Una grande racista

I was so frustrated with my 6th period yesterday that I was beyond formulating speech. In the eye of the storm of needy kids, talking kids, and kids with a never ending supply of stupid questions I stood with my hands balled up to my sides, and slowly but surely emitting a low guttural roar. I eventually snapped out of it and helped each kid at a time and extinguished the disastrous fire known as "teaching students to write an essay". But a mental note was duly taken and today I came armed with a new seating chart and gleaming fire in my eyes.

"Sebastian over here. Sergio to this seat. Gabriel go over to that corner seat there and, Abraham you are sitting at the last seat in the last row," I chirped as I happily pointed each student to their exiled locations.

That's when I heard Sebastian said, "It's cuz I'm Mexican".

Normally, I would have either set the student aside to have a serious heart to heart with or have written up an ice cold referral. Call me cheerful, but I didn't take this comment to heart at all.

"That's a very interesting observation Sebastian. Let's see now, I chose a profession that involves teaching and interacting with students of all races. Right now about 90% of my 150 students are Hispanic and what I do on a daily basis is to help those students learn and eventually become successful members of society. Why would I do this? Oh, obviously because I'm a huge racist! You must be right Sebastian. Thank you for your insight."

The class twittered away as Sebastian learned the ever so valuable lesson of keeping one's trap shut. And that was that.

It's funny how it's always the students who aren't doing well academically who like to pull out the racist card. You didn't get credit for the homework you didn't do? Your teacher must be racist! I'm finding that when dealt with this card, it's best to lightly flick away this stupid accusation derived by an equally stupid thought process.

The way to really impart the overeager racism detectors is to be on them even more. Harass them, pester them to the point of crying uncle. See if they did their homework. Keep them in for lunch detention if they didn't. Write and call home so often that you get to on a first name basis with their guardians. Get called a racist a couple more times. Do all this in the hopes of those students waking up one day and realizing that someone who spends this much time torturing them to do better does it because she cares.