Before beginning my summer teaching fellowship, I had little experience in the classroom and wanted to maximize my time in New York to increase my knowledge as an educator. Going into it, I really liked their mission statement, which described promoting underrepresented communities and giving them the education they deserve. Once I arrived, I instead found many contradictions to their mission statement that were implemented in their teachings.
As an institution that was supposed to strengthen student voices and diminish negative narratives, I observed many staff members continuing to spread these narratives. I felt an overall lack of empathy towards not only the students, but also the teaching fellows. Not only was there rampant misogyny instilled throughout the summer, but the mentor teachers also encouraged raising their voices and scolding students for even the littlest things. There was an authoritarian rule over the classroom that couldn’t be considered as anything but a power trip.
This complete disconnect between my values and what this institution was trying to teach me had a horrible effect on my anxiety and mental health throughout this period. I struggled to find ways to not only support the students, but support myself and other interns against this unyielding institution. For a place who loved to say they wanted feedback, every time we spoke up about the mistreatment that the students and us faced, our worries were not taken seriously. They would consistently say that we were being unprofessional when we reached out with genuine concerns, or half-heartedly acknowledge the issue without any action being taken.
It was difficult for me to navigate this situation when I felt like I was talking to a brick wall. It seemed that there was nothing I could do since all of the people in power held the same beliefs. Eventually, my other fellows and I figured out that the only way to handle the issue was to find the best way to support the students in the classroom. During my teaching days, I did my best to engage the students in a positive way and decipher what exactly I could do to make a difference. Even when I felt like leaving or skipping workdays, I remembered that my number one purpose throughout this summer was to encourage these students in school because they deserved to have teachers who cared about their education. Even though the workplace environment was toxic, I found my reason for staying and doing everything I could to work through it.