Introduction
“Racism—both interpersonal and structural—negatively affects the mental and physical health of millions of people, preventing them from attaining their highest level of health, and consequently, affecting the health of our nation.” –Center for Disease Control (CDC)
One of my students texted me recently to say that she wouldn’t be at school that day; her toddler had a fever, so she was taking her to the emergency room. In fact, the ER is the center of healthcare services for most of my students who are likely to be of color and living in some degree of poverty. The challenges they’ve faced frequently involve some of the inequalities the Race, Class, and Gender in Today’s America seminar looks into, especially race and class. In addition to problems securing dependable, safe housing, they lack access to healthy food and convenient shopping. They tend to depend on the one-dimensional source of healthcare described above and often suffer with problems like toothaches, chronic headaches and other healthcare issues that are easily treated with regular access to all degrees of care. The same students are reluctant to be vaccinated against Covid 19; they don’t trust the medical system, and people they know and emulate are not being vaccinated. My students do not know the long history of medical racism or its horrific specific events, but the general lack of trust and medical disenfranchisement has trickled on to them.
I am the only English teacher in an alternative school serving grades 9-12. Most students enter my small school because they are involved in the juvenile justice system; others are not “in the system,” but they share characteristics that make this the best school for them. We meet our district’s great need for a school or program that can accommodate a concentrated number of students with histories of severe discipline problems, chronic and temporary trauma, the substance abuse challenges, mental health problems, and other dysfunctions that accompany these things and that hinder school success, including lack of dependable healthcare. This lack of dependable healthcare has negative effects on attendance and learning. My classes are often multi-grade, and my students are almost always at least a few years beyond grade level. Often, they have not been in school consistently and have lost those daily academic skills. Needless to say, while I do what I can to improve their critical reading and writing skills and introduce them to as much text as possible, I must meet them where they are with engaging content that is relevant to their lives. Ideally, they learn that the issues we study do affect their lives, and often they can do at least something small about it or be inspired by others who have.
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