A Brown Mommy Dilemma: All White Teachers

If you follow this blog, you know that Mama Mendoza is not shy about talking race relations, and this is one of those subjects that gets under my skin so much that I want to explode.  This week has been back-to-school week for my kids.  But, really it started for us about 3 months ago.  I live in the Pittsburgh Public School District and have gone through the process of getting my children into one of its charter schools for the last year and a half.  My husband and I relocated back to Pittsburgh from New York in 2011.  So, up until 2011 my oldest son was used to attending a diverse school.  I mean from Chilean to Russian to Italian and Egyptian my son's school experience has run the gambit of teaching styles, talking styles and disciplinary structures.  So, it was no surprise when during orientation my son asked me:

"Mom why does Pittsburgh only have White teachers?,"

But, I did not know how to answer the question.  He's only 11-years-old and I can only go so far with explaining segregation and economic disparities before he's like "What?"  So, I simply told him it was because this specific school was trying to get more Black teachers and that many African-Americans do not possess the degree necessary to become a teacher.  And the he asked "Well why doesn't the school just have a training program for Black people who want to be teachers," and I just distracted him with a conversation on the new fish tank we just got -- that worked, YES!  But, I found myself thinking about it last night and thinking about how he would feel during the school year seeing the shortage of Black teachers. Would he take that to mean he could never be a teacher?  Would he treat his teachers differently?  Would the teachers treat him differently?  While there are some Black administrators at the school, I wondered the same thing myself.

Do Black people value teaching work?  Do White teachers see the disparity?  And, how does it make them feel?  Could schools develop training programs to encourage parents into the teaching fields?  I honestly don't know what the answer is.  But, I think its something that could be easily fixed if administrators, educators and parents made a conscious and targeted decision to fix it.

It frustrates and makes me feel sad to think that I have two smaller sons who have begun school this year and the number of Black teachers in their schools is non-existent.  That means once they leave our home at 8:05 a.m. they won't encounter another adult who thinks like me, has the same experiences I do and can decipher in my cultural context until about 3:30 p.m. -- that's a large chunk of the day.  To be honest, it scares me.  How do you think we as Brown Mommys can begin to address this issue.

Here's a video talking about the subject: