Teachers and Community

Last Thursday, I randomly met up with a friend whom I haven’t seen in several years. As we talked, I found out that he worked for Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone, which received widespread recognition by the documentary Waiting for Superman. I asked him his thoughts on several issues pointed out in the documentary, such as the teacher’s union, the effectiveness of charter schools, and Michelle Rhee’s hardnosed policy on teacher performance.
One of the things he said really stuck with me after our conversation, in regards to Michelle Rhee’s (in)famous firing of teachers and school administrators. He mentioned that although the terminations were justifiable, they did not take into account the impact they would have on the local communities. Most of the teachers she laid off were African-American individuals who had grown up in the urban areas and districts of the schools in which they were employed. For many minority students from low-income backgrounds, these teachers served as the only models of the middle class and people they could aspire to become in the future.
I never thought of myself as a role model or example for students. To be quite frank, I decided to become a teacher because I thought the benefits were appealing and the work hours were undemanding (Bad Teacher, anyone?). Consequently, those myths were dispelled during my student teaching experience but I came to realize that teaching has its own set of merits apart from monetary incentives. As a teacher, I indirectly affect the futures of hundreds of young lives everyday at work. My students’ success and (failures) also indirectly affect the livelihood of the communities in which they live.