After the completion of my sophomore year in college the plans I had prepared for summer employment fell through. I was forced to find a new job. My father suggested that I should look into working with Upward Bound. They were advertising at school for the position of tutor assistant. I put in my application and after a good interview I had the job.
     Coming in I didn’t really know what to expect. I had known some Upward Bound students in high school, but I had no idea what I was getting into exactly. Before the summer academy started we had staff training. The staff I was working with were all nice people. The thing that stood out to me form the beginning however was the cultural nature of the situation. I was the only Caucasian staff member. There were some cultural things I had to learn right up front, but once I got those down, I fit right in.
     The students represented diverse cultural backgrounds, just as the staff did. The first year there were a number of Caucasian students, but as the years have gone by there are only a few still in the program. Not that the racial makeup of the program mattered to me at any point, from the first day with the students I was just enthusiastic about helping out these kids who eventually will be the first students from their family to go to college.
     I can say that these students have given me an education in racial motivation. I have heard and seen racial slurs elevate the level of animosity between the minority and the majority to a place where even the most minor comments were misinterpreted. We were on a road trip at the time and the effort that went into getting the group back into a working whole was enormous, but it was not something that was outside the realm of possibilities. The group eventually healed once the situation had been taken care of and in the years to follow it didn’t become a problem again.
     More than anything my students here have raised my level of cultural awareness in language and terminology. The language they speak is very urban, more so then some of the dialects that I have heard working in the public schools. It is of course, summer when I am working with these students so they have a tendency to let themselves relax and talk however they please, though I assume that the way they are talking is not far from their norm.
     Teaching is situations like this one, where my students have definite goals, is the best thing that I could ask forin a classroom. After three summers of assisting these students I will finally be teaching them as an instructor this summer. I am looking forward to the opportunity and already have many plans for what I am going to do to help them prepare for the coming school year and succeed.