“You know who you look like?”

“Who?”

“Harry Potter.”

“Edwin, the vampire from Twilight.”

“Spider Man.” (see also “Tobey Maguire”)

“Yankee Doodle” (derogatory?)

“One of the Jonas brothers.” (consensus seems to be Kevin)

“A guy who would collect comic books.”

Me: “...oh. ... Really?”

Group of Sophomore girls: “yea. Do you?”

Me: “No...but, just out of curiosity what type do I look like I’d collect?”

Girls: “Batman” “Yeah, Batman.” “No Spiderman.” “Yeah, Spiderman.”

Me: “Oh. Cool.”

After three weeks of wearing a tie:

“Mr. Walker, do you like Macy’s?”

“The store?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been there...I guess I like it ok. Why?”

“Well, you look like one of those fake people in the store.”

“You mean a mannequin?”

“Yeah! All dressed up and stuff...That’s a good thing, Mr. Walker!”

And the finale: this is my favorite not because of the person, but because of the context in which it came up. A Janitor, we’ll call her Janice, wearily left her broom at the door of our room and sat down for a moment in one of the students’ desks. I introduced myself to Janice, as I have introduced myself to every new face since I arrived, and learned that she has worked at Michele Clark for more than a decade. I explained that I came to Clark to complete my student teaching, and that I actually chose an inner city school (Why’d you come here?) because I want to teach in US cities after I graduate. Her response was my first taste of the raw honesty--the “real” in “keepin’ it real”--that I have come to recognize as a mantra of the inner city.

“You want to teach here? Why do you think they’d listen to you? You look like Doogie Howser!”

Her voice was not malicious, but she didn’t laugh and looked at me matter-of-factly. It seemed deliberate that her comparison to the boy doctor indexed not only my young age, but my race as well. (If it were just my age, why not Gary Coleman, or even the Fresh Prince?) I laughed at first, but then stopped and, dumbfounded, exchanged her expectant look with my blank one. I wanted to explain that I believe effective teaching has more to do with a teacher’s ability to promote deep investigation, to organize a routine classroom, and to reach students on an individual level while maintaining high expectations and then finding the delicate balance between “teacher” and “anything else” in student relationships. I wanted to say that all of these things have essentially nothing to do with race or differences in race, but I didn’t know how to say to that to an elder woman--one who had been in the inner city far longer than I--and also, after thinking all these things, I wasn’t sure that I was right; I began to question if my race had more to do with effective teaching than I gave it credit.

This happened during my first week, and I’m about to start my fourth tomorrow. Since the Doogie Howser event I’ve thought a great deal about race and education. I’m reading about it in books I’ve checked out from the library and I’ve had several conversations with colleagues at Clark. More about this later. Meanwhile, I’ve made incredible progress building my rapport with my students, and I think that the more students realize that I’m serious about teaching and that I’m ready and more than willing to empower their educational adventures, the more the issue of my skin color fades to obscurity.

One group of girls asked me what nationality I most identified with. I told them that my ancestors were from all over Europe (I admitted I didn’t know much about them), but that I was born in St. Louis, and that I most closely identify with the United States. They looked unsatisfied, and one said, “so are you Caucasian?”

I said, “Sure. I just call it ‘white’. I’m not sure it matters.”

They nodded thoughtfully.

To be polite, I asked them with which nationality they most closely identified. The first girl shrugged and said, “I guess I’m just black.”

“But you’re from the U.S., too, right?” I asked this, I admit, in hopes that I might build a bridge between us through our common nationality.

“Yeah. I was born here in Chicago.”

I thought this a success, but if I hit a single, the second girl hit the grand slam that brought me home. She thought for a second, also shrugged and said, “We’re all just people anyway, right?”

I marveled for one second, and then said, “You got it.”