One of our White Pony graduates, a very sweet little boy, is now a first grader at a local public school. The family has Indian and African heritage. When the boy first started public school, a few students called him the N-word during aftercare. The family removed him from aftercare and hired a nanny. His mother told me recently that, unfortunately, there have been incidents of racially-based name calling during the regular school day. The little boy reports that children have said things like “Your skin looks like mud,” and the mom is trying to work with the school administration to address these disturbing issues.
His mother is also coaching him about how to talk back to others, telling them his feelings are hurt when they say unkind things, and talking to a teacher right away when incidents happen.
This sad situation makes me grateful for the work over the years of the Meher Schools’ Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee. I also appreciate the willingness of parents in our school community to actively deal with bias, which is often expressed at an age when children don’t consciously know what words mean. We don’t want children to develop the self-concept that if they say something offensive, they are offensive, or that they have to be afraid of saying the wrong thing.
Children do make negative comments about skin color sometimes. When that happens at any age, it’s important to view children as learners, rather than budding racists. We always try to gently discuss the incidents in a neutral way. We want to encourage curiosity and an understanding of others’ feelings as an important aspect of social interaction and living in a compassionate community. For young children, we often recommend the book The Colors of Us, by Karen Katz, a book that celebrates the diversity of skin colors.
When these incidents come up, we usually inform parents in order to encourage discussions of these issues at home. We have found, as is generally true in our society, most “white” parents don’t discuss racial issues with their children because these aren’t active concerns in their lives. In contrast, families of color report that they feel the need to discuss them and give their children tools for coping with other children’s questions and comments. In previous years, the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee has held workshops on discussing diversity issues with children.
In other areas of life, unintentionally hurtful comments and questions also occasionally come up in school about families with two moms or dads, or curiosity may arise about gender identity. Our commitment as a school is to discuss ways of communicating to others in a kind and clear way.
One family of two moms transferred to our preschool last year because the school they previously attended would just dismiss children’s questions about why their family had two moms. The school’s stance was to just distract children from the questions, rather than actively talk about them.
The Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee has always been dedicated to creating a safe space where we can educate ourselves together about the ways individuals want to be seen and identified. We want everyone at our school to feel a sense of belonging and the belief that they are an integral part of our unified school community, a place where love actively nurtures learning.
We invite parents to get involved in the work of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee. Currently we are sponsoring a once-a-month dinner-and-discussion meeting. The next one is next Tuesday, and it is about trauma-informed care.
Hozzászólások