ü
Arrive 30 minutes early
ü
Give participant list to guards 20 minutes early
ü
Set up classroom by preparing white-board,
posters, and hand out activities
ü
Participants arrive at 9:15
ü
Obnoxious disrupting conversation in the hallway
outside of the classroom for entirety of class
For the first time since we started TEP we had our class
start on time! Copious amounts of
e-mails, conversations, and clarifications have been paying off. We are finally
getting the true hour and 15 minutes we should have with our participants.
While everyone was there on time, we did have a complicating factor of noise
outside the classroom. The door of the classroom is always left open (which I
understand is for our safety) but the noise it lets in constantly interrupts
the flow of the class. In addition to
the noise I am starting to feel frustrated by the bare-bones with which we are
provided to teach. As I am coming to
learn the TEP curriculum better, I keep finding materials I want to bring into
the classroom. Even something like a
simple YouTube video would be impossible because not only is there no Wi-Fi, but
we cannot bring in laptops or cellphones.
I’m starting to feel like I’ve been at MSI much longer than
2 weeks and I feel much more protective of my students than I ever expected. Today we talked about handling stress that
comes along with the job search. Our
group brought up discrimination as bring a stressor, (this is something we will
be touching more on when we go over interviews) but, specifically discrimination
due to his dreads and black hairstyles.
As a white woman with crazy curly hair I understand the feeling of needing
to straighten and “control” it, but I’ve never been worried about not getting a
job because my hair can be unruly. Comparatively, I am privileged. One young man explained to me that he is
expected to shave his dreads in order to get a job and attributed his hair as
being the reason to never making it to the final round of an interview. I was pretty shocked and wasn’t sure if this
was just an excuse. This particular young
man has beautiful dreaded hair that even in jail he keeps braided away from his
face in what appears to me as a professional and respectable way.
Upon getting back to CJC I checked up on this dread stuff. I don’t know if I just didn’t want to believe
that hair has this much power, but I underestimated my privilege in this
particular arena. A prominent story I came across was about a young African American
man, George, pursing his MBA Thurgood Marshall College (a HBC). In November of 2014, George was banned from a
conference that provides 500 of the nation’s top HBC students with leadership
training and networking opportunities with Fortune 500 companies. His admittance to the conference was contingent
upon his hair removal. My student was absolutely right. It kills me to think that it is 2015 and this
shit is still happening. Looking to
George, who is not only an exemplary student, but who was also the president of
the Graduate Student Association at the time makes me worried sick about the
young men I am teaching. Can you
overcome dreads and a criminal record? Are dreads even something to “overcome”??
As part of employment training do I need to explicitly say, “All African
American men must shave their head to obtain employment.” I will not. I can’t imagine that if I decided to dread my
hair that that my invitation to a conference would be revoked.
Until next time
E & K
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