- My sixth grade teacher was the only Black male educator in our entire school system when I had him as an eleven year old. In my racially and economically diverse elementary school, virtually all the Black children in each grade were put into his class every year–a fact which as a young student upset me. Once I was placed in his class, however, I immediately saw the profound power and unique value of having a dedicated, veteran teacher who shared my racial and cultural identity. While I do not believe that Brown teachers are inherently better suited to teach Brown students, I do believe that the mark of a good educator is an awareness of the skills and experiences which they can and cannot bring to the communities with which they educate, and how to make both relevant to the lessons they teach. My sixth grade teacher exemplified this.
The most powerful knowledge he invested us with was always delivered outside of the prewritten lessons—during breaks before recess or while we were eating lunch in the classroom. While he was an expert math, reading and writing instructor, what I remember more than anything else were the informal lessons he taught us on Black slang. During open moments in the daily schedule, he would stand at the board and write down words from his own vocabulary, or words that he had heard members of our classroom community using, and ask those who knew to define them. He would speak at length about the slang of his generation as compared to ours, drawing
