When a White Mom Walks into a School with a Biracial Child-What do you say?

The other day, I had a mother come into my office to register her daughter for school. I began to talk to her about the school and what we offer, and to say the least the mother was excited for her daughter being at my school. I asked the mother if she wanted to put the father down on her emergency contact list, and the mother from some odd reason, stated her daughter being mixed with Black, White and Indian. Thrown back by the statement, I asked what does she identify with, and the daughter stated, “I don’t know, I’m just me.” The mother seemed thrown off by the question as well, as she did not really know how to answer the question.

When I began to talk about my research on biracial students to parents who have biracial kids, it seems the parents need just as much education on identity development as the students. I mentioned the book “Passing” by Nella Larsen, to the student, and as I began talking to the student about the book, it seemed, by the look on her face, that I was describing some internal emotions she may have had before.

The mother began to ask more questions about my research and it almost seemed as if she wanted me to say it was ok with how she was raising her child. The mother began to say how the child is comfortable with both Black and White sides of her family; with her husband being African American she gets a healthy dose of her Black side the mother said. I asked the mother if she would be ok with me identifying her as biracial, the mother did not seem to mind. I was waiting for the parent to ask me what I meant by identify her as biracial, but she never did.

As I currently have three biracial students in my school, I can’t help observe how they interact with fellow students, and what I notice is that they seem to spend more time with those whose skin tone reflect theirs. I can tell they feel more comfortable with their peers that reflect their skin tone, but academically they are some of my strongest students. I don’t believe they are “acting White” because they do well academically, but I have overheard them down playing their classroom success around their African American peers.

I sometime question, if my students learned about famous biracial people such as W.E.B Dubois, Booker T. Washington or Nella Larson who are all highly educated, famous biracial people, who the world identifies as being Black, would they think that their academic success makes them more White than Black? I believe biracial students need to know their history in order to feel more comfortable with the major impact they have had on history, especially American history.

Whenever I have the opportunity to let families know about my research, especially those who are Interracial, I find that parents don’t really understand the uniqueness about their child’s identity, it seems they focus on a unique name for the child, or the unique spelling of the name. Don’t get me wrong, I am not here to poke fun of the names of biracial children, but sometimes we as parents worry about what our kids are called, rather than focus on how they develop. Parents of biracial children should pay attention to how schools interact with their child, especially teachers. In a later post I will discuss school environments for biracial students, and what parents should ask for and what schools should try to provide.

In conclusion, Black and White Biracial people are one of fastest and biggest growing populations in America. Now, if we can get the companies that create our school textbooks to recognize this, then this could mean that our biracial students will start to receive more of the truth about their impact on US. History. I imagine one day that once biracial students start to read more about their history, then maybe today’s youth will want to add to that history.

~ Eric D Jackson II

Hidden Curriculum for Biracial Students

When I walk into my children's school, It is difficult to get a sense of my children being identified as biracial. The importance of schools providing that sense of identity for biracial students in critical for their healthy identity development. I remember I was doing a professional development with a group of elementary teachers and their administration, on biracial students struggles with not being either to light to be White or not dark enough to be Black, and one of the administrators made a comment about, how kids just want hang around their peers; As I listened to his comment, I couldn't help but to wonder, is this person seeing biracial kids as a mono-racial and not the unique double identity that they have? The hidden curriculum in schools are the norms, celebrations, the things that go really undetected by parents, unless your one of those parents that are much involved in your students schooling, but even then the hidden curriculum can slip underneath anyones nose.

The hidden curriculum is just as important as the academic curriculum in helping shape the identity of biracial students. So why aren't schools paying attention to their hidden curriculum just as much as their academic curriculum, my guess, as long as there aren't any complaints, then there must not be a problem. Biracial students have had to adapt to the hidden curriculum of their schools, and never have the schools adapted to the double identity of biracial students.

It is time for schools to adjust their hidden curriculum to meet the needs of their biracial students, if not, schools could start to see more biracial students being dignosed with Emotional Disorder.