Independent Spirit: Raheem Jackson

Summer 2019

jackson-(6).jpgRaheem Jackson

History Teaching Fellow
Northfield Mount Hermon School
Mount Hermon, Massachusetts
Photo by Chattman Photography

I first encountered Northfield Mount Hermon School (NMH) and the world of elite New England boarding schools seven years ago. I arrived as an 18-year-old postgraduate student from a small neighborhood in Alachua, an all-black, working-class community in rural North Florida. It was my first time leaving the South, living in a predominantly white and nonblack residential community, and confronting the amenities of the wealthy. Now teaching and living at NMH as a faculty member and alum, I continue to navigate challenges.
 
   “Did you cut your dreads to be more professional?”
   “It’s the ‘black tax,’ if you will. Students will come to you for things that they will mostly never come to me for. And it is largely uncompensated.”
   “We don’t want to ask already-overworked faculty of color to be mentors in this program on top of what we already ask them to do.” 
   “I don’t care where you end up. I just want to support you. You’re away from home, not from this world, isolated from your communities. I don’t want to lose you to higher ed or something else. If we lose you, then our students lose you.”
   “Keep grinding, bro. It will all be worth it soon. You’re making an impact.”
 
These are all snippets of conversations that I’ve had over the past two years. The context of each falters in comparison to the larger context that amounts to my truth as a young professional here. It’s a whirlwind of navigating otherness and searching for the joys that come with the rare instances of finding affinity and familiarity. Each day presents a routine mix of the challenges and rewards of being one of very few: talking minority students through the difficulty and importance of self-love; navigating microaggressions and unfavorable institutional norms; and resenting the lack of resources and ethnographies in my program that center and amplify the experiences of educators like me in independent schools.
 
I turn to music to sustain myself. Recently, I see parallels between J. Cole’s song “Middle Child” and my experience: “I’m dead in the middle of two generations. I’m little bro and big bro all at once,” Cole raps. Like all other student-teachers and young educators, I’m learning while I am teaching. I find myself in a unique state of limbo—I feel largely undervalued and marginalized in these elite spaces. Yet, I also feel invaluable to our school and its students.
 
I know that I am capable, worthy, and I have excelled. Other similarly positioned teachers and I mentor and support each other to supplement the few mirrors that we have in our faculties and teaching colleges. Music also helps me find meaning and exercise my social and emotional intelligence. Before class or after an emotionally taxing conversation with a student, a solid playlist can rejuvenate me to do the work that I love—to nurture and care for students.
 

Jackson's Playlist

  1. “Breathe” by India.Arie
  2. “Kenny Lofton” by J. Cole
  3. “Children of the World” by Big K.R.I.T.
  4. “Ex-Factor” by Lauryn Hill
  5. “Story of OJ” by Jay-Z
  6. “Naked” by Ella Mai
  7. “Knock Tha Hustle Remix” by Cozz
  8. “If I Ruled the World” by Nas
  9. “The Light” by Common
  10. “Black Owned Business” by Bas
Read Jackson’s blog for more on his teaching fellow experience.
 
What’s your independent school journey? Tell us at [email protected].