"Words in Class!"

“Words in Class!”

            Ableism and racism are actions, attitudes and institutional practices that subordinate people because of a disability or because of their race or ethnic background.  No matter how hard we try to ignore it, children notice differences in people.  It does not help to ignore differences as though they do not exist.  It is very important to knowledge differences then address the biases and stereotypes that are associated with these differences.  When you do this as an anti-bias early childhood educator then both adults and children develop confidence and self-pride in their differences.  Children are bombarded with media messages.  Often these media messages overemphasize these differences so that similarities are hard to find (Laureate, n.d.)

In order to help overcome the bias and stereotypes children hear and see every day, anti-bias educators can begin to educate children by presenting them with valid depictions of different groups of people.  Teachers can use different types of media to show students disabled people doing household chores, American Indians wearing current clothes and doing everyday tasks instead of sitting in headdresses in a teepee, African Americans working in white collar jobs, etc.  Having discussions about what these people actually look like and do is a start.  Children need to see these people in contemporary cultures; not how they are depicted in media.  

Children often make statements about the differences in people.  Children mean no harm in these statements and often these statements have been influenced by the adults around them.  Children are just naturally curious about the people in the world around them.  And they are very quick to notice the differences in the people around them, often at inopportune times.  Back in November, I remember I very embarrassing situation with a student of mine during American Education Week.  This event happened while there were many adults visiting their children in my classroom.  In the middle of math, one of my students, Liam, started asking the question “Is nigger a real word?” “Is nigger a real word?”.  I know I did not handle this very well.  For one, he hollered this question in the middle of math so that everyone in the room could hear and he would not drop the subject.  I was mortified because there were parents all around the room.  I kept telling Liam that we would address it later, and he kept asking the question.  All I kept thinking was “thank goodness there were no African American families in here”, even though I am pretty sure all the other families were taken off guard.  I did address his question later, and I did answer his question.  I told him yes, “nigger” was a real word but it is a word that many people use to insult African American people.  It was a situation that came out of nowhere and I had no idea how to react to it when I had an audience!  

Knowing what I know today, I probably would have just simply address Liam’s question right away instead of deflecting it.  Deflecting the question did not make it go away.  Having those people around didn’t help my judgement that day either.  If this happened again, I would have given him the same answer.  However, once my room was cleared of parents, I would probably have a class meeting about the subject.  I might talk about the word to the entire class and how it was a word that many white people used long ago as insulting to African American people because they felt their race was inferior.  Perhaps I’d find a book or photos of African Americans doing the same tasks and jobs as other races to show that even though their skin color is different they are still equals to everyone else even though they look different.  Perhaps I’d even ask them how they feel when they are called names.  I could even find a book on name calling, especially name calling that is directed to different people.  As a class we could discuss why we no longer use that word and other words that are not kind to different races and backgrounds.  Being different does not mean being less of a person. 

Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Start seeing diversity: Physical ability and characteristics [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Start seeing diversity: Race/ethnicity [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu