I cant believe how children at such a young age can be racist against one another, they probably do not realize what racism is. During the article, Rita said "While i knew that kindergarten children were too young to intellectually understand the complexities of issues such as racism or prejudice, their behaviors showed the influence of stereotypes and biases." If i ever have a child of my own, i will teach them about race and respect and how to deal with prejudice in school. The passage that i found most important in this article was about ways of dealing with prejudice. One of the most important steps in my opinion is Do apply consequences to the attacker in accordance with the school rules, code of behavior, and race/ethnocultural relations policy. Even if the children do not understand about being prejudice, they should be corrected an taught respect. for example, "Miguel doesn't talk funny, Sean. he's speaking Spanish like the other people in his family. you and i are speaking English. its fine for you to ask questions about what Miguel is saying, or say that you don't understand. but it's not OK to say that he talks funny. that's a put-down to all of us who speak Spanish."
You make a good point. If a child is aware of his/her actions being prejudice, s/he may correct their actions and in addition, influence others to stop these unacceptable behaviors.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good blog, Jeff. And I agree. Jewish people have an idea, it's called "healing the world", and the idea is that we have to make the world we want to see, we can't just sit around and wait for it to show up.
ReplyDeleteGlad you're on board.
Thank you, Jeffrey, for such a thoughtful post.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to future posts--you're good at this.
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