Discrimination is still very real...
This week we were reading "A Picture Book of Rosa Parks" as my read aloud. The vocabulary words gave us some rich discussion. One in particular struck a cord with me. You probably know as well as I do that discrimination is still very much a reality. Here are some of the things that came out of our discussions this week.
When talking to them about Rosa Parks and the way things were, my students asked about schools...
"Were Mexicans allowed to be in white schools?"
"No they were also considered colored"
"So Blacks and Mexicans didn't go to school with whites?"
"That's correct"
-All of them took a moment to process this...looked around the room... then one said..
"Almost like our class"
-sadly they are correct, I have two white kids in my class and one is Slavic-
When learning the word discrimination...
-I explained what the word was and used a silly extreme example to make the point-
"Mrs. Mucci, I have a real life connection to that. I was at the park with a friend and we were talking to each other, then this kid came up to me and said 'why do you black people always talk like that, you keep saying ain't and stuff. Don't you know how to talk.'"
Many other vibrant conversations came up through the discussion but thought you might like to ponder these.
When talking to them about Rosa Parks and the way things were, my students asked about schools...
"Were Mexicans allowed to be in white schools?"
"No they were also considered colored"
"So Blacks and Mexicans didn't go to school with whites?"
"That's correct"
-All of them took a moment to process this...looked around the room... then one said..
"Almost like our class"
-sadly they are correct, I have two white kids in my class and one is Slavic-
When learning the word discrimination...
-I explained what the word was and used a silly extreme example to make the point-
"Mrs. Mucci, I have a real life connection to that. I was at the park with a friend and we were talking to each other, then this kid came up to me and said 'why do you black people always talk like that, you keep saying ain't and stuff. Don't you know how to talk.'"
Many other vibrant conversations came up through the discussion but thought you might like to ponder these.
November 5, 2007 at 5:43 PM
This blogging is really a great thing except I keep forgetting to check your page. Maybe I can get a alert button on this...Is that possible??
Oh well I love reading whats going on in your class. Still haven't found the fake hair maybe in next months box. :) Keep on doing what your doing your making a difference...