The Personal Side of
Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression
I would like to share a memory of an incident
where I observed institutional
inequities
and
oppressions during a teaching assignment.
I wrote about this for a previous assignment. I would like to share this experience with
each of you. I spent four years working
in a 2nd grade elementary school with a male principal. He was very structured, very driven, and had very
definite opinions. He had a group of
teachers he liked and treated with respect.
I was fortunate to be in that group; however, I don’t really know
why. With other teachers, he was very
rigid, unfriendly, and treated them with minimal respect. It was a very unusual and uncomfortable
situation that diminished equity for everyone involved. The variety of ways teachers were treated did
not seem to be due to race, color, gender, physical attributes, or experience
levels. However, I believe I learned
more about how people should be treated in the workplace. The working environment could have been even
more difficult, if as teachers, we had acted according to the administrator’s
feelings. For example, this group of
educators could have turned on each other.
Fortunately, we worked very well together as a staff and supported those
that seemed to have issues with the principal.
Our first priority was to love, educate, and support our children and
one another.
In conclusion, I am becoming much
more aware of the varieties and implications of diversity including privilege, institutional
inequities, oppression, and new forms of “-isms”. I never realized how many ways I have been
affected by others or how much influence I have with my children. This knowledge will hopefully enhance and
support the way I handle my classroom.
