Could a greater miracle take place than
for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant? –Henry David Thoreau
This week I will be discussing
micro-aggressions. A micro-aggression can be intentional or unintentional, but
are usually unintentional. In my case, they were unintentional. Unintentional
micro-aggressions can still cause emotional damage. I can remember a time when
I was guilty of committing micro-aggressions. It was when I first started
working at a school. Several of the students had names that I couldn’t
pronounce correctly. I’m ashamed to say, at the time I didn’t think anything of
it. I didn’t even sit down with those students or their parents to try and get
the pronunciation right. Looking back I now realize this was very wrong of me.
I was sending those students the message that I didn’t care enough about them
to learn how to say their name correctly. I don’t know why I was so naive about
this. If I could go back, I would work with the students to get my pronunciation
of their names correct.
This week we have been learning about and
the effects of various prejudices, stereotypes, and discrimination's. I learned
that I was unaware of all of the stress that people have to go through. I
learned that I need to be more aware and accepting of people who are different
from me. Moving forward, I believe that my professional self will benefit
greatly from this information. My students will also benefit because I will be
more aware of their needs and feelings.
Angela,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your sharing your personal experience regarding microaggression. I am guilty of microaggression myself and I bet your families and students will judge you by the way you took care and taught them rather than the way you mispronounced their names or last name. Being an Asian myself, I would like to tell you that I personally understand if you are having difficulty pronouncing my names, because our last names are really hard to pronounce. Same way as your language, it is difficult also for us to pronounce it because of the way we were taught at school. I think the best thing that we learned this week is to be aware and do something to at least reduce microaggression , if we cannot yet eliminate it.
By the way, you can try pronouncing my last name: Hermosura, will I feel bad if you cannot do it? I would not feel bad but my husband would probably be. Just kidding!
Thanks for sharing.