Where I Belong: A Black Teacher's Quest to Find His Home

There are those who wander, and then there are those who really wander. I, a former journalist and current middle school teacher, fall into the latter category.

Where I Belong: A Black Teacher's Quest to Find His Home largely takes place over the span of a year teaching in an Inupiat village in Alaska, where throngs of subsistent students, suspicious of outsiders, stayed away from school because they didn't see its worth. Still, I felt we had more in common than they admitted, though this is more than a fish-out-of-water story.

The book describes what it's like to teach in other hardscrabble environments: the South Bronx across the street from Morrisania projects, in Chicago's North Lawndale and Englewood neighborhoods, three of the poorest and most violent communities in the country; in Madagascar, where there weren't enough seats in my classroom for my students; in the Philippines, in a classroom with no lights where students shared hand-me-down, water-logged textbooks because there weren't enough to go around; and in the not-hardscrabble environment at all of an elite suburban Chicago elementary school, where students begged me for more rigorous assignments. This was teacher heaven. When I landed there, I thought I had finally found my professional home, but my conscience - the Ghost of Teachers Past perhaps - begged to differ.

My own story, chronicling my past as an unmotivated high schooler to an effective and admired teacher by both students and administrators, explains my passion for teaching and my reason for writing this book. While I traveled the world in search of a professional home that was right in front of me the whole time, I stayed close to my childhood friends, whose lives turned out very different from mine, but whose friendships helped form whom I am today. Likewise, I don't regret my nomadic experience at all because it gave me insights that very few educators besides myself likely possess.

This is a book not just for educators, but for anyone interested in reading a compelling memoir, one that includes travel, various cultures, social issues and family. In the tradition of Frank McCourt's Teacher Man (but quite different). Where I Belong tackles some of the thorniest issues of our educational system, including affirmative action, from hard-won personal and professional insights.

Although this should be required reading for prospective teachers in colleges of education throughout the land, this is not just for educators. My story will appeal to people who have worked at demanding, often-thankless jobs who must overcome obstacles not of their own making - yet still manage to find satisfaction. And belonging.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Meandering Maestro Press
Published: 08/12/2026
ISBN: 9798234140173
Pages: 306
Weight: 0.82lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.76d