PRACTICING AWARENESS OF MICROAGGRESSIONS

For this week's blog assignment I choose to do my observation in the classroom, I looked out for traces of microaggressions in classroom relationships and discussions among my students. Microaggressions are often committed unknowingly by people who are well-intentioned, who from all indications may be sincere and without any plan of hurting the recipient. Nevertheless, the outcome of microaggressions is anger, frustration, psychological distress, emotional disorder, and withdrawal by those who are
the recipients of insensitive comments and actions.
Microaggressions, to me might be the cause of many seemingly minor classroom conflicts among students that teachers daily grapple with. Classroom microaggressions as in other cases microaggressions are not being committed by spiteful and hateful students who want to intentionally hurt their mates but they are committed unknowingly by well meaning students.

One incident that happened this week in my class was when a students was trying to explain a point to the class and another student tried to help him and he started by saying “We need to understand what he's saying, because he is talking from his experience as a native of a war ravaged county.” Though the boy meant no harm the hidden message was that people from war torn countries are tasteless and unsophisticated. Even though this particular case of microaggression was not noticed by the majority of the students in the class, the recipient felt so bad and withdrew from further discussion in class that day. After the class I noticed that a friend of his went to him and he was telling him not to worry about that comment as it was harmless and was not intended to spite him.

From my observation this week, it is obvious that microaggressions affect relationship in the classroom and may make the classroom environment hostile and unwelcoming especially to the recipient.

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

“Human beings are all alike in nature, but their habits and customs keep them apart.”
Confucius

It became obvious to me through this week's blog assignment that culture means different things to different people. Though there are areas of agreement in the definitions given by the three people I spoke with, each of them gave three different definitions. I spoke to two of my colleagues and my husband. While my first colleague who is from Pakistan defines culture as the shared views and way of life as found in a society my other colleague who sees culture from the perspective of an individual defines culture as the aspects of a person's life that define his or her identity. My husband on the other hand defines culture as shared knowledge and learned behaviour as transmitted by members of a particular society.

The three persons that I discussed with see diversity as differences found in people. To my husband, diversity is not just in our race or ethnic group but in the way people are different politically, socially, in sexual orientation, and religion. A colleague of mine admitted that diversity includes the way students learn and it means recognising individual differences as found in our students and treating students based on their differences.

In my discussion with all the three, the issue of deep culture was omitted. It seems when culture is mentioned people tend to see culture from the surface, referring to culture from what they can see like food, dress, language, and the arts. Culture is more than these, culture includes also behaviour, ethics, how children are trained, concept of time and such things.

MY FAMILY CULTURE

Every family has a distinct and unique culture. A family culture is defined by the interests, values, and beliefs as practiced and cherished by that family. A family culture describes the unique way that a family forms itself in terms of rules, roles, habits, activities, beliefs, and other areas. The racial or ethnic culture in which a family lives may strongly influence family culture. Though some families are no longer tied to cultural norms of their ethnic or racial group. Every family is different, every family has its own culture (Vandenberg, 2008).

Assuming there is a major catastrophe in my country which necessitated my family been relocated to another country and I was asked to take just three things with me the first thing that I will definitely take is the family Bible, the second thing is the family hymn book, and the last thing is the prayer book.
Not that there are no other things that I cherish but since the choice is limited to three and my family being a type that value spiritual things the above items take preeminence over any other considerations.

The Bible is the most cherished possession in my family. We consider the Bible as the inspired word of God meant to guide, direct, and nourish us as God's children. The totality of our lives, the fulfillment of our purpose on earth are found in the word of God as contain in the Bible. Founding ourselves in a new culture therefore we would need such a manual to survive as well as to remain committed to our purpose in life. The more reason why if we get to the new environment and were asked to keep just one of the three items, the Bible will be my natural choice without any hesitation.

This exercise has helped me to know what I really value as a person and what can be said to be the foundation upon which my family cultural inclination, beliefs and values are built upon.

Resources:
Vandenberg, J. (2008). What is family culture. Retrieved from http://cecp.air.org/wraparound/family.html