My work in Eros always has
been such a learning experience, especially in just watching and listening to
my students. It’s so amazing how much you can learn from children, they
are so knowledgeable on so many things that we seem to progressively lose over
the years! Three of my students were playing house today, one of their
usual playtime games. Two of the kids held a baby, and they told the
other to play dad. Before the ‘dad’ could even say or do anything, the
two other kids started yelling, “don’t hit my baby! You hit my baby, you
leave my house! Stop hitting my baby!” Before I even got a chance
to fully comprehend the situation they were both simultaneously imagining, I
found myself having to pull those two students off of the ‘dad’ as they punched
her into the corner. Keep in mind these are four year old children.
One of the punching kids defended herself by explaining that if daddy hits
baby, mommy hits daddy. After talking to the kids and dealing with the
situation at hand, I had to compose myself as I realized that two of my little
innocent babies had gotten this play situation from a real life scenario.
They had to have, it’s not everyday that children play house that way.
Whether it is from something they are living through, something they’ve heard
talked about, or something they’ve seen from TV, it’s something they should not
have to ever think about at such a young age.
Another interesting
conversation I witnessed in the classroom today was one about race. When
asked what color the crayon was, my student responded correctly that it was
black. “My daddy is black, and mommy is white” he told me. Another
girl added, “my daddy is black too”, knowing that her mom is colored (she works
in the school so I see her often); I asked her what color mommy is. She
responded, “mommy is white”. I followed up with asking, “What color are
you?” Both would be considered by most as being colored, but one
answered, “I’m white” and the other answered, “I’m bla… brow… I’m…” and put her
head down to continue coloring. I’m not really sure what to make of this
statement, but it just got me thinking about how interesting it was to see
children not know how to classify their own race. Is that a good thing
that it does not really matter to her what color she is? Is that a bad
thing that she is so confused about different races mixing that she isn’t even
sure how to look at her own skin and therefore her own self?
No comments:
Post a Comment