In 2009 I was twenty-seven years old, slightly self-righteous and ready for some soul-searching-travel. I applied for a Fund For Teachers Grant. I was rejected. It was a bummer to say the least. I applied a second time with two other women. Strike two. I had no intention of applying this year. But late one night I was approached by Dottie Engler, the Special Projects director at the Boston Plan for Excellence. I was listening to a Catherine Russell jazz album and doing paperwork. Dottie and I started chatting because she was working late too. At the end of our talk she encouraged me to apply again. The application was due in two days. I went home that night and worked on it for hours. The proposal had more intention behind it then it did back in '09. As I embark on my seventh year as a primary urban educator I am thrilled that I have an opportunity to travel back home to explore the ideas that led to my eventual decision to become a social justice educator.
The goals for my trip are simple.
- In my second grade classroom in Boston, my students and I embark on a year-long study of Boston and her neighborhoods. The neighborhoods where my students reside are often places left off the map. They are neighborhoods that are given attention to only where there are stories of violence and drugs. The silent messages that my students receive are loud and clear from this portrayal. My student's home's are places that are feared and exotified at the same time. There are parallels that I can make to India here. My plan is to put myself through my student's Boston Neighborhoods curriculum, but in my mom and dad's hometowns instead. The writing and documentation that I create in India will serve as exemplars for the work I want my students to do upon returning home.
- As a first-generation Indian woman, I often get asked by students if I am Native-American or from Trinidad. Every year I take out a map and show students where my parents were born and where I have spent many summers. I show them a place I feel connected to and disconnected from at the same time... a feeling not so different than the feelings I have here in Boston. Each year my students crave to know more about India. I can tell from their questions and their desire to make connections to India and all things Indian. And each year I provide them with superficial information about where I am from, while asking them to deeply uncover and think about where they are from. The demands of the job, the standards, and the most limited resource of all, time, force me to engage on the surface level. But there is a great deal lost with this approach. For starters, my students don't get to understand why I believe so strongly in the work that I am doing and in them because I don't have the time to tell them. I became an educator so that I could take part in a daily exchange that would result in a sense of tolerance and acceptance. I need to figure out a way to expose myself more fully to my students. By using exemplars from my own adventure of self-discovery I can feed two birds with one hand. I can show my kiddos the writing skills they need while providing a space for cultural tolerance and exchange.
- In 2007 when I graduated with a Masters from Boston Teacher Residency I had to write my Philosophy of Education. Even then, I wrote about how I needed that document to be a constant work in progress. But in 7 years I have not edited it once. I intend to add the experiences of the last six years to my Philosophy in order to edit and revamp. But first I need to explore where it all began. And I need to start before I was even a concept. For me, the story needs to begin with my mom and dad, and probably even before that.
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