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.

Acceptance

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.

 

This week I had to interview a couple people and ask them two questions:

What is your definition of culture?

What is your definition of diversity?

Here are their answers:

Cody: a white male in his mid-twenties.

What is your definition of culture:

The traditions and customs of a specific group of people.

What is your definition of diversity:

A mix of several different cultures.

Lilliana, a Hispanic female in her early twenties:

What is my definition of Culture?

My definition of culture is the common interests of people within a community, such as a nation, a state, a race, religion ect.

What is your definition of diversity?

My definition of diversity is the differences among a group of people.

Chamois, a White female in her early thirties:

What is your definition of culture:

A collection of practices and beliefs that unify a group of people. Can be classified by ethnic identity but doesn’t have to be, there can be subcultures like athletes.

What is your definition of diversity:

A variety of different cultures which provides different perspectives, and belief systems.

Which aspects of culture and diversity that I have studied in this course are included in the answers I received—and what are some examples?

I believe that Chamois’s answer about culture was extremely close to what I’ve been learning through this course. She stated that it could be identified by ethnic background but that it didn’t have to be. She also mentioned sub-cultures. 

Which aspects have been omitted—and what are some examples of such omission?

I feel that the people I interviewed did a fairly good job of describing diversity. I think this is especially true considering that fact that none of them are in the education field. 

In what ways has thinking about other people’s definitions of culture and diversity influenced my own thinking about these topics?

It was interesting hearing other people’s definitions of culture and diversity. For the most part they were pretty similar. Because of this course I have learned that culture is so much more than what you can see on the outside or taste in cultural specific foods. Culture is deeply imbedded in a person’s whole being, who they are, what they do, etc. Just because two people of from the same cultural background doesn’t mean that they will share the same belief systems, likes and dislikes, or family traditions.

For this assignment I have to choose three items I would take from my house in the case of an emergency.

The three items I chose were:

A small safe which contains important documents.

A ring that my husband gave me.

And our wedding album.

Each of these items has significant meaning to me. The safe is important because it has our birth certificates, marriage license, and other important documents. The ring has sentimental value because my husband gave it to me the first time he told me he loved me. And our wedding album holds many happy memories and includes pictures of all of our family members.

I also had to write how I would feel if once we got to our destination we were told we could only keep one item. I would be completely devastated. I would probably end up choosing the wedding album.

I hope that I will never have to go through an experience like this one. And my heart goes out to the people who have lost their homes suddenly.

I have learned so much about research processes during this class. I had no idea how much thought and consideration goes into even the smallest of research projects. I have a new found respect for individuals in the research field. I have also discovered that research is not for me, and am thankful that I chose teaching as a profession and not research. I do plan on researching new best practices and strategies for the classroom. I just don’t plan on doing any large scale (or small scale) research projects. 

Among the many things that I learned, I think the most useful skill was how to locate and identify credible sources. (I also know how to identify unreliable sources)

I did struggle with some concepts and got a few terms confused here and there. Overall I feel that after taking this course I have a much better understanding of all of the work that goes into research and the whole research process. 

I am thankful to those people who are dedicated to researching the early childhood field. It is an important job.

I would like to thank my classmates who have given me new insights and perspectives on a variety of topics this semester.