Oh, NO! Different ethnicities?! Say it ain't so!

My students are special, each one unique in their very own right. They differ in color, personality, interests, and family type. I love that I have students whose interests range from riding horses to Star Wars to playing football or soccer. I have students who spend their weekends taking ballet or etiquette classes to fishing with their dads to listening to hip-hop music with their older brothers and learning how to obtain swag. (Do you choose swag, or are you just born with it? The next great genetic debate.) Now, I know that this is also fairly typical of schools to have such variety, so I’m not saying that my classroom is exclusively rare, I’m just saying that since it’s the first year I’ve taught elementary school, they’re awesome.

My teaching partner and I decided to take our students on a field trip to a children’s science museum. It’s a place that most of them have been to before, so we had to choose some activities to really sell the idea to them. We decided to have them do the ropes course (after the year we’ve had, we needed some team building) and a backyard habitat walk as they had just finished studying ecosystems in science. The students were split into two groups, and it was chance that all of the girls were in one group and all the boys in another. My boys are sweet, funny, and for the most part, eager to learn. I couldn’t ask for a better group of young men. They are inquisitive when we discuss literature, they have learned how to hold a door open, and they keep trying to teach me how to throw the perfect spiral at recess.

There was an older mother there with her two young daughters. They were dressed more like they were spending an afternoon at a country club than a children’s museum. They all had porcelain ivory skin, perfectly curled blonde hair with adorable cardigans, strings of pearls, and Mom was sporting a bangin’ pair of Tory Burch sandals.  The boys wanted to explore the gift shop, and explore they did. They touched everything; twisting, turning, and shaking any object that they could. Laughing and smiling as they watched colored oil moving around, pendulums swinging, and digging through the rocks to name the ones they knew. These sweet boys also did this without running around, screaming, yelling, and throwing things. Each item was put back into its place after inspection.

I can see how the group of boys can be intimidating to this woman who looks like she hasn’t spent time with anyone outside of her white, suburban bubble. She took one look at the boys and grabbed on to her daughters’ hands. “Come on girls, there are too many of them in here.” Oh, I’m sorry. Were there not supposed to be children in the children’s museum? My apologies. Fortunately, I didn’t hear her say this. My teaching partner did. She came over and whispered in my ear what Becky McPerfect had said. I watched as Becky scooted her girls to a different area to look at the jewelry.

I called out to the boys, “Hey, boys! Come take a look at this jewelry!” As the boys crowded around Becky, her daughters, and myself, they quietly spun the racks and gazed at the gift shop jewelry. I listened to them talk to each other as they marveled in the beauty of cheap, sparkly necklaces and bracelets. Becky and her girls looked uncomfortable and tried to leave, but it was a little difficult for them to elbow their way out of the crowd.