I am grateful to have a 10 year old who has developed critical thinking skills. I credit this to having always talked to him openly about issues in this world. He has been experiencing his classmates telling racists jokes on playground. He had been coming home and telling me how upset this makes him. I asked him "would you like me to go to your school and talk with your teacher and or principle? He said "NO" he said he was going to think for a while and see what happens the next day at recess. Aparently he heard some more racists comments and decided that he was going to do something about it. He talked to his teacher who then talked to principle who then made some phonecalls to parents of said jokesters . They kept my son's name private and praised him for taking charge and to speaking up.
My son came home and felt really proud of himself for standing up and speaking up. He asked, "mom, where do these kids even hear these jokes"? "do you think thaT they heard from their parents"? I said "perhaps, it's hard to say but it is a possibility as we parents sometimes use bad judgements too and say things infront of our children when we think YOU are not listening"...he said, "yes mom, of course we are always listening, how else do we learn"? "thats why you grownups should try to show/teach us good things that help the world not dumb things that make us act hateful with each other"
YES!!!! OF COURSE!!!! I think that we all should be aware of the kids around us, and to remember that we have the great opportunity to help teach them great things. They will have plenty of the negative around, always but why not make it a point to be one of the positive influences in their lives. I cannot tell you how proud I am for my son to approach his teacher and discuss his concerns and that she(teacher) reacted by validating his concerns and praising him for doing it.
Sometimes people have asked me if I want to discuss matters of racism infront of my son and I say "ABSOLUTELY".
That is awesome that he stood up and spoke out against such ignorance. It takes courage and it is nice to hear when it goes well, gives me some hope we can learn to do better.
ReplyDeleteI agree that some of them hear it from their parents, yet I think it goes farther than just that. There's been research going around lately that talks about how many white parents just do not talk about race at all, except to say be nice and treat everyone the same, which actually leaves quite the vacuum for the media and whomever else to fill.
The parents think they are doing the right thing and their children may be very nice overall, however they lack real information about cultural differences or the histories, legacies and continuing struggles with racism, and many do not learn the critical thinking skills or experience to question things that "everyone knows" and that get taught through other modes of communication.
I have a friend whose junior high aged son recently gave a school speech on racial microaggressions. Perhaps your son could meet him, since they are facing related struggles and speaking out.