6164 Week 6. The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

My last year working as a Head Start teacher, another teacher had 16 Latino children and only one Caucasian girl – this teacher was Caucasian too and non-bilingual. (I am going to call the teacher Ms. R. and the girl Margaret). When I was playing outdoors with my children, I observed that most of the time Margaret wanted to play with Ms. R. or children from other rooms, but never with her classmates. I asked Ms. R’s assistant –Ms. G.- the reason why Margaret did not play with children from her own room, and I sadly found out that no one wanted to play with her because the children say they did not like Margaret. Ms. G. also shared with me she was worried about Margaret because Ms. R. used to tell the girl she did not have to worry about playing only with children, because she –Ms. R.- would always be there to play with her. The way Ms. R. talked to and behaved with Margaret was completely different than how she did it with the Latino children: letting Margaret be the line leader every day and every time they needed to be in line; letting her pick the toys she wanted to use before everyone else could pick; calling Margaret sweetie or honey, and the other children by their name.

Every time I saw Margaret walking around the park by herself or begging children from other rooms to let her play with them, it was heartbreaking. I still think Ms. R. deprived Margaret from one of the most precious learning children can get in their early childhood years: the opportunity to play with other children of their age and gain all the knowledge their playing provides.

Despite the fact that other teachers, as well as my assistant and I organized games that let Ms. R’s children -including Margaret- play with other students, these opportunities were not enough to let all children feel they all had the same opportunities to play with anybody, the games or ways they wanted to.

I never knew, either understood the reasons that led Ms. R to make those distinctions among her students, but now I understand she made them because of her own biases. Sadly Margaret, the other 16 children, and all those who have been Ms. R’s students, were and have been the ones who paid for Ms. R’s lack of awareness of her own biases. Ms. R gave me an important lesson about the influence each teacher has on a whole group of children, for the positive, as well as for the negative things. I wonder how many other Ms. Rs are out there planting in children the seed of bias, prejudices, and oppression.