learn not to fear these wonderful students -- who face challenges we can't even imagine, and face obstacles that they can only get over if we keep having faith in them.
So, we've been breaking the kids up into groups of four, and taking them to places like Walnut Creek (95% white, or something), Chinatown and Fruitvale (Latino neighborhood). We'll also be going to The Castro (rainbow-flag district), and Peir 39 in downtown San Francisco. They interview people about their neighborhoods, to find out about safety, health and accessibility, economics, food, aesthetics and diversity. And then they blog about what they learn, what they find out, and how their own perceptions of their own communities change along the way. Hopefully, we also change a few other people's minds as well.
