This week I was learning about microaggression. I really was
looking around and concentrating hard throughout this week to detect an example
of microagression. Today, I finally received an example, and it was from my
little Kindergartners. In class this week we are learning about American
symbols. In my class I also have a boy that was born and raised in America, but
still does not have what would be considered “normal” English because of his
second language and the accent that he has developed from this. I was having my
students turn and talk to each other about American symbols and one other
student in my class raised their hand and stated, “Why does he (the little boy
in ESL) have to learn about American symbols when he doesn’t belong here
anyways?” I was shocked by this and could not believe how blunt the statement
was. I explained to the class that the little
boy does live here and was born here, he is just lucky enough to know two
different languages. We talked about how hard it is to learn how to talk, and
if they could imagine learning to talk in two different ways. We also discussed
how it is not nice to single out other people like this and how they would feel
if someone said that they did not belong. I feel my students understood more
about being nice to others now and how we cannot make racial/ethnic remarks
about others.
My observation of my experiences this week affected my perception
of the effects of discrimination, prejudice, and stereotyping by understanding
that these ideas and personas start with young children. If young children are
exposed and have an understanding of all different types of people and grow up
knowing this as the norm, the ideas of discrimination, prejudice, and stereotyping
could eventually vanish. I hope that one day, this concept could become a
reality.
Kids say the darndest things. You're right it does start when they're young and if it isn't corrected then it just grows sometimes even to big to fix.
ReplyDeleteHi Abigail,
ReplyDeleteWOW!!! That is an example of a teachable moment and I think you did a wonderful job handling the situation, and explaining to the children that it is okay to be different. You are right that if children learn about different cultures early on then the isms of the world would vanish.
Abigail,
ReplyDeleteAmazing that at the age of five, children have that concept. However, as you mentioned in your conclusion, I too hope this will eventually vanish. Do you feel with such an example as the one you turned into a teachable moment, as Tarshia mentioned, that we as educators could or should also educate the families of the children we teach?
Hello Abigail,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, that example you provided is something that happen very often. The people in the dominant culture think that their way of speaking "English" is the "normal" way. People are referred to like you speak "funny" or you speak very good
English to be "Latino" or from any other place. I love that you used that moment to teach children that there is nothing wrong with being different and that Americans come in different ways.