Black and White

[dfsteacher]

I am a third grade teacher in a building with a mostly white population. In fact, there is only one African American child in the whole third grade. He is a very nice, well mannered young man. One day he looked at me and told me that I reminded him of his mother. I asked why he thought that and he said I looked and sounded like her and I was nice like her. Now, I have met his mother and she by no means is a blonde haired, blue-eyed white girl. I found this so refreshing that he did not yet see the world in color. To him a nice person was a nice person no matter what color they were.:)

[dangercat]

That is so wonderful!

:) Brook

[busbus]

Such a nice compliment. Your student saw you as a person - neither Black, White, Stripe or Polka Dot.

We can learn much from a child.

[sweetsass]

This really touches me.

Children and animals are much more pure than us grown folks.

[Tiamat]

That's lovely. Children don't notice these things - it's a shame they do start to notice.

[MsCoffeeLover]

That is really wonderful!!

At one of my previous schools, I had this really rough group at a predominantly African American school. I called them the Animal House homeroom. They were awesome. They banded together like brothers, but their thought processes were off, so when they were trying to help, it never went well, but the intent was nice.

We were in the middle of standardized testing, and I would monitor, check on them, smile, give them pats on the back, etc. One of them told me, "Miss Coffee Lover, you are the mother I wish I had." I almost wanted to cry. When holidays came around, he always had a gift for me.

Even at the higher levels, many students still see people and behaviors and not color.

It is a fantastic feeling, and I am happy you were able to witness such a thing first hand. It gives hope to humanity.

[teacherandmom]

How nice that children are seeing kindness from others instead of skin tone.

[Bananas]

This is as life should be!

[Aziz]

One of the reasons I love working with children is because they have not developed the system of classifications most adults go by. Often times, even when adults aren't prejudiced, they still notice those differences. My students don't care that my annual salary is a fraction of their parents'; they enjoy learning about their friend who doesn't celebrate Christmas but Hanukkah's instead, etc. It is refreshing.

-Aziz

[hot_teacher]

That's Great!