Who is the Millennial Teacher?

Hello,

My name is Malik McMillian and I am a millennial. Yes you know about all the things that they say about millennials. We just naturally have a different way of doing things. We are overly thoughtful and sensitive when it comes down to everyday issues but we are cool. We are into technology, social media, socializing, wanting and having the desire to be different. We love Harry Potter, Dragon Ball Z, Backstreet Boys or anything that takes you back to your childhood that keeps us young at heart. We are also known to have a lot of things going on in our mind. The majority of those things come from the era and time in which we grew up in. We grew up in an era when divorce was on the rise. We grew during the recession so even the richest of families were being put out on the street due to foreclosure. There is a reason for everything, there is a reason as to why people act the way they do. I believe that all we are trying to do is to cope.

I am a 25 year old African American man, born in San Francisco, CA but grew up in Oakland, CA. I grew up with a single mother who tried her best to support her three children after a divorce. My father was in and out of prison my entire life. I did not have much positive male interactions. The men that were brought into my life, I was taught to fear and not love. The men that demonstrated themselves as male figures did not have much conversation besides, “this is what I said, and now you must do it.” I grew up hating men because of that. I have had the most terrible relationships with men because of that. I have found myself connecting to women more because of my close relationship I have with my mother, Grandmother and aunts. Going to school, I dealt with being bullied because I looked and spoke differently than other kids and especially than other black boys. I felt that the only thing that I loved about school was the teachers. It was something about them that was so powerful. I felt like they had access to something that I felt like I could not have. I was a black boy in a class full of other black boys who loved to play sports. I feel like being an outsider caused me to cling closer to my teachers. From the very young age of 7, I remember being excited about seeing and meeting my teachers and being excited about the content. I remember telling my mother, “I can not wait to be in Ms. Teacher’s class because it is second grade and that is when we learn cursive.” It was not until then I realized the most hate from my teacher. As a kid, you can not verbally say that the teacher is mistreating me and it is possibly due to my race. You do not know how to voice, the teacher sat me in the back of the classroom and it is hard for me to see. So I would go home and play pretend as most kids usually do. At this moment, I began to “play school” and mimic the things the teacher would say and do. My mother couldn’t help but to over hear what I would say. She would sit down with me and have the conversation with me to make sure that this was not happening in class, when in reality it was. Time and time again that year we have had meeting after meeting discussing how Ms. Teacher (her disguised name) have treated me and the other black kids in the classroom. As I got older, “pretending that I was teacher” became one of the things that I did daily. I would go home and imitate my teachers. It was not until I got to middle school and I had my first male teacher. He taught me English and History. At that time, I still was looking for a positive male role model. I remembered I admired the love other kids had for him because it was that they had him before or he simply was the “cool teacher.” I admired that he was very disappointed when we would give up on ourselves and not do the work or homework assignments were incomplete. I saw a father figure in him. Even though he was my English and History Teacher, he was concerned about my Math grade. I would go to my Math Teacher and he would come in the classroom and tutor me along with my Math Teacher. Whatever he said held a lot of weight. My 7th Grade year was the most eye opening because that was the first time I had my first Black Male Teacher. The students would call me Mr. Harrison and it did not help that I actually looked like I could have been his son. He had a gap, I had a gap, He had a raspy voice and I did as well. He wore glasses and so did I. Growing up in Oakland, I was blessed to have a diverse amount of teachers. Mr. Rodriguez from High School really did it for me. He helped me love a subject that I thought I would hate, History. He was my first Latino teacher and I remember him being hard, he never yelled but the expectations were there. I stayed up late doing his Homework and had to be dressed up in a shirt and tie the next day to present a debate in class. He had high expectations for us. Class started at 8:00 am and we were expected to be in our seats at 7:55 in the morning. It was a standard that he set for his students. When I had him for 10th Grade for AP World History, I failed it and had to take it at the community college. I tried my best to avoid him by avoiding all AP classes. Just my luck, my Junior year in High School he was teaching one General US History class. There was no escaping. I remember telling him how hard his class was and being that I was an Oakland kid going to school in Alameda was hard for me being that the curriculum was rigorous. He told me and looked me in my eye and said, “ Malik, I understand that but I will not lower the standard for you. I came from a similar background and I know it is but you are expected to know the same thing.” That year I passed his class finally. Mr. Rodriguez changed my life and the way I looked at education.

Now I am a teacher. I am living my dream. I am teaching middle schoolers History. I get to be Mr. K, Mr. Harrison and Mr. Rodriguez all in one. Those teacher inspired me and now I can inspire my students. What makes me “the millennial teacher” is through the way I connect with my students. We connect on a media driven, music, dance, fashion, emotional level that is relevant in the world we live in today. When the standard discusses “cultural relevant teaching” I believe that is exactly what I hope to do. My classroom and students are not your every day classroom. There’s music, dancing, motivation and mini sermonettes. You will find conversations about the media and social justice and how we can connect it to World History, which is a history that usually is taught to keep out little black and brown children. You can teach Julius Caesar and how he took over Rome by connecting it to the “Homies taking over the hood of Highland Park and how you wouldn’t be happy.” There is a way you can teach the invasion of Rome and the invasion Islam but connecting it to “gentrification.” Teaching my students mantras are things that keep you going when you are going through your toughest time like: “What doesn’t kill you make you stronger.” Teaching my kids Ecclesiastes 9:11 by not including religion but allowing them to know when you are taking a test, it doesn’t matter how strong, fast or smart you are, as long as you make it to the end. That is what you call cultural relevant teaching from this 25 year old millennial.

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