Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

I distinctly remember two years ago when I was 8 months pregnant and teaching kindergarten having a microaggression happen to me. I has a little boy in my classroom who refused to do anything that I would ask him to do, all he wanted to do was play. One day he was asked to finish his paper at my table because I was trying to assess him at the time and he was refusing to do his work. When his father came to pick him up I explained the situation and that the boy had to sit at my table instead of "playing" (centers) because he wouldn't work. The dad got very aggressive with his language and with me yelling that I wasn't fair because I was a "young, rich, white girl with no parenting experience."

After I got him out of my classroom so the children didn't have to listen to his crude language he went up to the office to set a meeting with the principal. At this point I had to agree with him that I was much younger than him, was a "white girl" but by no means was I rich! I didn't have parenting experience either but, I had been working with children since I was 16 and it wasn't my first year teaching.

He set a meeting with the principal but refused to be in the meeting with her if I was present in the room, so I sat on the other side of the conference room listening through the cracked door. When she would questions him and what his real problem was he had no really reasons to be angry, everything he would try to put on me or the teachers that also worked with his son, she defended and explained that this was because of his sons behavior and we were only doing what was best for his son. Once she called him out on all his accusations he had to reason to really be mad at anyone but his son. From that day forward he never said anything to me negatively and only reprimanded his son. He finally understood his microaggressions, at least with me.

During the time that he was yelling at me I had a hard time trying to keep myself calm because I took it very personal. He did not have any reason to say mean things to me when I was trying to help his son. I think the hardest part is because he was yelling at me like that when I was very pregnant. I knew though at the time that I couldn't let his microaggressions towards me effect me. I had to hold my head high and continue to do what I thought was right for his son no matter what he thought of me as a person.

Having been through this experience I understand how hard people can take it when you make a microaggression comment towards them. Some people might have it together on the outside but you never know what it's like on the inside. I know that my story isn't as bad as it could be and people have a lot harsher things said to them but it make me understand that words do hurt and before casting judgement on people you need to live a day or two in their shoes, even then you might not have the whole picture.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

Through the use of social media I posed 2 questions to my family and friends. The amount of replies that I received was more than I thought I would. It was interesting to see how each person answered the questions differently depending on their own culture.

The two questions that I posed was:
What is your definition of culture?
What is your definition of diversity?

When looking over answers I noticed a difference in answers between my older friends and family and my younger friends and family. When answering the question, what is your definition of culture, my older friend and my dad answered that culture is beliefs, values and the way one is raised, your surroundings, food, clothing, housing, music, holidays, language, style, values. My younger friends had close to the same answers but adding ideologies and behaviors.

When answering the question, what is your definition of diversity, this is where the answers seems to grow very different. My older friends and family replied with representing differences between people, groups, communities, cultures and doing new things. My younger friends and family responded with the relationships between subjects including both visible and invisible qualities that make each unique as well as commonalities that share. A groups of people may be different because they are from various cultures, and differences amongst a society. I thought that it was very interesting that my younger friends looked at diversity from a very big picture, where my older friends were not as wide viewed. I think this shows how much diversity has come into play as my generation has grown up and how much we have been taught that we are all the same we just live a little differently.

After looking at the answers from friends and family I realized that their answers were very similar to the ones that I have been studying in class. We have read about values, beliefs, language and behaviors. We have also talked about how being diverse is that we all might be different on the outside but on the inside we are all the same.

I think that my friends and family pretty much hit the nail on the head when discussing this definitions. I think they hit on both surface culture and also on deep culture. In regards to culture they didn't mention gender roles, roles of children, showing emotion, family relationships, or ideas about education. These are all very important cultural roles that we need to be respectful of.

When talking with my friends and family I have thought about my own views on these definitions. I work in an area with lots of diversity and culture. The one comment that really made me think was "Think of it as big picture vs. small detail." Your culture is the big picture and being diverse is just a small detail that only brings us closer together.

My Family Culture

I am imagining that a major catastrophe occurred in my area. I had to be relocated to a different part of the world with a completely different culture than my own. If I could only take three items that I held dear to my heart I would take the photo album of my family that has pictures from when I was a child until now having my own child. I would want to look and remember my family everyday and how much they mean to mean and how I was raised. I would also want to remember my culture and how we presented ourselves as individuals.

I would also take a iPod so that I could listen to all of the music that I enjoyed on a daily basis. Music has been a big part of my life especially when expressing my feelings and memories in my life. Music has captured some of my personal experiences in words and sounds. Without music I would be forced to express my feelings just in word form but to express it in music is so much easier for me.

 I would also take a camera to capture the new moments that I was going to start with my family in a new culture.I love taking pictures and sharing them with others. Especially pictures of my family, son and all of our special memories together. I would want to continue to capture these moments throughout our lives no matter where we are living.

If I was told that I could only keep one of these personal items I would chose to keep old pictures of my family. To me it would be important for my future children to see our culture and how I was raised. I would also want them to be able to see what their family looked like when I was talking about a specific person and how special they were to me.

I think it is scary to think about what would happen if you couldn't live the same life in the same culture suddenly. If you couldn't pack up and take everything with you. It is important to cherish those special memories and times because you really don't know  when something could happen and a loved one or your culture could be taken away from you.