I think TFA’s mission has encouraged me to see my students as either future middle class wage earners or not. Today I looked out at my class and saw black children and I felt more content, more comfortable than in the past with what I saw.

They’re beautiful and quirky, and confident and unsure. They know a lot about what it means to be black children in Brooklyn in 2010. They know a lot about what it means to be children. They know a lot about Trinidad, and Prospect Park, cornbread and pet deer.

Am I going to add to their emerging awareness of identity by acknowledging their funds of knowledge or will I heighten their insecurities by making them feel only as if they’re preparing to become part of the middle class?