Teaching Privileged White Kids
What's Going On This Is What It Means For Me To Teach Your White, Privileged Kids Written by Linda Chavers 11/30/2014 http://damemagazine.com/2014/11/30/what-it-means-me-teach-your-white-privileged-kids I'm an educator. I teach English at one of the top independent boarding schools in the world. I'm also a Black woman. With a Masters in English, which qualifies me to teach it, and a Ph.D. in African-American Studies from Harvard University, which, among other things, scares the shit out of everyone. Yet, here I am, in rural New England, teaching the literature of my choice and with an interdisciplinary bent (read: African-American) and how to write the personal essay to a mostly White, upper-class population. And this is a good thing. When applying to grad schools I wrote in my personal statement that my presence in a classroom is a revolutionary act. I fill a space of authority that is still very much White, male and very