No Role Models: Two Black Teachers Reflect on How Their Mentoring Relationship Helped Them to Persist Through Racial Battle Fatigue

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Eighteen
  In Roundtable Session: Finding Our People: Mentoring, Sharing, and Connecting (Table 10)

Abstract

Teacher mentors for teachers of color (TOC) serve as buffers in racialized educational settings. Usually, TOC are one of the few racial minorities in their school building and must immediately take on the roles of advocate, parent, cheerleader, counselor, among many others. These burdens are a direct result of their race and result in TOC experiencing racial battle fatigue (RBF). Arguably the United States cannot accomplish racial justice without educational justice. This paper is a reflection written by a teacher mentor and their mentee in attempts to shed light on the ways in which a mentoring relationship sustained us in the classroom as we battled the racial landscape of what it means to teach while Black in America.

Authors

• Franchesca R. Ho Sang, Hunter College
  Presenting Author

• Anthony M. Chin Kee Hee, Buffalo State College - SUNY
  Presenting Author