Invisi-bubble

The vast ranges and differences in abilities, talents, socioeconomic backgrounds, and ethnicities that exist among students in the walls of one small classroom never ceases to amaze me. As an adult, we are sorted and categorized and labeled in ways that separate us into distinct spheres that rarely meet (think: socio-economic distinctions), so that through lack of experience we forget that one of the founding goals of public education is to create a mini-democratic society, that is by default diverse in many ways, even for students who are raised by parents who are similar in socioeconomic status.

As adults, we settle into what society expects of us, and soon we take on this identity and find a way to make it our own, to make peace with the lives we find ourselves living. We may have come to terms with the reality of our lives----who we are versus who we thought maybe we could be----we are not famous: writers, artists, millionaire entrepreneurs, athletes….and we have learned to live in this space and tailor our expectations and goals to it. We live on that level, a level that excludes those we can’t relate to but have power to exclude, and accepts that fact that there are whole worlds that we ourselves are excluded from (when was the last time Melinda Gates invited YOU to a dinner party?). We move to neighborhoods with people who look like us, believe what we believe, make the same amount of money we make, and have the same level or type of education.

Our students, on the other hand, spend all day long in a room full of future Bill Gates’ and future cab drivers. Day in and day out, they have to navigate a very complicated social scene. We, on the other hand, often spend the most emotionally and psychologically charged moments of our day with people with whom we can relate on some level---whether it be socioeconomically or ethnically. It is no wonder, then, that our students’ interactions in the classroom are often unintelligible to us as teachers, and it is no wonder we often fail to understand how significantly they impact the learning experiences of those involved. For myself, I am working at being more cognizant of this. It would be wise for me to remember that my daily interactions do not demand near as much diplomacy as those of my students.