When you are a teacher, you have to care. That is just the plain truth of the matter. This means you have to care for everyone: every race, gender identity, creed, sexuality, political opinion… It doesn’t matter if the students under your watch are immigrants from Syria escaping oppression or rich white children from a family that has lived in the area forever, all of them deserve the same opportunities for care, affection, and learning no matter their background.
Now, I live in Hawaii, have all my life, and a quick googling of the census data puts the population of white people living in Hawaii at either 26.7% or 22.9% depending on which number you want to go with. Either way, that seems like the kind of number that would make any place the minority, until you realize that the largest population is Asian, with 37.3%, a number small enough to make them the minority by most standards. For some, this makes the islands look like a confusing mash of cultures where nobody would know their identity… but that is not at all the case. What we have here is the end result of truly integrating immigration for over two centuries.
To add to my difficulty, I am not just white, I am a 4 family, 7th generation descendant of missionaries. The Judds, the Rices, the Cooks, and the Bonds all were missionaries, and my middle name was given to me because I was born nearly 150 years after the arrival of Elias Bond in the islands. There are reminders of my heritage all over the islands, from the Bond historic district in Kohala to Judd street on Oahu, all named after people who served the Kingdom of Hawaii and fought valiantly for its right to remain a free entity.
Do the locals, distrustful of haoles (derogatory: foreigners), look at me, a person who barely speaks Pidgin, let alone Hawaiian, and couldn’t tan if his life depended on it, and see that rich heritage working for them? No, they see a white person to yell at for their problems. What’s worse, despite the fact that I am as poor as the rest of them (as, last I checked, about 90% of students got a free or reduced lunch, and I was definitely in that number), they will often see me as a rich, entitled snob with no empathy for any of them. If I want to teach in this state (and I do, because I love this land and will do everything in my power to make it a better place and give back to the community I adore) I will be going up against a harsh cultural barrier, and I know that. But I don’t care.
It is my firm belief that what matters in a person, as I will now paraphrase from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is the content of their character, not the color of their skin. This means that I don’t judge people by how they look, only how they act. This is doubly important in Hawaii, where more than one case of a smelly bum being turned out of a museum has resulted in said bum walking down the street to another one and buying a multi-million dollar painting there instead. But on top of that, there is a spirit of aloha that so infuses any native to the islands (whatever their race may be, as even the Native Hawaiians are descended from Polynesian explorers, making this place truly a land of nothing but immigrants) that it cannot be untied from their very way of being.
Aloha is hello, aloha is goodbye, but it is more. Aloha is wishing perfect strangers well, it is greeting everyone with an open heart and understanding, and trusting people unless they prove you can’t. It is being a good neighbor, respecting each other, respecting ohana (family), respecting the ‘aina (land). This spirit is what I want to bring with me into the classroom: one of respect. Not just for the teacher, but for the students, for the school, for the books, and for each other.
In my class, which will be open to everyone, the desks will either be arranged in a circle that everyone, including myself, if equal in, or else around tables where everyone in the group can discuss with each other. I won’t focus my pictures around the class on any specific race or gender, but motivational, supportive phrases (and possibly some helpful knowledge. No class is complete without a map, even if it’s an English class). Since I will be in secondary school, this is when students should have already learned lessons of respect, though so few seem to. Still, I will make it clear what I expect: they aren’t kids anymore, and while they are still learning, they should do their best. I will treat them like responsible people so long as they prove that they can be, and will greet every single one of them with eye contact, a smile, and an open heart and mind so long as they are willing to do the same. Respect and trust will be the foundations of all of my actions in the classroom, and to start off, I will expect each of them to agree to rules we all come up with as a group, showing I am willing to listen to them and take their voices and concerns into account.
This will continue into the school year. I won’t waste student time if they clearly can do more, as I will challenge them, trusting them to push themselves to learn. If someone new enters the class, they will be greeted like an old family member, with that spirit of aloha making them one very soon. If bullying starts, I will listen to both sides, wanting to know why the bully bullies, if I can fix it, and how to stop the behavior without stunting anyone’s learning. But bullying is one of my triggers, as it is a complete lack of respect. I will not be a bully. I will not tolerate bullying. I am as appreciative of jokes as the next person, but cross that line from fun to hurtful and I will not stop in my efforts to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
I may be quixotic, but I am an actor. I have studied for years to understand and feel the experiences of people completely unlike me in situations I hope I’ll never have to face. Empathy is linked into my soul, and I hope that that skill is something I can teach all of my students as I combat the ignorance that breeds bigotry, hatred, and fear. It’s a hopelessly romantic notion, but then… we all strive for that impossible dream.
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