Thursday, March 29, 2007

Black teachers "overworked"

You can't win. If you ignore black/white differences you are "insensitive". And if you do your best to acknowledge black/white differences you can get it wrong too:

"In 2005, a group of black teachers complained to administrators in the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district that they were being treated in unfair and insensitive ways. Among other problems, they said they were being asked to "over-represent" their race, administrators said. Other teachers would come to them for help in working with black students....

Black teachers have stressed that it wasn't racism they were dealing with but a lack of cultural sensitivity that became a problem as more black teachers were hired, school officials said. "For example, if you're an African-American teacher, a (nonblack) teacher may come to you for advice about an African-American student's problem," said school human resource specialist Katherine Taylor. "But you can't always be a representative of your race. As teachers, we need to see students as students (rather than races)."

Source

So now they are apparently doing "diversity workshops". I guess that might overwork the black teachers too.

I strongly agree that we should see students just as students but how do you reconcile that with showing special consideration for black/white differences? You can't have it both ways -- unless you are a black or a Leftist, of course.