Nice White Teachers, Bad Brown Schools: Hollywood's Pedagogy on Urban Education 

For real. All an inspiring teacher can do is encourage you to make more of the opportunities you already have. If you don't have those already, then that one teacher isn't gonna be able to do much no matter how hard they try.

Personally, I think in America these movies are so popular because they perpetuate the idea of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" by pretending in a fantasy; that underprivileged kids just need one good white teacher to show them that *they* should just *try harder* rather than admitting the whole damn system is against them and THAT is what we should be talking about.

Say it out loud for the people in👏🏾 the👏🏾 back👏🏾

I teach outside the US as well ☺️ In developing countries the parents are trying so desperately to emulate the west, it leads to so much stress on the children and the family network. I do my best to help the students and their families 🌺

👏👏👏

And then there's the reverse of that for example the movie To Sir with Love where Sidney Poitier plays the Black teacher in the white lower income school where the kids are a problem

THIS

just say students of colour

HOW DO I REACH THESE KEEEDS?

@@stellviahohenheim Cartman is the only one

I love Abbott Elementary!

YEEEEEEEEEAS! UP UP ♥

queen quinta!

I was just thinking about it!! It's one of the best shows I've watched in a while and I can't wait for the new season

I immediately thought about Abbot Elementary. I think the continuing success of that show is so incredibly important. It’s such a funny but also very earnest and sincere show. Can’t wait to see more of it

I'm sorry but this is hilarious 😁😁

I haven't seen Freedom Writers but what was her intended outcome for this exercise?

@@morbidsearchWhen the teacher in Freedom Writers asked that question, it was one question she asked out of many, and it’s implied the point of the exercise was to get the students to realize how much they had in common despite being different races. I’m guessing that the above person’s teacher tried a similar exercise since the one in the movie was effective but she missed the point of it

Thats so embarrassing im dying

that’s so embarassing for her omg literally admitting to seeing herself like that

God jesus

literal clown behavior omg- 💀

Oh nooooo no no no😬

come on, that's just embarrassing... sadly there are a lot of teachers with this shitty saviour mentality

Lean on Me, a 1989 movie, is the only movie that had a black male stakeholder fighting to fix a school. I have not seen any since that have reflected the reality you shared. It's messed up and distorts the truth.

Well, you know Hollywood. It's still a racist place despite the seeming veneer of inclusion.

watch abbot elementary

Tbh, I have had the opposite experience. The black teachers hated teaching too. Everyone hated it haha

@@motaku220 I tried to see that show based on recommendation of my daughter, who is more astute than I am. I watched maybe the first five minutes of one episode and turned it off. The front end showed a teacher leaving the classroom all of a sudden due to an unruly class. This to my thinking it glamorized what unruly kids can do. B.S. on that!

Wow. Like, WTF?!?!

She damn better be.

That sounds mortifying (For the students). The teacher should have know better.

I meant to say *known better

🤮 wtf🤣. When yall all around the colored folk it's yall can't help. A whole bunch of shape-shifting starts 🌟

I'm surprised there hasn't been a film like that out there already but that is a good idea for a movie . Maybe you should look at some videos or books about script writing and try to get it written yourself and get it copyrighted . Good script writers with a great idea can make decent money especially if it actually does become a successful film and you make sure your name is listed in the credits as the script writer or the one who wrote the screenplay .

You might also like the movie To Sir with Love starring Sidney Poitier as the black teacher in the white lower income neighborhood where the kids are problematic .

I'm afraid it would turn into a horror kid. But yeah, rich kids in rich schools are the worst, usually.

@@gardensofthegods I actually do want to write and direct my own films/shows, so I might.

@@nadinaventura they really are. I didn't go to a rich school but I dated this upper middle class guy and he dropped out of high-school 3 times because he didn't like it/wasn't feeling it. Our friends and I (most of us were around poverty level and worked really hard to stay at our school) were like wtf. He had so many opportunities he pissed away.

I used to wonder where our teachers came from. They were pretty abusive to us, some did criminal things, our schools were basically a bin for you guys🤔. People kicked out of universities or colleges... coming down to take it out on us🤨

@@rainyfeathers9148 I’m sorry to hear that that was your experience. Where are you from? I think most teachers in general are well educated and want to help. It’s not an easy job. But there are those who abuse their power and it’s not right

@@rachelparks1934 Okay white woman, tell us how long you'll teach in a black school until you move to a white or Asian one.

So they think minority teachers are lazy an dumb

@@jborrego2406 Inner city schools sure do beg to differ, eh?

Honestly, I want a film, where a white savior is pretending to support MLK/Malcolm X/Marcus Garvey/Huey P. Newton/ some lesser-known civil rights leader, but the twist is that said white savior is actually a government agent trying to hold back progress, while only caring about their own ego. You just know Jordan Peele could write it.

Finally? It’s BEEN talked about

Yeah don’t worry they have plenty of guilty white suburban kids making Tiktok about how super not racist they are……we don’t need these white teachers now

No really!!

Like I remember watching so many of those as a kid and it never sat right with me bc like the black kids are suffering from poverty not “ they’re mean to white kids and need to be better” or “ I can fix them” when they’re not even really misfits they’re just kids

Good luck and I hope everything goes well. Teachers don't get enough support.

Have you ever seen the movie from the 1960s with actor Sidney Poitier called To Sir with Love ? You might really love it and feel inspired by on the days that you feel depressed about your work . He is a black teacher and a white lower income School in England where the kids are very hard to deal with at times

congrats and good luck in your new job!!

Congrats. I hope you have a great school year :)

I wish you luck!

Same!

This. And the history of Black teachers before/during/after Brown v Board of Education… which for SOME REASON 🤔 was never something I was taught about.

Literally!

Same

What about Sidney Poitier as the black teacher in the white lower-income school in England in the 1960s ? I don't think she mentioned it here and that was a great film .

Lord have mercy.

They're really telling on themselves

What's the book about?

Wow that's really a shame you went through that with those effed up people ... just thinking about it sounds depressing and maddening .

Sounds like you could use a read of "Don't Make the Black Kids Angry." You're right. They are propaganda. Because majority black schools get the most federal funds and produce the worst results.

Its a mix with me, I had both white and black teachers give me a hard time, I reckon mostly white teachers trashed my education, but got the same problems with black teachers as well. In the end there were a few white teachers that actually helped me and the odd black one. I think society has a lot to answer for.

Maybe you were an annoying brat with an attitude …..

Everybody hates Christ makes lots of fun of this trope too

Omg I love everybody hates Chris😭 whenever I see this trope I think of the teacher in that’s show

That is a funny show but I can't watch it because it triggers me. Lol I hated teaching so much it was the total wrong fit for me

​@@TheLily97232I love this show. The same dude is in Abbott elementary but obviously he's an adult. It took me forever to figure out where the hell I knew him from 😂

HI OLIVIA

Same !

More like, what movies did your schools make you watch

Man, that had to be a punch in the gut. I'm sorry.

Dennis plum it doesn’t matter she shouldn’t have been talked to in that manner by someone who’s suppose to be a professional. I have yet to see a white person do anything good for another race without bringing it up a million times. A lot of black folks are middle class more than you’d think.

Ooh yikes😬

@Dennis Plum Rescuing? These communities have adults in them, they don't need to be rescued, they need to be listened to and taken seriously.🤔

@Dennis Plum It depends on what you mean by "rescuing". If you mean rescuing of the historical and racial effects of redlining and poor socio-economical outcomes literally crafted by racist policies and actions, then yes. There's a lot that these communities DO do to improve things. We as human beings can implement help and proper institutions at a effective rate, but the politics and lasting division is what helps keep that away.

I'm really sorry that has been your experience. That was really well written and I am happy to see that yoire being forthcoming with your experience.

i deal with a learning disorder myself i am dyslexia too.

@@catalinagatita thank you it means a lot!

@@MsDisneylandlover I wish you the support system and academic success that you deserve, Marshan!

@@rosiemorton7144 you're welcome, what you're experiencing is valid and you deserve changes.

There's also an aspect that teachers deserve to be treated like garbage _because_ it's a sacred job. It's the mentality that "essential workers" should be paid with respect instead of money because if people took the job because of the pay, then they won't do the work as well.

To add to what guy said, the idea that "teaching is more than a job" is weaponized to get as much as they can out of a teacher, sometimes without any compensation. If you are really in it "for the kids" then you should be willing to stay after school for hours everyday for extra-curriculars. Getting behind on work, well you can work all weekend to catch up (unless we have an event this weekend... we could use more volunteers). We generally call these teachers "martyr teachers". They are teachers that buy into the concept being sold to them that they are taking on this sacred duty and burn themselves out trying to do as much as they physically can. Staying at work to 7 o'clock every night is unhealthy. It is quite worse when people are neglecting their own children to do it. But, the concept is so embedded into the profession that you are treated as being selfish when you start setting boundaries between your private and professional lives.

Yes! My mom was a white teacher and an unprivileged school, and it was HARD but not for the reasons movies make it seem. No one was racist towards her, least of all the *children* she taught, and the hardest part was getting the county to care enough about the kids to provide them with what they needed. At the same time she taught at another school that was in a more privileged neighborhood, the school was nicer, cleaner, and newer, and the classrooms were better stocked with supplies, and everything she asked the county for, she got. She was sick of getting denied for things for the underprivileged school, so she started requesting things for the other one and brining them to underfunded school, because despite having more than enough, it was easier to get things approved for it. She loves her kids, but HATES teaching.

I wanted to be a librarian for so much of my life. I was definitely giving it some sort of magical reverence that I know the job could never come close to living up to.

Paris Syndrome, but for teaching. Wow.

That sucks, your videos are amazing.

I was in the middle of watching it yesterday when it was taken down! Sorry for all the trouble you go through but your content is always incredible ❤️

I was halfway done, closed out to do something else for 10 minutes, and then it was gone, haha. Glad it's back up! What I'd watched was great, excited to finish the last half.

@@TheInvisibleShadow95 Same here.

Haha I was wondering yesterday if the black screen part was intentional or not. Your words are the important part so I didn’t mind, fantastic video and very informative

"Cisheteropatriarchal structure" Fucking love your post modernist bullshit. It's like reading a Leftist meme: a paragraph with no meaning and big terms you think are intellectual. You're right. White people shouldn't teach black kids. We shouldn't be around each other at all. Time for segregation.

This was a whole phd dissertation!

You intellectuals and your commie language.😂

White women are a force to reckon with

It also reinforces the benevolent sexism of the patriarchy that women are inherently more intellectual, maternal and emotional, which is often used to justify shutting women out of male dominated fields (and attitudes like "women should stay at home and raise the kids because they're just naturally better at it") and in turn demonizes men as inherently dumb and aggressive or being unable to be a caregiver and thus be forced into overly masculine roles and jobs - hence all the male mental health problems.

I had so many teachers that were jerks but the ones that stood out the most to me were the ones that acted like I insulted them by asking for help common example I have bad eyesight I am nearsighted and even with my glasses on if I wasn't in the front row I struggled to see the board this was on my file if they placed me in the back I would bring up that I could not see and so many teachers would say things like "no I won't move you you just want to sit with your friends" or "privileges" and blah blah blah then later those *same teachers* would be like "Why didn't you say anything before that you couldn't see the board before? You're just lying because you didn't want to do the work"

Same and it was wild bc the racist white teachers would give help to the white adhd kids even tho we literally were actually the same. I was labeled as difficult and had behavioral issues

Same however the ones that did inspire me somewhat were always people of color, the white ladies were fucking awful always.

Me too 😢

Honestly , after reading many of these comments all I can say is "a teacher is f*** is she cares and f*** if she doesn't care. Just look at most of these comments and how people describe their teachers. Even those that probably were genuine and tried to make a difference just get insulted or labeled as "creeps" or "martyr." I think some teachers do have good intentions, but then there's the other spectrum of the nasty teachers who do not care. It's like a teacher can't win, no matter what. If they try to form close bonds with the kids and care, they're creeps. If they only "do their job" and teach && not care about anything else, they're assholes. Lol they can't win. Smh

No we are nice people in the sense our politness is about making other comfortable, we are still controlled by european representants who inforce a fake democracy. Never forget most white people especially french were put on that land cause they were "pest", it wasn't a choice

TILL 1990?! didn't know thanks for this educated comment

@@WildArtistsl I think it was 1996 specifically, if I remember correctly.

I heard that EHC was popular in South America. It's popular in the US too!

@@depressedphilosopherbitch7581 unfortunately I can't vouch for the rest of South America, but, yeah, every young person here has a lot of EHC catchphrases burned into their memory lol

@@depressedphilosopherbitch7581its absurdly popular in Brazil is craaazyy

If you've never seen the movie from the 1960s To Sir with Love starring Sidney Poitier you might like it very much and he plays a black teacher in a white lower income school where the kids are a problem

same 💜💜. It is always vivifying to see analysis of histories other than euro-american history.

Yes! I agree! As a filipino too, you’re right; our history is usually always brushed over, so it was refreshing to see it included.

@IntrepidTit oh I challenge her all the time. I don’t think we have a single conversation that doesn’t result in me trying to educate her on why she’s problematic.

You’re not any less of a white savior

@IntrepidTit your preoccupied with black peoples affairs show you’re a white savior. They are too inept to take care of their own problems, that’s why they need your help!

@@timcombs2730 i agree, honesty @ the OC: what have you done to help disadvantaged people (not including ur mom)?

You might want to have her watch the movie To Sir with Love , with Sidney Poitier as the black teacher in a white lower income school in England where the kids are a problem if she hasn't seen it yet . Excellent movie and it might open her eyes a little bit

"there was a good documentary on TV.. " ok so record it for your students, so they can see it too!!

So what was the result of him reading erotic novels to Muslim students ... was there any backlash for example parents of their students complaining about him ?

Surprised the Muslims didn't behead him like Samuel Paty. All cultures are equal and all that.

@@gardensofthegods Yes, they beheaded him. Or bitched and moaned over seeing an ankle.

Good creative writing exercise but this didn’t happen

thank you for this, this is hilarious

Which suburb? I'm also from houston

Umm why are you stalking a teacher?! That's a bit creepy.. you do realize teachers have lived outside of school... Smh

@@truth.is.here23 Stalking because they saw someone's page? You don't look at peoples pages?

They aren't movies with outdated tropes. They are really old movies with tropes from their time. This video essay is about the past, but i'm not sure the author or the audience understand that.

i had a whole section about sister act in the first draft of this script so yes! edit: i didn't see the rest of the comment before so i wanted to address your last part about missing an opportunity. abbott elementary is a great show! i wanted to include it but i ultimately didn't, deciding to focus more on nonfiction stories. i'm at a point where i've accepted that i can't please everybody with my videos. there's always going to be something i didn't talk about enough or something i talked about too much. the video might be worse off but i'm just happy to have gotten it out there because it was a struggle😩

sister act tho ❤

@@Yharazayd i love it here. Thank you.👍🏾

@@Yharazayd Thank you! I thought of Sister Act 2, too.

@@Yharazayd Now seeing this. I understand. I did appreciate your video. ❤️

I don’t know if this film is mentioned in the video, I’m only half way through, but To Sir, With Love is the only one I can think of where it’s a black teacher with white students. It’s another film based on a memoir but it’s in England. Edit: Ahhh, it is mentioned.

@@jackierosas9593 yeah, I made my comment about halfway through and missed a couple things. I don't watch a whole lot of sports/ coaching movies, so I didn't realize the situation was worse for black women than for black men (though, if we only let black men be heroic teachers if they're coaches or gym teachers, that's also not great).

Hollywood movies are fundamentally about the experiences of the white middle class, which reflects in the kind of stories it produces and distributes

Ever seen lean on me or sister act 2? Those two movies are good example of black teachers in black schools. Movies I wish we had more of 😔. But alas, check them out!

@@Dany_C. I was just about to mention Lean On Me. Good example.

I think the problem people have with these movies is that they show an unrealistic representation of these teachers "saving the school". Your teacher sounds lovely and not like a "white savior" at all. I'd love to see you and her's story, and clashes with the other "savior" types in school, on the big screen.

Not here to shade your comment or experience, but it’s kind of rich that one of the most liked comments for this video is defending a white teacher against this trope and shaming students of color for being terrible and “racist”. Wonder if there is some denialism from some watching this video.

@@julias.6658 Even if that story was attempted to be told, a major studio would find a way or change a lot of what real life was like into a "white woman saves a poor Mexican child" narrative. Even finding ways to disparage say Mexican culture & people. & I say that wholeheartedly acknowledging how the student body back then & even today the negatives of Mexicans / Mexican Americans is real. But that's not an excuse to then be racist to all Mexicans or reframe a narrative to be super racist.

@IntrepidTit I think the commenter was noting a general trend

@IntrepidTit Yes, it’s denialist to promote the “not all…” and “POCs are racist too!1!1!1” trope on a video like this. I’m also not a fan of shitting on kids who were likely just responding to the racism and animosity they were experiencing from mainstream society.

1997

Ah, an overlap with A japanese manga GTO

Like School of Rock? Haha

@@kostajovanovic3711 comics name is great teacher onizuka no one is going to understand if you just say gto

And he has a so called "migration background" so it's also not a white savior type thing

I love that movie, its so funny

Is that the one with the Algerian and Senegalese French kids?

O god Shan and Yara. Love ya!

My white history teacher taught us about the Filipino struggle for independence from the US and that led us to talking about the "White Man's Burden" poem. I was very surprised at how adamant he was to really drill into us to critically think about our government and to not fall prey to extreme patriotism. It was a hard class and I was not a star student, but I appreciated all of that nuance, even as a kid.

@@taekwongurl You need to think critically, eh? Patriotism is bad - for white people only. If you're Tibetan and don't want the Chinese erasing your culture or ethnically replacing you that's OK, you can be as nationalist as you want.

Zhang Yimou wrote a teacher film? This I gotta find!

Hi! I think you're referring to Lean on me, With Morgan Freeman ?

Lean on Me is one of my favorites

I swear for years Channing Tatum played the most confused white boy.

What about "To Sir with Love", starring Sidney Poitier as the nice BROWN teacher who tames and inspires rough, working class WHITE teens in an inner city school in London. It was made in 1967. Edit: actually the East End of London, but some Americans might not understand what the East End in the 60s and the past was like, and what it stood for, so I used the term "inner city" so they get an idea.

@@austincde I was gonna say, I saw a different movie lmao

We get it, you have white guilt. Now pray to St. Floyd..

Yeah, we can all fall victim to that. I remember being young and really racist against black men, because all I saw on TV was them being violent. This is coming from a black woman who had black men, her father included, around her entire life. TV can mess with your head. If I hadn't had anything to course correct me, who knows how long it would've taken me to see I was being silly.

Shit, even being poc doesn't save you from internalized racism either. I used to wish I was white so badly because I didn't think I was as pretty or as smart, and when other Black girls my age poked fun at me for "not being Black enough" (I liked to read instead of play basketball and I listened to generic pop music instead of rap music), I felt some sort of bigger resentment towards my own race. Luckily, I've since greatly matured, but I can't deny that the chokehold of how Black girls at the time were represented in television when I was a kid didn't damage me in some way and horrifically impact my relationships with other Black kids and myself.

I'm a Canadian teacher and I quit once COVID hit. Teachers were pawn of the government and it felt like we were being sent in to die. I also had daily panic attacks and couldn't sleep because if the amount of work. I never ever want to return to Education. Trying to find a better more healthier way for both student and teacher.

My mother had been teaching for 25+ years. With the administrative work piling up higher every year, the unpaid preparation and out-of-pocket expenses, she could no longer afford her job. She loved the kids but started to resent giving her everything without even a thank you in return. Paying rent, groceries, everything was always counting pennies... She's a freelance author now (educational books and methods) and earns so much she goes on holiday every two months. She more than deserves it, no-one works harder than her, but it does feel quite ... wrong. The work she does now is way less impactful for society, no one depends on her now, yet her income has quadrupled? It will forever confuse me how governments worldwide are entirely unwilling to invest in the literal future of their country.

I just left teaching after 5 years. Taught grades k-8 in the Bronx and Brooklyn over those years. The burnout came way quicker than I thought and seeing as how a good chunk of my time teaching was during COVID (try conducting zoom with kindergarteners) along with coping with the death of my mother, I can’t believe I lasted as long as I did. I had to get out of the classroom for my sanity. The work is difficult but rewarding. I just think that I can serve my community in another role (that will definitely pay better too).

@@brooklynbutter5357 thank u for ur effort :)

@@Ebrahim_17 thank u for teaching

man the one bit of decent Bolivian representation in media ended up being kind of a terrible person? :(

As someone who was motivated to do AP Calc in high school (and then failed it, but went on to succeed in single variable calc in freshman year of college), this was rather depressing to find out. After all, a part of my motivation to take on calculus was being inspired by the Stand and Deliver movie.

i taught for a few years at the college i graduated from because i realized that the mentors i had, other students esp students of color and lgbtqia+ students didn't have those at the undergrad level. especially another woc who taught mental health in our context, not excluding us woc. best few years of my life, i was so happy doing that.

Ever wonder WHY the math class was full of whites and Asians and not people who look like you? Such a mystery.

Damn... I was so inspired to try in my calc class thanks to him. Sorry that happened

You write that book for your mom and try to sell to Netflix. At least some representation in the media!

@@aesyamazeli8804 that would be great to do! I definitely consider doing it.

Oh my god will’s a perfect example of the savior teacher trope. He was the Spanish teacher despite knowing little to none, was absolutely useless in helping his students when they needed it (very first episode had him walking away from Kurt getting bullied), he actually put DRUGS in his student’s locker to blackmail them to join his bum club, and yet he acted like glee club single-handedly saved all his students

I'm from Oregon and noticed we had almost all black men employed as sports coaches or truancy officers both in my middle and high school years. There was only one black teacher I ever knew of, and she didn't seem to work there for very long. It was pretty hard not to notice this if you actually looked.

I only knew 1 black teacher my entire growing up--and no other races except white. But my towns population and school had about 50% white, rest being minority races.

Also, it just goes to show much racism in the UK and wider European sphere is not given as much of a spectacle, but it has been and still very much is alive and well

Is Freeman the teacher in that movie?

@@Gloomdrake he's the tough principal who saves a school of misbehaving black kids

LOL. I believe he’s based on a real principal at Eastside High. My mom graduated right before he came to “clean up” the school. Who even knows if the real guy was even like the portrayal? I hope not. I know he did get into trouble for locking up the school to keep drug dealers out.

The irony is that the best thing she ever did was stop talking and let the students speak for themselves.

Yes, those poor white Karen's not realizing kids a full standard deviation below the national average are going to be tamed by yelling. Of course you don't like it. You're fine with all the public fights and barely there reading scores.

Apparently teachers being white is a problem now. Can you people even hear yourselves 💀

UM. Do they need to be taught or do they need to be taught by their community? Because their cummunity will be teaching them no matter what. It sounds like their teachers are bad teachers because they can't manage a classroom without yelling constantly, not because they they're white. I mean, I don't know, maybe they had a bad attitude and rubbed you the wrong way. But I'm not sure that statement at the end makes sense. If I want to learn micro-biology and I love in a small town and no one knows how to do it do I need a teacher who knows how to teach the subject or do I need to be taught by someone from my community, who likely doesn't know how to teach me what I need to know?

@@rachelclark6393 UM. As a person who lives in a metropolitan city, there is no reason for there not to be a single person of color within their teachers, especially if the group is almost exclusively black and brown kids. I got to so many schools, and at most all of the schools I teach there are a diverse range of teachers with different ages, backgrounds; and are both male and female. If a school only employs exclusively boomer white women teachers, specifically to a majority black/brown audience... I personally would not feel safe sending my kid there. It would feel like I would just setting them up to face microaggressions constantly. Obviously the critique might be different if it was a small town, but I'm sure these white women who already come from the "rich side of the city" (also a predominately white area in a major city because of redlining), I would doubt they would be near a small town of just black/brown folks anyway. These are just observations though, since I've never taught at a school in a small town. Also, it would be different if they were teaching to majority white students as well.

@@saxviars9749 I see your point, and I think I understand it, but I guess what I am trying to say is that the issues of poor teaching in underfunded schools and racial injustice.... To me seem to be separate issues that intersect sometimes. I'm not at all saying it doesn't happen, mind you. I'm sure that it does. But I don't think every white woman teaching brown kids is inherently racist, or that if a white woman teaching brown kids doesn't teach them well that the issue is with racial profiling or stereotyping rather than poor teaching skills. I had a friend who tried teaching during the pandemic. It was a disaster, and I understood from what she told me that it was the system which was truly making it impossible to teach. Covid measures made it worse, of course, but even without those, she would have struggled. I went to both public and private schools, so I experienced a range of teachers of all colors. My public school had more white teachers than my private school. I suspect this is in part because the private schools were actively hiring with diversity in mind, and the public schools weren't nearly so choosy. Regardless, in my experience, teachers are either determined and devoted or lazy, petty, and unhelpful. And that depends on the teachers, not the race of the teacher. There may actually be reasons for a public school in a metropolitan area to have a vastly higher pool of teachers from one race than another. I'd be interested to see how many black kids in the inner city become teachers, and then to see where those black teachers go to teach. I know they exist, but in what numbers, and where do they go? Because it might be that there are more white teachers getting into the profession and that the black teachers, being the minority, might get snapped up disproportionately to schools concerned with advertising a diverse staff. White teachers in comparison, might have a much larger field to compete with and therefore might just mostly be going wherever they can get a job And the schools which constantly need teachers would be the schools which had poor conditions to teach in, causing high teacher turnover. Low pay, no ac or heat, no budget, rowdy or under performing student body, disinterested parents, hostile administration, etc. I think all this stuff compijnds itself and creates a vicious cycle, too. So I feel like, although this discussion is valid and has merit, the real question should be focused on how to improve school outcomes in general. And I feel that that issue has more to do with what kids are actually learning than who is teaching them, unless the teacher in question has proven they are a poor teacher. I hear an awful lot of kids who don't really learn anything in school, for a variety of reasons. And an awful lot of kids who get their education on tiktok. I myself remember learning things which were ftsught in a fashion that made it clear I wasn't expected to be able to use the knowledge practically. I was just test prepping, essentially. So naturally, I retained none of it. I think there's somereal conversations to be had there, and clearing up the performance issues might make some of these more difficult issues easier to understand and fix.

You do look annoying

So because you’ve never had a nice white teacher I guess they don’t exist, or they can’t possibly exist.

Watermelon Ice This is my experience, I don’t need to validate white teachers any more than they already are.

@@gabrielanavarro5228 You people are hilarious

Liar. 😂

lmao that moment when he called out the main character 😳

I am pretty sure it was intentional subversion. There was a lot of that in movies and TV of that time, plus or minus about three years from 10 Things I Hate About You, and it gave me some hope in my teens.

They want to impress the white man so badly 😶

Why Christian? This sounds snobby.

@IntrepidTit thanks for that for real, you explained it better than I could

​@Step ahead because the white saviour trope whether in fiction or real life usually is followed up with a religious (read: Christian) undertone

​@@stepahead5944 If you don't understand why Christian is relevant, lemme tell you about these folks called "Jesuits"

There's a reason the "assimilate or else" schools were called "mission school"

Hahahaha

Using "chocolate skin" is racist, got it. Swarthy is a general term - it was used to describe Jesus. The fact blacks and libtard whites see racism in everything is more than a meme. If blacks hate it, they can return to Africa. Be among their people.

Maybe I'm not white so I don't understand y'all problems but what's wrong with chocolate skin? In my own language we call someone with white clear skin as 'peeled boiled egg', a bit tanner as 'yellow like langsat', being very dark as 'mangosteen colour'. What is wrong with being described by the colour of food? Vanilla, milk, peachy etc isn't that food too?

I was thinking of reading Pullman's books; I am glad to have heard that before developing an opinion of him through his work.

@@aesyamazeli8804 At least in English, food-related words aren’t often used to describe paler skin tones- it’s really only used for those with darker skin. The food comparison can come across as fetishy and demeaning. It makes a lotta people feel very uncomfortable. So it’s generally a good idea not to use descriptions like that, because even if it’s meant as a well-intentioned compliment it can still come across as creepy.

@@Lilverde Huh. Didn't know what. Woops. In my native language describing skin colors by comparing it to food or tree bark is relatively common? I've read somewhere that when people were asked to describe their own skin color there were like over 70 different descriptors registered. Probably reflecting the huge amount of race-mixing in my country. Then again, another reason might be people just doing anything they can to avoid calling themselves 'black' (no prizes for guessing why). Guess I'll stop doing that in English though. Learned something new.

I think you're talking about the film Stand and Deliver . If so someone in the threads in the comments section talked about being in one of his schools and how he actually was pretty screwed up . It's here in the comments somewhere not too far from the top you might want to look for it and it was surprising what he had to say

My teacher showed Freedom Writers in my class, and I didn’t realize how it embodies white saviorism until a couple years later.

It sucks because the book actually lets the kids speak for themselves, but the movie’s white savior complex means these kids continue to be silenced. The kid in the movie who was asked to give the “Black perspective on the Color Purple” had four entries about being a closeted lesbian in a church background. The kid Eva was based on actually convinced her father to tell the truth and he was released from jail, rather than him being alienated from her so that Erin could “save” her. These kids are real people with nuanced stories but the movie basically guaranteed that nobody will take them seriously.

Picture some teachers- one gets every ESL kid, and teaches kids who aren't even potty trained by 6. One gets punched, kicked, bitten, and gets no support because she "doesn't understand their struggle". One has 3 paras for 2 SPED kids, and complains that her class is unteachable with those two in the room. You'll never guess who has the savior complex for inspiring all her disadvantaged students

It's always the teachers with the best students who complain the loudest ime