During lunch time, Ms. Beeman, an American
teacher, came to our classroom to take on her lunch duty while she was not the
classroom teacher in our class. Lassya, an Indian girl, was eating her lunch
with her right hand in my class. When Ms. Beeman witnessed this, she went to
get a spoon for Lassya and said, "Please use the spoon, it is good manners
to use a spoon and it won't make your hands dirty." In this example, Ms.
Beeman was not the classroom teacher in this class, which means that she does
not know much about the children in this class and about their family culture
and tradition, either. She does not know that Lassya was from India where
eating with hands is one of the culture. As to Lassya, when she heard that
eating with hands was not appropriate, this would make her feel confused about
what she had been doing in her family and feel lost about who she was. The
microaggression happened because Ms. Beeman did not know much about the child
and did not take into consideration different cultures of eating habits. When I
observed this, I felt embarrassed for Lassya, and sorry that I did not inform
the teacher of Lassya's case before hand.
My observation experiences this week affect my
perception of the effects of discrimination, prejudice and stereotypes on
people. I realize that actually every minute our own beliefs, culture,
tradition, and way of life, etc, affect our ways of communication with others and
views on people and about things happening around. If we don't hold an
open-minded attitude and get to know more about different cultures, we might
impose our discriminative, prejudiced and stereotypical views on people, which
cause intentionally or unintentionally microaggression towards others and show
inequity.
Perfect example of someone who had good intentions, but ended up confusing and possibly hurting the feelings of the young girl. I think it was very beneficial to learn about microaggression this week. It is important to recognize the often unintentional or well-intentioned comments we make and how they can hurt others. As we learn to recognize microaggression, we can do our part to change not only our behavior, but help others to recognize it as well. Thanks for your comments.
回复删除Xiaowan,
回复删除Your example of microaggression is one that is very common when it comes to individual and dominant cultures. Personally, I do eat some of my meals with my hands because it is a cultural custom to do so. Please do not feel sorry that you did not inform the teacher of the child’s culture beforehand. I believe that as a teacher working with children of different race and culture she should have known this. I think she should have asked you before approaching the child and making such negative comments. I believe that people will make negative comments because of the unknown which could be well-intentioned or unintentional that will hurt others. We must do our best to think before we speak or at least learn about other cultures before commenting.
I agree that every minute of our culture affects the way we communicate. This is indicated in our classes. The children greet each other differently, greet me differently, and then they have to take in the way I greet them. It's a giant mixture of cultures, but when we are dealing with five year olds, it's easy to mix it up!
回复删除