Black Women/ Black Literature

For years, the language of African Americans has been viewed as wrong. Young children are told from the very beginning not to talk like black people because it is a sign of ignorance or being “ghetto”. So when a child who has not been taught these same beliefs encounters a child who has, the child that talks more proper is said to talk “white”. In this interview conducted by Joanna Kilgour Dowdy, Christina McVay,a white woman, talks about her experiences teaching English to a class with all African American students. She talks about how her success comes from making the students feel comfortable around her and allowing them to open up to her. Her style of teaching is very different from many other white teachers. First off, she wanted to teach at a school where the majority of students were Black. Most schools that are majority white will not really talk about African American history. If they do, it is because of black history month. She also allows her students to express themselves and gives them the opportunity to write in the language they were so often told is wrong. By allowing the students to do various assignments using ‘slang’, she is teaching them that there is nothing wrong with it and the appropriate times to use it.

I enjoyed this interview because I have never had or heard of a teacher, specifically a white teacher, that was willing to teach a group of African American students a way to embrace their culture. Most will shy away because of the way we speak or because we don’t like English. I respected the fact that she did not act like she knew everything about our culture and was open to learning new things from the students. This made the classroom instantly become one of dialogue and interactions. If the school systems had more diverse teachers like this, I do not think most black students would dislike English as much as they do.