In my two weeks of teaching my freshmen before giving birth, this happened:
In the middle of my lesson, a student called me over: "Excuse me, Miss?" and since she sat in the front of the room and I was going over something at the Smartboard, I walked over to her desk as the students copied something into their notebooks. She turned a piece of looseleaf around and I read it. It was the above piece of looseleaf.
Teaching is a continuously humbling experience. I misspell words on the board and am corrected by my students, I receive comments such as, "Ms. Vann had a baby after you and she's already skinny!" or "Miss, you have a LOT of gray hair" or "This sucks." And, I am constantly reminded that I am your Grade A prototypical White girl.
Not that other races don't overuse "like" in their dialogue--god knows my biracial niece Annika sounds just like Alicia Silverstone in the movie "Clueless"--but I never realized that I, too, sound like that "Clueless" heroine much more than I'd like. This was brought to my attention many times in my first years of teaching when students would mimic my voice perfectly and I, in denial, said, "I don't sound like that!" Then I had to make a teaching video to get permanently certified by NY State, and OMG, that was ridiculous because I realized that I do, indeed, sound like that.
In a lot of ways, I think it's good to be continuously reminded of how I appear to others...It no longer bothers me at all. In fact, when the student showed me this paper, I said, "I have to..like...have that!" and she happily gave it to me. I try to defy a lot of the stereotypes about White folks, but some I just can't shake.
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