This week we are supposed to write a story about a time when
a child pointed out someone else’s differences and the response that we had
towards this comment. The story that sticks out most in my head happened when I
was teaching preschool. One of my preschool students wanted to spend some time
alone. She did quite a bit where she would get mad at the other children and
just wanted some time to herself. Well, on this particular day, one of the boys
would not leave her alone because he wanted to play with her.
As the child got more frustrated that the boy was bothering
her, she turned and pointed to the boy and yelled, “I don’t like to play with
black people!” At this point, I was completely in shock, and walked over to the
children. I asked the boy if he was okay, and when he said “yes” he went and
played with another group of children. At that time, I turned to the girl and
said, “We shouldn’t say things like that. You just hurt his feelings. How do
you think you would feel if someone said that to you?”
This is when the child got quite and said that she just
wanted some alone time. We talked about the different ways to tell someone that
we want to be left alone and that she should have come to me if there was a
problem. Later, we informed both the children’s parents on what had happened.
Thinking back, I don’t know if I gave both children the
right message. I talked about hurting someone’s feelings but I didn’t really go
into detail about how we are all different. I was just so shocked by this
incident, especially since they are really good friends, and I didn’t know how
to handle the situation.
Learning what I have from this program, the one thing that
an anti-bias educator would do is talk to both children at the same time to
talk about differences. I should have talked to the other child more and made
sure that he was ok, and to let him know that it was not ok with what the other
child said. If I had all this information, I would have also talked to the girl
more about race and how it wasn’t his skin color that made her not want to play
with him. I think if this situation were to happen again, I wouldn’t be so
shocked and not know how to handle it. I would be more prepared and ready to
take action.
Charlotte,
ReplyDeleteThat is a difficult situation. My sister teaches special education at the high school level. Last week was there first week of school. She met many new students that did not know her. She commented that one boy was talking loudly to another boy about "you know how black people are". My sister is married to an African-American and has three beautiful bi-racial children. Amber said that the other boy in the conversation leaned over and told the new student that Amber's husband was African-American. She later said something to the boy about his comments. The school she teaches at is primarily Caucasian. She states that she tells children who make biased comments that, she is not there to change their mind, but she will not tolerate it in her room. I would like to learn more about anti-bias education at the older grade levels. Great post.
Sometimes, when place in these types of situation, it is hard to determine what to do. I applaud the fact that you stepped in and said something and decided to inform the parents. When asking the little boy how would he feel if someone said that to him, you allow the little boy to at least think about how he would feel in relation to the incident.
ReplyDeleteI think you handled this fine for your first experience with this. It is hard to know what to do when we are caught off guard. I think you are exactly right about the girl not meaning what she said. She was young and did not know how to express herself. She easily could have said that she did not want to play with him because he is a boy. This would not have been as harmful, but she still would not have meant it.
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