By Frances Bryce, February 25, 2020 — My daughter’s first year at Girls High, after she attended Henry School (this was in Mt. Airy), was one that we were really pleased with because it was an outstanding public girls’ high school. We were delighted because she seemed to be attracted to this girl who was very much unlike her. This child’s greatest ambition was to see how many boys she could have and dress [in a way that] was way past what a young girl should be wearing. And so, we didn’t have to worry because we knew she wouldn’t be going to Girl’s High.
So anyway, since her first year at Girls High she was doing well in all of her subjects. She had trouble with this teacher who was by all standards I call prejudiced, [based on] one of the things that Cynthia would tell me about this woman. I said, “You need to work a little harder” because her grades were not doing well in English and that had been a subject that was a no-brainer for her. This went on for a while, and then one time she came in and she was very upset. They had been given an assignment about reading a story and the students were supposed to decide who was the main character for them and to support it, which she did. When she got her paper, the teacher said that wasn’t the main character even though she had supported her choice. I was upset as well as Cynthia but I did nothing about it at the time.
But right on the heels of that there was a substitute teacher who gave the same sort of assignment. This teacher gave the same assignment while the other teacher was away, and when she came back, the teacher re-graded the stories and Cynthia went from the teacher was saying how great it was and how she had done what she was supposed to do. And so, I decided then that I needed to go and see the teacher. And I did.
So, the first thing the teacher says to me is “Let me see if she belongs at Girls High because it was on her grades that she got there.” She looked at it and said, “Oh yeah, she belongs here.” That was the only thing she could say to confirm what she had done. Even on the paper, when Cynthia got it, she had taken off for spelling, and her A wasn’t completely closed so she took off for that. And I just was beside myself.
So, I talked to the Assistant Principal there and she said well you can go and see the Principal and I said, “No I won’t do that this time,” because I said I should have listened when Cynthia told me what was going on and I didn’t. So, I said “But this will never ever happen again.” So next year she didn’t have to have this teacher, so she did well and excelled in all of her classes as she had done before.
So, when we went to California, my son was in class, and he was not one to be shy about saying or doing things. He and a group of boys, all 4 of them, were doing something that disturbed the class, and the teacher pointed him out. And he said he left immediately and went to his counselor and said he talked about her and said that she was prejudiced. I said, “Well, tell me what happened.” So, he did and of course, he was the only dark-skinned kid in the class and the other kids were Caucasian.
So I went to see the teacher and I told her what my son had said. I said, “I heard what he had said about you, but I would like to hear what you said. He pointed out that you were prejudiced.” She was quick to say, “Oh no I’m not.” And I said, “I don’t care if you are if it doesn’t interfere with my child in the class.” And we talked about it and she said, “I have to agree that it was unfair for me to point him out when there were 4 kids there and none other were chastised.”
And after that, she talked to me a lot and we became very good friends. She said she didn’t realize what she had done, and she apologized and would never do that again. So, I just wanted to say how teachers can do so much harm to kids. And I learned a lesson, too. I learned to listen more and to pay more attention to when kids say something and find out what’s going on.