When experiencing any conflict in my personal life, it is
difficult to separate it from my professional life. The same would apply if I was the victim of
stereotype and bias in my own life.
One of the consequences that would be present for the children and
families with whom I work would include lack of focus and commitment to the
task at hand. In my own experience, when
I am dealing with conflict in my personal life, it is very difficult to be as
focused and dedicated to my teaching as I am on a regular basis. I am not fully thinking about the curriculum
or the students, but instead thinking about finding a solution to the
conflict. I would anticipate that if I
were experiencing an “-ism” in my own life, it would make it extremely
difficult to be a productive and effective educator. Dealing with an “-ism” in my own life would
be emotionally trying on top of a career that already requires a great deal of
energy. Children and families would not
be receiving the best care and education for their child during this time.
A second consequence that would be present for the children and
the families could be my own feelings of distrust or dislike for those who are
targeting me. While I’m not sure what my
feelings would be about being the target of an “-ism”, I feel that one response
would be to generalize the group that is targeting me and to be distrusting of
members in that group. This could apply
to the children or families with whom I work if I would begin to behave
differently around certain groups of children or families. My actions could have devastating effects of
the relationships I have built with the families and children. If I showed a biased attitude toward the
children or families with whom I worked, it would serve no one and only
perpetuate the “-ism” that I would already be experiencing.
After considering this, I feel extremely fortunate to have not
been targeted by an “-ism”. However, I
am well aware that this is not the case for many people and I can only imagine
how difficult this experience would be for an individual. This further emphasizes the importance of
anti-bias education in our society.
Ashli
ReplyDeleteYour blog post is right on target. I can say this will get better for you, we live and we learn. It is very hard to put your feelings aside sometimes, but we must be able to when working with children and their families. We all have and will be targeted by ism's, I believe they make us stronger in the long run. As always thanks for sharing and I enjoyed reading your blog post.
Ashli,
ReplyDeleteyour post really resonated with me, because you expressed emotions that I, too, would feel if discriminated against. You're absolutely right that we can be distracted when things are happening in our personal lives. It is so hard to be that good, present being for so many children on a daily basis, and I imagine it to be immensely more difficult when "isms" are present. This exercise really made me think about how we are all connected and how we have the ability to make a positive or negative impact on someone else's life.
I really enjoyed reading your post -- great work!!
Lydia