Why teach?

What I found most intriguing about Chapter 1, in William Ayers book To Teach the Journey of a Teacher, is how he highlights the many reasons one should not, or would not, want to teach.  Most of the motives highlighted are the reasons why I want and need to teach.  I want to teach because I have a passion for children, learning and racial and social justice.  I want to face the challenges Ayers describes and create a learning environment that is inclusive, safe, inspiring, kind, multi-perspective and multi-cultural.  I want to challenge myself to acknowledge my own preconceived notions and fight against them; to be open to learning from my students and colleagues.  As Ayers puts it “the complexity of teaching can be excruciating, and for some that may be a sufficient reason not to teach (for others, it is of teaching’s most compelling allures).  He also writes that at the beginning of his teaching career he was on a “mission for change”.  Well I am on a “mission for change”.

            The trend of resegregation our public schools are facing today is disheartening.  It’s as though we are moving back in time instead of diving forward.  Racial equity and social justice should be at the forefront of issues being addressed by educators, parents, politicians and society.  Instead we as a society are being pushed towards the ideas of colorblindness and that race doesn’t matter.  The U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2007 in the PICS v. Seattle School District case ruled that race cannot be used as a factor in deciding where students enroll in school, even if the goal is integration and racial equity in schools required by the decision in Brown v. Board.  Messages such as this one take the stance that race doesn’t matter anymore; that we have fixed the problem and should move on to the next.  Reading the articles form Rethinking Our Classrooms and the chapter from Tyrone Howard’s Why Race and Culture Matter address many reasons why it is imperative that teachers do not adopt a colorblind lens.