John Rogers: Where did you go to school?

Jennifer Obidah: I was born in Barbados in the Carribean and my schooling there was very much like a southern schooling experience in the United States. Teachers lived in the community and the parents and the teachers had a connection--sometimes through the church, sometimes by living in the same community. There was not this big separation of your educational experience and your home experience.

JR: Do you feel that the adults in your school demonstrated respect for all the students?

JO: I don’t know if that would be the question. The question would be: Did the teachers respect the parents of those children and indirectly respect the children? The answer would be yes. The teachers definitely looked at themselves as in partnership with the parents.

JR: Did you have the same experience when you enrolled in U.S. schools?

JO: I got my GED at an alternative school in Brooklyn. That was my first experience at how disrespectful the schooling process could be.

JR: How did you experience disrespect?

JO: This was sometimes a part time job for the teachers. Teachers portrayed this sense that you (the student) were on your own, “I’m giving you information you need to have to get your GED, whether you get it is none of my business, I’m getting paid anyways.” It’s that kind of disrespect that was present.

JR: How have you tried to challenge these patterns of disrespect in your own work with teachers?

JO: My dissertation was based on working with a White teacher who honestly confronted the racist attitude she had about her African American children. Many people think today it’s perfectly [Politically Correct] to say "Oh yeah, we all have these racist beliefs.” People think by saying it, they’ve addressed it. But they haven’t done the work necessary to really change an attitude.

JR: How do some teachers demonstrate disrespect for their students in ways that need to be confronted?

JO: One is lowered expectations. Sometimes the “well meaning” teacher becomes so familiar with a child’s life and knows the difficulty and challenges that that child faces, that she then uses that as an excuse that the child can’t learn. That can lead to a disabling process.

JR: How do you engage teachers so that they begin to confront their own belief systems?

JO: This is my teaching philosophy: You have to start where the student is. It’s creating an environment where there’s honest dialogue about the hardest issues and, yet, life can go on. So, if you’re occupying the role of the teacher and you’re dealing with race, you have to allow the students to admit to their true feelings. I allow White people to say, “You know, I always thought black people were NOT SMART.” Or “My parents told me not to mix with them,” Or “I know my parents would not like me to go out with a black man.” Or “I feel that they are inferior, or the reason why they’re not doing good in society is because they have problems.” As an African American woman, that is very difficult to hear, that’s very painful for me as a person, but I would prefer to know that that’s what I’m working with in this individual’s mind, as opposed to having this individual come in and say “I treat everyone the same, I love everyone, why can’t we do like Rodney King and just all get along.” So to move teachers forward in addressing issues of race, the first thing I’d do is start from where they are. A lot of work is done early in the process so they can admit where they are at. I think that’s where people’s self knowledge starts to move. In American society it’s so incorrect to be honest about racist feelings, that at the point when an individual admits them, they go through a whole series of processes that actually speed up any teaching that you could do about the process. Once that happens then there’s some wonderful text and interactions that you can engage with to let people become more cognizant of that new knowledge. So you then send them into environments where they reflect that they’re much more cognizant now as to how they’re interacting with students, how they’re interacting with people on the streets, how they’re interacting with parents who are of different races than them.

JR: What happens then?

JO: At that point the dialogue must continue, because there are different stages of racial identity which people go through. One stage is anger. At the point when they become conscious of the feelings that they have, they begin to hear the racist comments and jokes, that just used to be a part of their environment and that they never heard before, really heard. And then it’s coming out of their mother’s mouth, their father’s mouth— these are people that love and protect them and are seen as really good people. These preservice teachers are internally torn by the ‘good’ people, ‘bad’ people contrast. And so then they get angry at their professor (me) for asking them to go through this process. It’s fascinating to me.

JR: Do the teachers of color that you work with follow a similar pathway?

JO: Their pathway of change is different. Their awareness is different; for the most part they’re always aware of the humanity of the children. But they get lost in the grind of under achievement, of not succeeding in what they thought they would do when coming into the classroom. They get lost in the grind of wanting to be the martyr and that not working out, because the kids of today are turning against all teachers regardless of their color in some ways. So then they themselves have to realize where they dropped the ball.

JR: You ask teachers to go to a place that not many people want to go to--where they admit their own limitations, they’re misunderstandings, the ways in which they’re causing pain. Why should they do that?

JO: To ask why they should do that is to ask why should they be teachers. To me, it’s like a Hypocratic oath. Do no harm. I will always ask a teacher how is it that you are helping? I ask myself that. I think I’m an effective teacher because I’m constantly having to ask myself that and respond to it. So you can’t ever feel that you can stop trying.

JR: Does the work you’ve done in recent years with teachers leave you hopeful?

JO: Yes and no. Yes, in terms of those who continue the journey themselves. No, because for most the journey is so hard that without constant support they quit. Society rewards you for quitting, for not staying on. It makes your life harder to be a social justice educator. And so I’m more forgiving because I know how difficult the journey is. I’m not necessarily more hopeful. I understand better how difficult the process is. My hope is case by case.