Throughout my journey as a CYES student, I have come to learn so much about my positionality in the world and how I will make use of my strengths and note my weaknesses in all social settings; specifically in my future classrooms. Prior to entering college, I did not know exactly which career path I wanted to commit to. To some degree, I still don’t. However, the one profession that I was set on not pursuing was teaching. Several experiences with my teachers throughout my academic career caused me to develop strong negative feelings about education and schooling as a whole. I wanted to be done with this portion of my life as soon as possible and never enter a school again. However, the problems I saw with the education system (and bad teachers) inspired me to enroll in CYES focused courses at Clark. In all of these classes, I felt especially passionate about the subjects I was learning about and immediately recognized the need for people like me, who strongly disapprove of many traditional educational practices, to be a part of the school system. For me, CYES has been the perfect segway into entering the profession of teaching with a mindful outlook that will benefit my own practice and future students. This program has allowed me to thoroughly reflect on my own negative experiences and prepared me both to resolve and prevent these problems for all types of people to the best of my ability. For example, societal dilemmas regarding race, gender, and economic status disadvantage certain students in schools who I will never be able to fully relate to. I will do my best to make their careers in education as positive as possible while taking into consideration my own life experiences and developed knowledge from CYES.
My Theory of Social Inequality
Every individual is born into conditions which make his or her own life experiences unique. At Clark University, I do not know very many people who grew up similar to the way I did. I lived on a Christmas tree farm in a small, working-class town with a K-12 public school that was responsible for educating about 120 students. Throughout my entire career at this school, I only ended up having three POC friends who also comprised the entire POC population. As a result, prior to college I was never fully exposed to direct, first-hand forms of racial inequality. Race was not extensively integrated into my school’s curriculum. Additionally, the people who I was surrounded by were all members of the same economic class; wealth was not common and even if someone was wealthy, they did not publically express it. Despite being secluded from upper-class life, extreme wealth could be found only a short drive away in Stowe, Vermont, an area of the state that I have never been fond of and one experience in particular solidified these feelings.
During the fall of my junior year of high school, three of my friends and I decided to drive to Stowe so we could walk around a vintage car show and spend the evening in the town. In the beginning, it was an enjoyable experience especially because one of my friends was an Italian exchange student who had never been to a car show of that type. As the sun started to set, the group of us decided to take one more lap around the main street area. After a few minutes of walking, I looked down a side street and saw a group of kids about our age pointing at us. I stopped where I was and the group, which was comprised of both boys and girls, approached us. Almost immediately, they started harassing us based on the way we were dressed, and where we came from. I specifically remember one tall, blond member of the group who approached me and removed his visor cap which had a small marking on it. He then asked me, “Do you even know what this is?”, pointing to a symbol on the cap, to which I responded “No.” He smugly told me that it was Nantucket and his dad owned a house there. Initially, I was upset for not knowing the shape of the island but I had never been to Nantucket nor seen a map of it so there was nothing I could have said in the moment.
Part of what surprised me about the interaction was that there were countless older adults walking past us and staring as if they knew there was something wrong. However, maybe because of the bystander effect, no onlookers stood up to say anything. When my friends and I got back to our hometown, we had a discussion with my mom about the unfortunate interaction. She sympathized and noted how a situation like that would be challenging to deal with because bullying was practically nonexistent in our high school. Unlike people who may have had experience with it, we had no idea how to react to the bullies we encountered and what to make of the entire situation. I wish I had known what to say to them, but I am fortunate to not have been a victim of that type of harassment on a daily basis.
In this encounter, the Stowe students were quick to establish a clear power dynamic based on what they perceived as our class differences. They were rich, and in their eyes, we were poor. In the capitalist society we live in, there is virtually no other way this situation could have taken shape. In other words, you will never see a group of poor people aggressively confront a smaller group of wealthy people and proceed to belittle them based on their looks, behavior, clothing, or any other potential “weakness” which could be targeted. Additionally, because of the predetermined power dynamic, there was no form of retaliation which we could have used in order to legitimately offend them and have them leave feeling like the “losers” of the situation. Despite my negative feelings for these people, I pity their shortcomings and recognize the conditions in which they have been raised in for them to behave in such an awful way. They are a perfect representation of blind privilege with no regard for the lives of others, especially those who may be considered to be “lesser”. I hope that no other individuals like me and my friends have the misfortune of interacting with these people in such a way. However, I hope that the Stowe students will come to recognize their privileges and use them to lift people up instead of bring them down.
My Identity and Positionality in a Social Context
Despite the efforts of good people to remain immune from the projection of their own subconscious biases onto others, these biases will continue to occur. Every person is vulnerable to negative assumptions based on gender, race, social class, and countless other factors. As a white male, I recognize my societal privilege in relation to many of my friends, family members, peers, and mentors. However, I have been through many experiences which have made me become more aware of the assumptions people make on me based on my physical features. Most of these negative experiences took place during my elementary and middle school years in a classroom setting with my peers, who were all white, and my teachers, who were all older white women. In these classes, I, along with several others, were not always the most attentive to the wishes of the teacher. Rather than being entirely focused on the lesson plan, we would often get distracted and end up either chatting amongst ourselves (as elementary and middle school students do) or, in some cases, end up disrupting the entire class. However, I noticed that the severity of my punishments were always much more harsh than those of my female peers. Many times, I would confront the teachers with my concerns but I would be met with comments such as “Don’t be ridiculous” or “Don’t blame others for your actions”. At this age, it was impossible to understand the greater implications of the situation simply because I did not have the knowledge or vocabulary to verbalize these subconscious biases. In one specific case, I remember watching a movie in another classroom. I heard some conversation taking place a few rows ahead of me and the teacher angrily angrily said the name of one of my younger friends, who happened to be one of the only two male people of color in the school. She followed up saying with name with harshly demanding him stop talking. He immediately responded by stating something along the lines of “That wasn’t me! It was [a white female student].” The teacher then calmly said “Oh, then please quiet down.” Unfortunately, experiences like this occur for all age groups both in and out of the classroom.
This past December, I was in a gas station with my brother and one of my other friends who is Southern Italian and Lebanese. We went inside to get drinks without inciting any suspicion other than the fact that both my brother and my friend had their hoods up. The three of us were looking at drinks to buy when an older white lady, who claimed she was the manager, aggressively confronted us and said that we were acting extremely suspicious and she had been watching us on the security cameras. I could see that this really upset my brother and friend so I stated that we simply came into the store to buy drinks and that we did not commit any suspicious acts. She was offended by this and then threatened to call the police. I told her that we would not leave until we bought our drinks so we politely went to the cashier, paid, and left without any further interaction other than a few stares from the workers and other shoppers.
Regarding the school based experiences of inequality and bias, there are countless factors which need to be considered and made sense of in order to effectively analyze them. Most importantly, it is important to note that the actions of these teachers may or may not have been intentional. Though I can guarantee that the male students were met with greater force than female students, I have no way of gauging the frequency at which classroom “disruptions” occurred. In other words, the male students may have spoken out of turn more often but does that mean that they deserved more punishment in a stand-alone disturbance? Ideally, the answer would be no. However, at this time, I do not have a clear solution to this dilemma but I do know that the actions of teachers in these situations can be damaging. The example of my friend being accused of speaking out during a movie is the perfect example of this, presented clearly to a room full of people. It was non-verbally presented to this student that his actions were not excusable in a given situation but they were to somebody else. Not only this, but it provided information on what that teacher was thinking for her to assume that it was this student who had talked out of turn. In this situation, I was more of a bystander but it allowed my previous concerns to be clearly displayed right in front of me. Though it may be considered a small or insignificant exchange, I will remember it for the rest of my life.
The encounter I had alongside my brother and one of my friends can indirectly be viewed as the “real world” version of my previously mentioned classroom experiences. When I entered that gas station, I was not expecting to be accused of any sort of illegal acts so I was taken off guard. This is a result of my white privilege. I was under the assumption that she had the intention of triggering us which would result in her being able to kick us out or call the police. However, I responded to her calmly and assertively by stating that we were not doing anything wrong and we would leave after we paid for our items. She seemed angered by this but, by law, there was nothing she could do because I was telling the full truth. However, by doing this, I hope I had a positive impact on the way she views people who look like us entering her facility.
The presence of my friend, who is not considered white by many individuals, was likely the determining factor of our confrontation. This is easy to put into perspective. For example, I assume that the manager of the gas station would have responded in the same way if the three of us were old, white women like her, rather than young men. This assumption brings to light the fact that people tend to feel the most comfortable when they are surrounded by others who look like them, which is discussed in “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in The Cafeteria?”. After this experience, I had a discussion with my parents. For me, it put into perspective the biases that regular people have to face every day. One of the main questions I asked myself was how the situation would have been different if we were black. The simple and obvious answer is that it would have been very different. In the real situation, the majority of the group was only separated by (approximately) one level of intersectionality from the manager; we were male and she was female. However, if we were all black, it would have been at least two levels which most likely would have resulted in further discomfort on her behalf. This thought is frightening and I recognize how privileged I am to have been able to exit the situation peacefully.
My Understanding of Change
Every person is born into an inevitable role in society which is dependent on several key features. These features may include, race, gender, ethnicity, physical ability, and socioeconomic status but there are far too many to quantify. Each one may affect a person differently for either positive or negative general experiences. For example, consider the difference between a white male born into an upper-class family versus a black female born into a lower-class family. Though both may have been metaphorically born in the same hospital, it is ignorant to assume that they will have the same types of experiences after they leave the hospital. This is the unfortunate reality we live in; true equity cannot exist unless significant societal changes occur. As a white man, I am in a position of privilege in our current state. However, unlike many, I recognize the privileges associated with my physical features and intend to use them for the benefit of others who are considered to be in a worse-off position. As mentioned, individual people may have a combination of some traits which entail privilege as well as some traits that do not. Personally, I have been through many experiences which brought this fact to light for me; this is part of what inspires me to strive for the equality of all people.
Oppression based on socioeconomic status is often paired with other traits such as race. For example, African-American people still experience the side effects of slavery through modern day racism (both outright and subconcious) and economic disadvantages. This form of societal oppression is a cycle exercised by disadvantaged public education systems. Minority schools receive less funding, which then leads to a lower quality level of education, which then puts the students at a disadvantage when entering the world of work or pursuing a higher education. It is also important to consider that some families could not even put a high school graduate through college because of its outrageous cost. Though I am not a person of color, I have been consciously bullied by people who are at a greater economic advantage than I am.
During my junior year of high school, I was at an antique car show about 40 minutes from my house in Stowe, Vermont. This town is extremely wealthy; especially in comparison to several of the surrounding towns. Because of this, I have always been hesitant to spend time there because the residents are much different from myself in terms of wealth. At the car show, my friends and I were approached by a group of kids, about our age, who decided to harass us because we were not from Stowe, and we looked much different from them. They made comments about our hair, clothes, physical features, and our hometown. Additionally, they told us about the wealth of their families. At the time, I did not know how to respond because I had never been marginalized in that manner. Today, I realize that this is a perfect example of socioeconomic oppression in its most direct form. Because of this interaction, my general sense of unwelcomeness in the town of Stowe was enhanced. It affects who I interact with and how I interact with them. Unfortunately, this awareness is not entirely beneficial because it often leads to negative judgements of people.
One of the most interesting aspects of this interaction was my reaction to it. The fact that I felt “less welcome” in Stowe, can be compared to larger scale, real world scenarios which involve assumptions based on personal features. The bullies made assumptions about me entirely based on the way I looked; if I had looked like one of them, they never would have questioned my existence. The effects of this can be damaging especially when said features are unchangeable; such as race. For example, a friend of mine told me about a time when a black family moved in next-door to her in her all white, middle class neighborhood. Shortly after they had moved in, another neighbor confronted one of the members of the new family and made a comment along the lines of, “What are you doing here?”. The assumption was that since they were black, they did not belong in this area and had no business being in the neighborhood. Even when a person is able to “break out” of their societal expectations, they still face oppression which sets them apart from other privileged individuals.
There is no simple method of prevention for these unfortunate societal setbacks. However, every person is able to exercise their positionality in a way that can benefit the disadvantaged. There is no limit to how big or small an individual act has to be for it to make a difference. I believe that one of the primary areas where these inequalities begin is in the education system. As mentioned, schools can foster inequality individually and on a larger scale. The fact that some families can pay a private institution many thousands of dollars per year for their child to receive a “higher quality” education undermines the diversity which is valuable to all educational experiences. During my time in public school, I was never oppressed because of my family’s income. However, I struggled in other ways which need to be prevented for all students in order for them to be successful. These struggles came as the result of harsh treatment from my teachers, primarily in elementary school. Not only did some of them turn school into a hostile environment, but some of their actions directly discouraged my learning. For example, in first grade, I remember having to draw a picture of an animal on a piece of paper and captioning it with its species name. I ended up drawing a scorpion on my paper. However, I spelled “scorpion” as “skwerpeon”. Obviously, this is a typical first-grade mistake which, in an ideal world, should have resulted in a perfect learning opportunity for the teacher. I showed her my picture and repeatedly told her what it was, but I remember being met with a harsh, demeaning tone. She claimed that she did not know what I was talking about and that she could not understand what I was saying, or what the picture was of. To most people, assuming that they knew what a scorpion was, it would have been clear. I ended up feeling frustrated and hopeless. Rather than educating me, this teacher, who I already had a poor relationship with, decided to use her power to make me feel stupid. Unfortunately, she succeeded.
Though I definitely would not consider my first grade teacher to be a “role model”, she has inspired me to pursue a career in education. Her negative actions created a reality where I despised the idea of going to school every day. Ideally, students at that age should be excited to learn; it is an innate desire. After college, I want to end up in a position where I am able to foster this desire and become the educator which some of my former teachers could not be. When students are made to feel “stupid” in a classroom, this entirely defeats the purpose of education itself and potentially leads to negative implications later in life. Until society prioritizes equity and optimal learning in schools, countless forms of oppression will continue to exist. Schools are the foundation of society and should be utilized to create positive learning environments for all types of people.