After finally reaching the 8th grade, I was excited to do lots of work and graduate. But then I realized something. Our teacher favored certain students. At first I didn’t think anything about it as it was just small talk and whatnot. Then it evolved from more than talking to being able to speak their way out of trouble and being able to skip classwork.
Some prime examples of this is when we would have a bad Math class then go back to homeroom and get asked what happened and then told our consequences. Yet those certain students were able to talk their way out of it by saying that they still did their work and that they weren’t even talking etc. And it was successful EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Another thing that happened a lot is when we’d be in homeroom and were supposed to be doing work, those students would just stop, pull up some chairs to the teacher’s desk, and talk about what they did over the weekend, and things that are happening in the school, good and bad things.
The last thing that REALLY messed me up is on graduation day. I had got to school early (as I always do) and I was dressed up all nice, but when I walked into the classroom the teacher looked liked they barely cared. Then 20 minutes later someone else walked in and the teacher was really happy with what that student was wearing and started a conversation with that student. But in the end, I know that she deeply cared for each of us even though she showed it differently.
There were things that I could’ve done to address this problem like talking to the teacher. I know she would’ve listened to me and tried to fix her mistakes. This is also the first time I’m telling someone this besides my close friends Jayden and Taevion, who also went through this experience.
As I think back to this experience, I realize that my situation isn’t as bad as others. For example my teacher wasn’t trying to show favoritism. But I read a story about blatant favoritism to a bully because of race. It’s a story from Reddit, by the Redditor Goofyai57. This person speaks about how they were getting bullied and told the teacher, but the teacher didn’t help. When the roles were flipped and the bully told the teacher the kid got in trouble. This situation happened because it was an Italian school and the person telling the story was Hispanic. This shows that favoritism can be a small form of innocence that is by accident and it can be a part of a bigger problem that includes racism.
If you do ever find yourself in this situation, the first thing you should do is to address the teacher. If that doesn’t work, tell a trusted adult and inform the school admin, and let the school handle it. But most times, good teachers will realize their mistake and fix it to make sure all students are appreciated.
Image Credit: Feliphe Schiarolli on Unsplash
Aston Parker – DePaul College Prep – DMSF Class of 2028