Personal Narrative: An Interview With Michael Stroman

It has been around a year since I had talked to Michael Stroman before I conducted the interview for this project. Growing up, Michael and I were best friends and did everything together. We were almost the exact same person except for the fact that I am white and he is African-American. It did not matter to me but it seemed to be a problem for many people we interacted with in our life. I attended a small private Christian school my entire life. The usual sight was mom’s in their range rovers dropping off their white children. There was no poverty and no diversity. Michael was the only African-American student in our grade. In my interview, I asked many questions about the thing’s he faced in high school. Many of the answers I already knew …show more content…
Other crowds were stunned when we ran out of the tunnel with an African American. It was surreal to experience these things in a present time. You would think that people had matured and learned to live with diversity in America. Michael was different than us, but at the same time was the same person. He dealt with the same struggles and pressures of any other teenager in the world. He worried about grades and college and girls. It was hard for me to see him as someone different than me. However, it was very easy for others to look down upon him, simply because of the color of his skin. Michael did not let the criticism affect him though. He realized that he stood out in the environment he was in and it did not hurt him. He did his own thing and did not care what other people thought about it, or what they said to him about it. Talking to Michael over the phone for this interview was a gentle reminder of what a good person sounds like. It was a reminder of someone that had more courage and integrity than I will ever have. I would not have the ability to be so much different than everyone else I’m surrounded with and continue to be …show more content…
This is a belief by many teachers that needs to be changed. A child needs to not to be looked down upon because of their cultural gap. Michael in his interview gave advice about some type of training required by teachers. He believed teacher needed training to force them to watch what they say and how they act to people that are different than them. He believed it was not their fault they acted like that, they just did not know any better. While going through the interview and thinking about what I was going to write for this paper I came up with many conclusions that could help with this problem. One of the biggest things that a Teacher can do is to “Address race and racial dynamics in the classroom”. An example of this would be if students are using verbal language that could be looked as racist, the teacher intervenes and creates an education opportunity. The teacher discusses slavery and the impacts that it has had on present day cultures. The teacher than explains the wrong doing of being racist and saying those things. I believe I will create many measures in my classroom to prevent any person feeling bad because of the way I look. I believe it starts with parents. If a parent says things at home about a certain culture or race, the children will start to think the same things. I would have a meeting with

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Personal Narrative: An Interview With Michael Stroman

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