Introduction: Why I needed to write this section

As a young teacher with four years experience, I was thrilled to begin year five with an arsenal of stronger teaching philosophies that I had recently gained through the first summer of my Collaborative Masters Program at Georgia State. I was going to be "SuperTeacher." I was to dazzle my colleagues, my cohort members, my parents and my students. The year prior had gone remarkably well and I thought that it was at least partially due to my strong teaching. This year would be even better.

In the first week of school I went from "SuperTeacher" in the making to "ShrivilledTeacher." My energy and confidence disappeared. My class seemed unruly, disrespectful, academically low, and chaotic, despite my careful planning. The children that I could not reach were my African American children. I was disappointed with myself. I had liked to consider myself someone who could really succeed with African American children. Despite my prior successful experiences with African American children, I felt like a fish out of water.

I was in such shock with this new class that between trying to implement a new behavior plan a week, write superior lesson plans that would have my children so involved that there was no time for inappropriate behavior, or simply recover at night from sheer exhaustion, I was not doing a good job reflecting on why the children were so different and so difficult.

It was one of my students who helped me clarify one of the differentiating factors.

Mr. Smith was explaining about a running vacation he took where he competed in as many road races as possible. He was a parent and professional writer and was giving an example about how his best stories come from personal experience. "How many of you have ever gone on vacation with your families before?" Virtually every hand went up. Immediately, Thomas, a generally quiet African American boy smiled and laughed out loudly, "HA!" Swinging his arm back and forth across the sea of raised hands and repeatedly pointing to the ground, he confidently pronounced, "All you black people put your hands down. You don't go on no vacations. Youse lie."