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.