While grocery shopping, I overheard a young child point and
asked the lady she was with, I assume her mother, why they guy that was
approaching them was so dark. The mother
told the child is was not nice to point and the child then she said that she
was afraid of him. The mother ignored
what the child said and continued to shop.
I believe by not talking with the child, the mom reinforced her
fear. She also didn’t provide the child
an opportunity to discuss differences in a positive manner.
An anti-bias educator would have discussed with the child
the differences in color of all people. The
teacher may have spoken to the gentleman while in passing to show the child
there was nothing to fear. The teacher
may have spoken to the child about her fears and helped her work through those
feelings.
Dalhia,
ReplyDeleteWe often make the mistake of thinking that children are not affected by our actions. When adults try to teach the children from criticizing, lecturing, ridiculing, screaming, threatening, giving orders, or even hitting; those actions will shutdown the children thinking and creativity. Our responsibility is to guide the children between what is right and wrong and let them decide.
Yen