How comfortable do you feel with handling issues of race and culture in the classroom? How can you ensure that you are not discriminating against students of a different color or culture in your classroom?

         -I believe I could handle it very well. If I had an incident occur in my classroom between students, involving race and/or culture, I’m confident I could handle the situation properly. When conflict happens with these types of issues, it has to be to managed carefully. A teacher should always keep each student in mind when dealing with situations like race and/or ethnicity. To make sure not to discriminate, I would treat every student equally. I would not be stricter or demanding with one student if I had not been with another. Being a teacher, you have to be able to "think before you speak".

 

 How would you use the ethnicity and race of your students to teach a lesson in the subject you are planning to teach?

         - When preparing a lesson about ethnicity and race to your students, we need to be careful not to discriminate against other students who aren’t the same as yourself. I think having a lesson on race, ethnicity, and culture would be rather difficult to teach, so you would have to be very careful of the choice words you would use to teach that lesson. If I were to use examples for my class, I could choose different students who are different races and use them as examples while I teach about race, ethnicity, etc.

 

 How does one become prejudice? Explain

         - I believe that one becomes prejudice by the way they are raised. Children learn so much from their parents, and sometimes it can be bad depending on what someone may think. Some people may have had a personal experience that has made them become prejudice. For example, a girl may go out with a guy that has an accent and he ends up treating her badly. She will believe that guys with accents are not her type, and she most likely will not give another guy with an accent a chance. A person’s surroundings, mostly their environment or friends, can make them become prejudice. I believe peer pressure has an impact on people becoming prejudice. Peer pressure is most dominating in middle/high school. So many people concerned with doing right by whatever is in the media can cause some problems.

 

Who is at fault or responsible for discrimination? Explain

         - I believe that not one person is responsible for discrimination. I think that our past generations are the cause for discrimination. Discrimination used to be a major problem in the past, but as the years go by it becomes less of a problem. Also, media plays a part in discrimination. Media takes images and information, twists them, and turns them into lies. Eventually people start to believe these lies. Times are changing; we are becoming closer no matter what background we come from or the race we are.

 

Can you cite some personal examples of prejudice and discrimination? This example could be personal or something that you witnessed.

         - I went to a very small school with only 22 people in my graduating class, and there was definite discrimination. Stereotypes and racism issues were everywhere. As far as stereotypes went, we had the basic “Dumb Blondes”, “Smart Asian”, “White Trash”…etc jokes. My school was also mostly white, so any change in that sparked inappropriate comments. After recruiting two or three black football players from another school, we had a few students become jealous over losing their starting positions, so they began to target the new recruits. It was never anything our faculty could not handle, but it was still very dreadful. But after some time passed and the new students gained some friends, our students began to change their negative attitudes.

 

 You may have heard this phrase - "Nothing like leather". Where did this originate and what does it mean?

         - I, personally have never heard this phrase, but after doing some research, here’s what I found. Nothing like leather was originated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Daniel Fenning, an author, wrote a book called The Universal Spelling Book of 1767. In this book was a town that was under attack and needed a way to fight back. The mason on the council suggested a stone wall, while the shipbuilder suggested wood. After lots of thinking and discussion, a currier stood to speak and said “there was nothing like leather”.

 

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-not1.htm

 

Provide some general comments on the video associated with this lesson.

         -I do think that people try really hard to avoid talking at race or ethnicity. We are all different, and it is healthy to talk about that. We must hear others’ opinions to develop a reasonable one of our own. One of the biggest problems in the world is that we do not know enough about each other in order to get along.

 

 Summary

         - This lesson made me think about all the issues involving prejudice and discrimination that could go on in the classroom. These questions really made me think of what I would do if I were put into these types of situations and how I would handle them. Although I believe I would be able to manage these types of situations correctly, there’s always that possibility that I could mess up and say something that I should not. I’ve come to the realization that becoming a teacher will not be an easy task, but it’ll be worth it.