A Little more than Standard Deviation: On being biracial in an accelerated cluster

Eliza Jane Schaeffer
The Student Voice Forum
7 min readApr 5, 2017

--

By Leighanne Guettler-James

I have lived in Lexington all of my life. I have a mother, a father, three brothers, two dogs, and three turtles. I am a junior at a central Kentucky high school. All these facts shape who I am. However, one fact affects my experience more than anything else: being biracial.

Colorblind

My mom is white and my dad is black (or African-American, I personally don’t care which). When I was younger, I didn’t notice the difference between other kids and myself, probably because I started elementary school in an extremely diverse environment: 44% Hispanic, 29% white, 22% African American, 5% other. There, until the end of third grade, I found myself fairly comfortable among my peers. I could see the difference in skin tone between students, but it held almost no meaning. I distinctly remember playing tag with my friends Alison and Fusini, twin brothers who had come from Africa. My mother is white, so as a child I found it relatively easy to feel at home with the 100% white female teacher population. I considered myself similar to her and therefore similar to them.

Each year, I attended English/Reading classes with the grade above me for a couple hours a day and stayed with my class for everything else. In third grade, they started taking me out of class to do logic puzzles and brainteasers for a few hours with five other students. This quickly became my favorite part of school. At the end of third grade, I was told that I had scored in the 99th percentile for state testing and, to my dismay, was referred to a magnet program at a different school. I made quite a scene when they told me I would be leaving my school, a place filled with friends and teachers I loved. Although I was reluctant, I knew that declining an opportunity to continue the accelerated education would be foolish, so I said goodbye to my friends and packed my crayons.

Seeing in Color

Next thing I knew, it was the beginning of fourth grade, and I was at a different school on the other side of town: 11% Hispanic, 56% white, 18% African American. Suffice to say, I felt out of my comfort zone. I was used to having classmates who made up a rainbow of skin tones and ethnicities, but in this new program, I struggled to find a student who wasn’t white or Asian. (I hadn’t even met an Asian student before this!) Upon entering the program, I remember assigning character traits, other than physical ones, to race for the first time. Not only could I see the difference between myself and other students, I could feel it.

My teacher was again a white female, but now, this held an entirely new meaning to me. In my new school, the other “smart” kids — those in my accelerated classes — were all white or Asian, except for me. The PTA moms who organized things and were involved in their children’s educations were white or Asian. The kids who were in Orchestra and chorus and academic team were white or Asian. For the first time, I noticed that I was surrounded by people who were different from me. I searched for students that looked like me, but the only place where I could find African-American and Hispanic students was in the “general hallway.” The teachers in this hallway were more diverse — black, Hispanic, and white. But this was a place where the kids in my magnet program didn’t dare venture, for fear they may be caught up in the rukus. It seemed that ethnic labels came with other, unspoken value judgements. Thus began my internal struggle in elementary school.

I felt unwanted by my teachers, despite their efforts to remain unbiased. The sheer fact that the only black teachers in the school taught general and ESL classes was, to me, an indicator that I did not belong in the accelerated classes. Not only was I different from my peers, I was different from my teachers. 4th grade was the beginning of a long period of mistrust toward my teachers. I was convinced they wanted me to fail. How could they support a student who, in my eyes, obviously didn’t belong?

For the first time, I noticed that I was surrounded by people who were different from me.

Lessons on Division

Things didn’t improve much when I went to middle school. Although the student population was diverse, it was starkly divided along the lines of perceived aptitude. The school was split into four “teams,” one for each grade and one for all three grades of the magnet program. The only time we ever had to come into contact with general students on a daily basis was during our hour-long “exploratory” classes like PE and Art.

There were only two other black kids in my grade of the magnet program, and there were about four others among the other grades. Still, I was surrounded by white and Asian students and divided from other African-American students. And still, all but one of my teachers were white women.

I grew to almost fear the students outside of my cluster. My middle school was in an area with many underprivileged students, and this did not lend itself to positive school behavior. Black kids often got in fights and yelled nasty things in the hallways during class change. The gifted students did not, the gifted students would never. Those other students were not as smart, not as wealthy, not as promising as us. They had the black teachers and students; we had the white. They had the “bad;” we had the “good.”

Everyone would call me an “oreo” because I was black on the outside but white on the inside. I was black, but I wasn’t “black.” “Black” students, I internalized, were ones who listened to vulgar rap songs, sagged their pants, didn’t do well in school, got in fights, had bad grammar. Not me. But I wasn’t white either, and the other magnet students never let me forget that. I was always the one expected to know things about black culture, rap music, or fried chicken.

One of the other black gifted students in my grade, the known “problem child,” understood my struggle and was a close friend. Often, we were grouped together by peers, teachers, and ourselves. I felt like we should be similar since we were in the same situation (a black person in a sea of white). In the years I struggled with identity, I had no other examples to look to among my teachers or peers. I know this detracted significantly from my middle school experience. I regret not being as well behaved as I could have been; however, I feel that many of my errors were rooted in my lack of solid identity.

High school began abruptly. I entered, as bubbly as ever, into a new world. Again, I was on the opposite side of town for a better education in a magnet program. Only the most academically successful students get into the magnet program, and this, unfortunately, means that under-privileged students generally do not. Once again, I was one of few students who wasn’t white or Asian and, as I was now noticing, wealthy. Contrary to popular belief, segregation still exists in our education system today. Take, for example, my program where there are only four African-Americans in the graduating class of over ninety. Even more, separation along class lines has created an additional obstacle to social comfort in the cluster. Many cluster students benefit from having well-connected and highly educated parents. I never have.

Freshman year is mostly a blur in my memory, aside from a few things I can’t forget. In one class, taught by a wealthy white man, I tried my hardest to not stand out too much. There was one other black student in my class, but we weren’t friends. Despite this fact, and despite my efforts to avoid calling attention to myself, our names were often called out with the same tone of reprehension. It seemed like every time the class got too loud or something disruptive happened, we were to blame. Maybe we sometimes were the cause of disruptions, (if you know me, you know my loud laugh), but I remember my name being called and getting looks suggesting I should watch myself when I was doing nothing wrong. Once I noticed this, I could no longer trust that teacher.

Potential for Progress

I want to stress that most of my classes and teachers have been fine. Among my peers, my race has gone relatively unacknowledged, aside from the occasional black joke (usually made by me).

As I’ve begun to research and understand the systemic oppression of minority groups, and I can now identify actions, words, and behaviors that perpetuate discrimination. This alone has improved my experience in my magnet program because I now understand why I sometimes feel out of place.

In order to ensure that students like me have a more equitable experience in accelerated clusters, and in the public school system as a whole, teachers should be trained about how to handle minority students who don’t easily find their place in the classroom. In the same way they are taught to accommodate students with other types of needs, teachers need to be taught how to accommodate students who are disenfranchised due to racial marginalization. Furthermore, communication between students and administrators and teachers is important to optimizing education. Providing an opportunity for underrepresented students to give feedback to educators would allow for greater awareness and more meaningful growth.

Leighanne Guettler-James is a junior in a Central Kentucky high school.

The opinions expressed on the Forum represent the individual students to whom they are attributed. They do not reflect the official position or opinion of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence or the Student Voice Team. Read about our policies.

--

--