(pt.2) How White Teachers Have Changed My Life

welcome to reteach

And so, you know, with that, this is me talking about like middle school and high school, but again, a little bit of background here in middle school, this is where a very interesting pattern to me really shows up. That explains me as a student very well. It's, Oh, AB you. Okay. And so this is what that means is that the Oh , was for attendance, right?

And so I always would have an O in attendance because I very rarely if ever miss school, I said in another space it's like I love going to school. It helped me stay away from all the stuff that was normally bothering me in regards to my home life and everything. And it was , to me it was a great place. I really liked school and being around my friends and learning stuff and whatnot. The AB is like, I could've just said a or B or whatever, but the AB is like basically the grade that I got. Right.

So I usually we get either A's or B's in classes. That's just, you know, and that's me. Remember, you know I said in another space it's like that's just me working at pretty much like cruise control. I'm really not putting in a whole bunch of effort but me not putting an effort normally got me an a or B and then the you comes in and that citizenship unsatisfactory citizenship. Because I always, always, always, always, always would talk in class.

But remember I was talking in class because I was done with my work fast and then I would start talking to my friends. I did, I always got my work done. And so that's why I had the grading pattern that I did. And so this is is this is me, right? And I kid you not, there's only one teacher that I had that's even worth mentioning in middle school and that's Ms. Parker . And all she did was just like me. I'm not even kidding about that. Like for real.

It's like I had it for two quarters and she just liked me for some reason. I have no idea before, whatever reason, she just thought I was the coolest kid ever. And that's all she did. I kid you not. But because of her, I even wanted to go to school more and she was the math teacher. I'm the whatnot . And so I got to go into that space and do something that I, you know, relatively enjoyed at with the teacher. That was very enjoyable. She liked me. That's it. That's all she did.

And you know what, this is, this is really super old school. I don't know if anybody's old enough to remember, is that we were actually encouraged to go to school when we were sick. Right. I don't know if anybody remembers that or maybe it's just because I was in a working poor situation and whatnot, is that we were encouraged to go to school, sick and , um, and whatnot. And you know, we knew very, you know, less about how disease was passed down and all of that stuff.

Um, you know, back in the day. And so we were encouraged to go to school and so I would go, I want , I remember going to school with the flu, right. I mean fever and everything and I still, it was cause it was exam day and I didn't even think to ask Ms. Parker for, you know, a different day to take the exam. I just took the exam. You got to take the exam twice.

And it was funny, the day that I was sick is the day that I passed the exam the other day when I wasn't as sick, I didn't do a , I got like a 68 and you know you needed a 70 in order to pass. But the first one I actually got like a 72 and so I was like, yo, I made it to class. I passed. And like I said, but it had a lot to do with her just liking me. I mean I know it sounds weird but it is what it is. That actually had a huge impact in my life.

And so then in high school there again, I was like these, to me, these are really small things is that I had this professor or this teacher, mr jet , he was my math teacher and there was this one problem that he asked us to do what not, and I came up with an alternative way to solve it and it always solved correctly. And he was absolutely fascinated that it worked all the time. And so he tried to get me to explain it, but I didn't understand. I didn't know how to explain it.

Like I told you , I was like, I'm not a math genius. It's just, I just saw the problem differently than how he was explaining it and how the book even told us to do it. And I and I , I created a way of doing it that just gave me the right answer all the time. And rather than say that I was cheating or that he couldn't believe that I got this, who helped me, he literally was just like, yo Bruce, this is like really good. Like, man, I wish I could understand that .

It's like, I wish you could tell me more about what you were thinking as you were going through this. And I just felt really good about that. And then there was another time in his class where he had even told us , I see as , and I know with teachers, because I do this now, is that if I can , if I say something at the beginning of the semester, I don't expect students to remember it come to middle of the semester or something like that. Right. Or even at the end of the semester.

I don't expect students to remember anything I said in the beginning, but I remember him talking about how you can't divide by zero there. There's, there's this really big, you know, bad stuff that happens if you ever divide by zero. Right. He said something like that at the very beginning. Some student asked a question, why can't we divide by zero? And he said later on, I'm going to show you why you can't divide by zero. I'm just not going to do it right now. And like whatever. Right.

And I'm not even kidding. Like the end of the semester, he does this, you know, quadratic equation or something like that. And um, and he show any and he just, he does it with just variables and , um , and it , and it's like, you know, and it winds up being that you wind up dividing by zero and at the end of it you see that one equals two. And he was like, you know, he followed all the mathematical rules and then he looks at the class and it's like, so what do you think went wrong?

Um, there was another teacher in my English class who did something very similar to that and that, Oh , I , I believe it was a , I want to say it was Mr. Roach . I don't, Oh man. I can't remember his name though. It's like, but anyway , um, it's drifted off. Maybe it'll come back to me, but we were going over like Don tase and Fern or something like that. And he was talking about like the hierarchy of like the divine or something like that.

And it was like God was number one, man was number two than angels were number three in debt . He just kept on going down like animals were next and plants and whatever. And I remember looking at that and like expressing loudly. It's like, so people are ahead of angels. And I remember him saying, you know, I knew you'd be able to notice that. And I felt very special with that. Not I'm being disruptive because I didn't hate it , you know, raise my hand or something like that.

It was just like, you know, I knew you'd be the one to notice that, which made me feel like really important. Right. Just a , and I'm telling you, it's like little stuff like this really had an impact on me and then something bigger happened again. But this is honestly, this is high school. I don't remember a whole bunch about high school stuff playing football and um , you know, you know the sports of it.

I remember a lot more about the sports and everything and so, you know, take this for whatever it's worth . Um, I remember was one teacher, she, I guess it was anatomy, like a anatomy class or something like that. And um, her name was ms Edenfield Murphy, miss E M for short . And um, I kid you not yo folks, I don't know if anybody's going to remember the Elvira show, like the old viral horror show, like Google that Google that. I'm sure the image is still come up about Elvira. Right?

And so ms Edithvale Murphy looked like Elvira at like she reminded and everybody would call her that because that was when Elvira was out and everything. And here I am in her, in her class and we're talking about the human body and the muscles, specifically all the muscles and everything. And I remember it's like she had, I mean we had to remember like 50 something muscles at least that if not more muscles in the body.

And I remember it coming just really easy to me because I, cause I felt like half the muscles I knew already because I worked out with football. Right. It's like I'm into, I'm in the gym and I'm working out my biceps and triceps. And so I knew that already. And then I knew a few other of , uh, you know, a few others of those names. And so then all the other names that just, you know, it was like, it was just a matter of remembering and everything.

And I remember her just going like, man, you got this like down Pat. And I'm like, cool, I appreciate that, you know. But this was the thing that actually affected me is that one of the days when she was going over the muscles , she literally hands me her stick and she says, Bruce, you go ahead and teach the class right now. Go ahead and go through the muscles with everyone real quick. I didn't think of anything at the time.

All I did was like, okay, I just got up there and I start pointing at the things and I started trying to help people out with which muscles were which and everything. And I remember this one young white woman in the space, I mean, I guess they're all young [inaudible] . She was just like, how do you remember all this stuff? I'm like, I didn't have any technique . I just remembered and I don't know why I just did. Right.

So that was something that was really positive, that and purposeful that affected me. And then there was this other time with ms Edie , Philip Murphy , and she was, she was really significant me for just for almost like this one was what she didn't do. Okay. So that same young white woman who was like, how do you remember all of this stuff after one of the exams by when we were taking one of the exams? Um, I remember this, I clearly , I kid you not, I remember this like it was yesterday.

We were taking in an exam, ms Eddyville Murphy , she walks out of the room, like there are some back room or something like that and it looks like she goes to walk away to, you know, talk to a professor or you know, to one of the teachers or something like that. Right. And I remember at that moment I was done with my exam and I start walking over right to go turn it in as I was going to turn it in. This young white woman, she's like, Bruce, you know, let me get the answer.

Let us like give, you know, give me some of the answers. And I'm like talking to her and I'm trying to tell him , I , yo, you need to chill. But you know, I'm a nice guy. And so I try to help her with like a couple. But then I remember, I kid you not, it was so freaky and remember like this is the El virus stuff. It was not ms E M was standing in the door just watching silently, like just this whole thing.

I don't know how much of it she saw, but she definitely saw me talking to this person as she definitely, you know, got to just that she was, that this young white woman was asking me to help her cheat and ms Edie , Phil Murphy , she just stood there and it was the scariest day. I kid you not, I almost crap my pants folks like straight up.

It was a scary moment for me and I immediately like, you know, got my paper , walked , turned it in and you know, sat back down and was like, Oh please God, don't let her, you know, get me in trouble. Please don't let her get me in trouble. Please don't let it get me in trouble. I felt horrible. Ms Eddyville Murphy, she didn't even talk to me about it. She didn't turn me into the principal or something like that. And I was so relieved.

But I wonder what would have happened if she would have misinterpreted that situation, right? That I was trying to get answers from her versus her. Try to get answers for me. What if, right. What, what could have happened? Shoot, I could have gotten expelled for crying out loud. I mean who knows how that, how , how that could've went down, but she didn't. And I know that that sounds really weird folks , but she just correctly interpreted the situation. She dealt with the girl and that was it.

And I feel I shouldn't have to feel like that was going above and beyond, but I definitely felt like Dov was going above and beyond of she could have and , or maybe even should have done with me. And so that was ms Eddyville Murphy and then comes a guy named , uh , mr Huggins. This dude is super chill. I love this guy. And for whatever reason he really likes me. He's the, he's the trainer for the football of folks. And so, you know, he's, he was the trainer at the time.

And then so he taught a training class and so he taught us how to take people up. And a lot of the class was about , um , human anatomy, which I just got finished with ms Edenfield Murphy about human anatomy. And for some reason I remembered all these names and everything. And so I wound up getting 100% like damn near 100% has class . And I remember you , I'm just saying, I was like, Bruce, you're like the best dude I've ever had. This was my first year teaching this class.

But you are the best student I've ever had. I just remember it how proud I was of that. Not only you, right . Just proud that I was of that. And then for him to just say that to me, cause he surely didn't have to, but he did. And it made a difference. It made a huge difference right in my life because that was a time in my life where things were actually going really bad for me. Although I was accepted to too high to two colleges right out of high school.

This was the time when I realized I couldn't pay for any of it. And so for him to say that to me, for him to just say that, it was so encouraging to me through that space, and I'll always remember that because he didn't know that I was going through a hard time, but his words really stuck with me and it was simple. It really was simple. The two other people that I have are actually coaches, and although I didn't get along very well with the head football coach, as a matter of fact, he hated me.

I'll tell you straight up, he did not like me one bit because I was the absolute epitome of a young, angry black male. I just didn't even realize it. I didn't realize I was coming across angry. I didn't realize I was coming across argumentative. I didn't realize that I had a problem with male authority figures in my life. I didn't realize any of those things. I didn't write as a an and all. And I will say a lot of that STEM from my absent father. I could own that. All right .

But coach Bingham, he, he, he just talked to me like, I was like, he talked to me like I was a man and that has gone so far in my life. Right? Like he just talked to me like I was a man. And , um, at one time he was talking , he was just telling me, he was like, Bruce, man, what have you done to these coaches? Because they don't, you know, I was, I was a starter.

I, I played football and at times, or when I was on JV and freshmen , I started both on offense and as office of and defensive mind , believe me, believe it or not. And, but I remember him having this conversation with me and my junior year of saying like, yo, I don't know what you did to this coaching style for it to the coaches, but a lot of them really don't want to rely on you , um, and play in both ways at all.

This stuff is so, you know, did you, did you do something to piss them off or whatever. And you know, me being a high school kid, I'm just like whatever, you know. And so I wound up just starting on one side of the ball and junior year it was, I was on offense of vine and senior year I was, I focused on defensive line. It, it w it is what it was. Right.

Um, but for him to just talk to me like that, it was just, to me it was just really weird for him to just talk to me like I was like grown and just really like just trying to figure some things out or whatever. But that was just, to me, that was one of like the coolest things of him just talking to me like I was just a man or at least a young man who could give him rational, reasonable answers back to any question that he asked.

And the last one, his name is coach Tilden, I actually got a chance to see him again. Um , now I'm actually coaching football at El Camino, my Alma mater. And uh, things are really cool , uh , for a lot of different reasons. I actually got a chance to see him and uh, you know , uh, gave me a big hug and everything and he, this guy, he would, there was times he would give me a ride home from school , uh, after football practice. I don't know why he did that. I kid you not.

I don't know why he did that. It's just, there was just times though when he gave me a ride home from school and there was this one time in particular where my mom is like, so I lived in these apartments and so my mom would , uh, and there was a grocery store next to the apartment space.

And uh , I don't know if anybody remembers Gemco that's what I'm talking about though , Jim , cause I don't know if it exists anywhere else, but in Southern California, but it was called Gemco and my mom would do her shopping and then she would have to walk home when she would walk home with the cart and take the cart all the way to the apartment that we were at.

Um, and, you know, in order to, to do all, you know, to bring back all the groceries and everything, she would just take the cart and , um, and then we would later on we would take the cart back. Okay . So I want you to know we weren't stealing carts . Okay. Um, but I remember this and my mom has since passed probably about, about six years ago now , uh , in my life. But this was, this was a really key moment in my life. And coach Tilden was there to just remind me to never be ashamed of my mom.

And so he drives another, you know, like it was like 300 feet or so to my house, but when he drops me off, he looks at me

And so I realized, like I said, it took me decades to actually realize the power of that statement. And I'm just glad that he just actually cared enough to say it at that time. And so and so. I'm getting all emotional again, folks, but hopefully what's caring in the space is just how little it actually takes

If you learned something today that you think would help close your student equity gaps, how long will it take to incorporate this into your classroom? A year , a semester, next month. Today, no matter the timetable , we must commit ourselves to becoming better teachers. Our students deserve it. All of them, not just the ones that are good already. [inaudible] .