Wrong Answer: Teaching While White in 3 Stories

Jay Wamsted
Age of Awareness
Published in
8 min readMar 14, 2022

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Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

It was a couple of months ago, and I was in the process of getting 3rd period math up and running.

Students were finding pencils and notebooks, chatting merrily away; I was taking attendance and gathering last-minute classroom supplies. Many of these students had come directly from the gym, and as such our room was not particularly quiet. By chance, however, I happened to overhear a couple of boys talking about their Social Studies class, and my ears perked up.

I teach 8th grade in Atlanta, and our Social Studies curriculum for the year is a loose collection of “Georgia Studies.” Apparently, that week they had been learning about the Indian Removal Act of 1830, legislation which officially expelled the Cherokee Nation from the very land upon which our school was built. I don’t remember exactly why I interjected, but I remember what I said, shaking my head seriously: “There’s nothing funny about what we did to the Native Americans throughout history.”

I wasn’t admonishing anyone; the students in question nodded in sober acknowledgement of the brutal facts of our state and national history. Another student, however, looked up from his desk on the other side of the room and said, directly to me, “WE?!?”

Some context. I am white, and something like 80% of my students are Black. Another 10% or so are what the education world sometimes lumps together as “Brown” — Asian, Indian, Hispanic. Only two or three students per class are white. The student who spoke up, like twenty-five or so others in the room, was Black.

Shocked that he would call me out so publicly, I turned to him and said, “Yes, we. We’re all Americans here, and we Americans conquered this land from the Indigenous People. We’re all complicit in that act — each and every American who doesn’t claim to be a member of those First Nations.” Then I turned away and began my math lesson for the day.

I’m just kidding; I didn’t say that. That’s a garbage answer — one a white person might say only if they found themselves uncomfortable with the notion of race sliding unexpectedly into a conversation. I used to be that teacher, but 16 years of working with mostly Black students has led me to a lot of reading and a lot of thinking about my responsibility as a white person in such a classroom environment.

My actual response was both shorter and more direct. I looked him in the eyes and said, “White people. Let me be clear.” I probably patted myself on the chest as I said it, a “that’s on me” kind of gesture borrowed from the sports world — one that would indicate my knowledge that I too am complicit in this historical atrocity.

The student held his hands out in a gesture of acceptance. “I was about to say,” he smiled at me. I nodded back and began our math lesson. There wasn’t much else to say about the Indian Removal Act — at least nothing that could be said quickly — and I felt no need to belabor the point. We had already spoken the important thing.

Folks will try to say that race has nothing to do with my job as a teacher, but I wonder.

Two weeks later I was standing at the front of the room, leading the orchestra that is thirty 8th graders doing “independent work.” Meaning, I was pointing explicitly here, gesturing vaguely there, nodding silently at this student, speaking directly to another — all of it over the excited buzz of teenagers free to table talk with each other as they finished their classwork. It was against this buzz that I overheard another conversation that caught my attention.

I knew they were talking about me because I had heard my name mentioned. Now, I hear the words “Mr. Wamsted” uttered something like five thousand times a day, so I cannot respond to every injunction. Like the constant stream of “Dad” that is the soundtrack of my home life, I can completely tune out my own name unless I sense an immediacy to the request. In this case it was clear from the context that they were talking about me, not to me, and so it was only as background that I was giving them a modicum of extra attention. Remember, I was leading the orchestra. But when a student loudly asked, “But does he say ‘Black Lives Matter?’” I immediately knew that I was the “he” in question.

Of course, I completely ignored them. After all, nobody was asking me a question. Even if they had been looking for something from me, math class is hardly the place to get into Black lives and whether they matter or not. Consequently, I turned my head ever so slightly away from the source of the question, careful to keep my face still as I pretended not to hear. I just kept right on leading the rest of the orchestra, leaving this particular section alone.

Nah, that didn’t happen either. Rather, I turned toward the question, shouting across the room, “Of course Black lives matter!” Then I made eye contact with a couple of smiling students, each of whom nodded at me. I was pretty sure I knew who made the initial comment, but it didn’t really matter. A room full of Black teenagers needs to know that their teacher affirms their intrinsic worth as human beings; saying “Black Lives Matter” is a small way to demonstrate such a thing.

It was a couple of days later that I realized I had been caught up in the newest TikTok challenge. Apparently, students all around the country were filming short videos of themselves loudly asking if their teacher would “say ‘Black Lives Matter’” and then posting the teacher’s reaction. I never looped back to my students to find out if I had made it on the platform or not; I figured we hadn’t gone anything like viral with my positive response. Internet fame isn’t the important thing, however: what is important is that my students felt seen by their teacher.

I suppose it is possible that a student could learn from a teacher who seems to be overlooking a vital part of their identity and personality. I fail to see, however, why a teacher would want to abnegate such a responsibility. At this point students can catch all the math they want from a video series online; they come to our classrooms to mature into fully-formed human beings. We will get the math done, of course, but students will learn better when they feel seen and known in all their glorious individualities. This affirmation, too, is the least we can do as educators.

Less than a week later I was standing in almost the same spot in my room, doing pretty much the same thing — leading the orchestra — when I caught the tail end of a conversation that had nothing to do with me at all. A group of students was chatting merrily away, working on their math, and one voice rose out from the general noise of teenagers. “Black Lives Matter!” she said.

I wouldn’t have paid this moment any attention had three words not come out of the mouth of her neighbor: “All lives matter!” I stopped what I was doing and immediately looked up.

For a moment I thought I might have to address the situation, break up some sort of argument, but then I noticed that both students were Black. Relieved, I quickly decided to ignore the entire conversation. After all, if a Black student wanted to disagree with the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” there was no reason for me to involve myself. This was a family conversation, so to speak, and I wasn’t related.

By this point I’m thinking that you can predict the next sentence: that didn’t happen. Rather, I stepped over to the second student and began speaking to him in a level, medium tone. I had no desire to draw any attention from the whole class to our conversation; however, I did want the first student and her neighbors to hear my response.

“That’s true,” I said to the student. “But until America treats all types of people the same, it can feel hollow to say ‘all lives matter.’” I looked at him to see if he was tracking; he had stopped his math to watch me as he listened. I continued, “We need to advocate for specific lives.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” he said. As I walked away I saw a knowing nod from the first student, but in my effort not to embarrass the second student I didn’t stick around long enough to talk further. It felt enough for me to gently correct a linguistic misapprehension, one that might not be immediately obvious to a middle school student. Of course “all lives matter” — faith traditions time out of mind have taught us this important fact. But responding to the urgency of Black lives mattering with that umbrella phrase? It’s not expansive; it’s limiting.

And, to repeat myself, it’s important that my students see me stick up for them in these moments. Did my first student need me to defend her? Probably not. But does it make her classroom experience better to know that her white teacher is on her side in this important matter of racial identity? Almost certainly.

These three stories are hardly unique; every day in the life of a teacher is filled with dozens of such pivotal moments. A situation arises, a conversation bubbles, and we are faced with a decision: do we let the opportunity slide away or do we speak up? Do we choose to be on the side of our students? Or do we choose to take the easy way out of a potentially difficult moment?

It is worth remembering the words of Michael Eric Dyson:

“When white folk…feel uncomfortable, they get up and walk out of the room. Black folk and other people of color rarely have that option.”

It is an uncommon privilege for white people to get to decide whether we will engage in a difficult conversation on the matter of race — for many Americans it is an option they cannot exercise. White people should not let discomfort guide us away from what is true simply because we can get away with it.

I am not naïve; I understand that there are dozens of ways to answer wrong in such situations, and I know that this panoply of options can be intimidating. Thankfully, though, there are no perfect ways to answer correctly. Meaning, it is on us to enter in, to take a step, to decide to land on the difficult side of truth, knowing that as we do we need not strive for perfection. Our students deserve no less from us. In doing so, even imperfectly, we seize the opportunity to become the teachers they deserve — adults who value them in all their individual identities.

And, it is worth mentioning, we might just be able to lead the orchestra in our classrooms a little better with their buy-in. After all, however loud it might be, a peaceful class led by a caring, intentional teacher is the best place for a child to find themselves.

We can answer wrong or we can answer right. The choice is up to us.

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Jay Wamsted
Age of Awareness

Teaching middle school in Atlanta. Writing about teachers mostly. Twitter @JayWamsted