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My Black Fifth-Grade Students Called Me A Racist
The longest day of my life, when the passage of seconds felt like minutes and the ticking of minutes felt like hours, took place in early May 2009. Consequently, I would age ten years on a day that seemed to go on forever.
As a first-year general education teacher at Crawford Elementary School, a high-needs institution situated in the Aurora Public Schools District, I often struggled at my job. The kids were tough, products of their chronically neglected neighborhoods. After spending the entirety of the school year scratching and clawing for their educational growth and my sanity, I’d had enough of them. I just needed to get through the last few days before proffering my resignation letter to Mrs. Everly, the incessantly skeptical and suspicious school principal.
At the end of each school day, all teachers were tasked with facilitating English language acquisition in students. Immediately after the bell rang at 2:00 pm, signaling the end of the general education section, students from an assemblage of grade levels flooded through our open doors, often with little regard for order and safety.
The majority of Crawford students spoke English as a second language. Hence, the level of English language comprehension was not uniform. Students ranged from native speakers to non-English speaking refugees from East Asian…
