The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

 

This week was given an assignment to discuss a time when myself or someone I knew experienced bias, prejudice, or oppression. I remember a time when I was volunteering in a pre-k classroom. During the year we received a new student. He was of Asian descent, and the only one from his cultural background in the class. Most of the students had never seen an Asian person before and they found his facial features amusing. They would pull the corner of their eyes back and attempt to mimic his accent. He had a hard time fitting in, but with encouragement from the teacher he was finally accepted as part of the class.

This incident was conflicting for me. I was a part-time volunteer and didn’t feel that I was in a position to reprimand the children. I felt that the teacher should have addressed this issue much sooner than she did. There wasn’t a feeling of equality in the classroom; it was the class against the new kid. I did my best to try to help him, but again, I felt limited because of my position. It made me feel frustrated and discouraged. How could the teacher let her student treat this child they way that they were. Why didn’t she do something about it?

Finally I got the courage to speak to her about it. She pretended she hadn’t noticed that it bothered him and said that all children experience a period of transition when they enter a new school. I felt this was just an excuse on her part because she didn’t want to put in the extra effort it would take to do the right thing.

By the end of the year the little boy had several friends. It appeared that he fit in, but there were still several students who didn’t treat him like they treated everyone else. I requested a transfer to a different room because I felt that I wasn’t learning the teaching and management skills that I knew were necessary to becoming a quality educator. Looking back, I wonder if I made the right choice. Perhaps I should have stayed in that classroom. I could have become an advocate for students who weren’t being treated fairly. I probably could have made a positive change in those students lives.