"Slacker"

“Turn to chapter nine and read silently for the next 40 minutes,” the soft voice commands. Mrs. Douglas makes her way to the far right corner of the classroom and takes her seat at her desk as students reluctantly begin to crack open their thick, green textbooks. Once I locate chapter 9, my eyes begin to identify the text on the page:

“If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other young people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden in mine –which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason to suspect myself of having been a monstrosity…” Dickens, Great Expectations

My mind begins to race. Ignoring the text in front of me, I begin to wonder, “Why are we reading this? Why should I care? Am I the only one not enjoying this? Am I less intelligent for not enjoying this?” These questions continue to reel in my mind to a point in which I become overwhelmed. I am growing tired. I place my head on my desk and fall asleep. Shortly, I feel a delicate little something nudge my shoulder. A soft whisper from Mrs. Douglas informs me, “Joe, we don’t sleep in honors English 9.”

Embarrassed, I look around to notice all of the other students reading. They seem to be enjoying it. I can’t understand the point I am missing. I know what the words on the page mean. I know what is happening on the page, but I don’t care. Why don’t I care? Is it because no one in here looks like me? Is it because at this point of the year I have not read anything from anyone who looks like me? Should I care?

Ninth grade was the first year I learned that my culture was void of history-at least a history worth studying. Prior to ninth grade, English classes consisted of diagraming sentences, learning parts of speech, figurative language and the writing and research process. Prior to ninth grade, cultural identities in English were absent because English class was just that, English.

By the time I reached high school I began to feel like an outsider in the one place that used to bring me intellectual joy. By the ninth grade, English was now English Literature. Even though I barely passed honors English 9, I was still recommended for honors English 10. Now I had to look forward to World Literature, which I quickly learned was a default term for "more European literature."

I became lethargic and cynical.

I continued to “push through” Dickens and every other text that I had to read in high school. I continued to answer the response questions at the end of each chapter and focused narrowly on minutia facts that would appear on the test.

At some point between the 9^th and 10^th grades, I was given the option to go outside of the canon. This is when I first read Frederick Douglas’ Narrative Life and Richard Wright’s Native Son. I felt like I was given the option to read these texts because I was at a handicap due to my association with Black culture. Feelings of frustration became more pervasive and I became more detached from the entire learning process.

Two weeks after entering Hampton University, I changed my major from Broadcast Journalism to English. I don't know why I did this considering I was indifferent to the discipline. English was closest thing to declaring an “undecided” major without actually being undecided. I would tell my parents that I wanted to go to law school or go into education administration to make them feel comfortable with my un-decision.

Then I took Dr. Barnes’ course on early African American Literature and everything changed.

That semester, a whole new world of cultural literary history was opened up to me. I was exposed to writers such as Charles Chesnutt, Anna Julia Cooper, Phyllis Wheatley, and Jean Toomer. I had heard of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois, but had no idea that their ideas about Black culture and American society were so "heavy." There was something self-affirming about engaging with these texts. Even more, after taking this class, I learned how to read literature, thus triggering a passion to go back and read all of those texts I neglected in high school. I realized that I did not lack the intellectual aptitude to learn, but lacked the institutional support to bolster my learning.

My process of learning is one of constant negotiation between otherness amidst a ubiquitous dominant presence. This blog explores how I reconcile my otherness as I embark down the path of learning about my students and myself. As an educator, I want to empower students and especially underrepresented students who seem to fall through the cracks of the education system not because of a lack of intellectual aptitude but because of a lack of institutional support.