Reflect and Act

I found an amazing article from the University of Illinois “Women in Engineering”. It is titled “A Guide to Responding to Microaggressions”. I notice that many of my students make comments regularly about their peers that are Microaggressions, and there is a worksheet that you can download (https://wie.engineering.illinois.edu/files/2018/10/responding-to-microaggressions-and-bias.pdf) that actually gives prompts to have discussions with others regarding Microaggressions. It carries a lot of the same themes as the youtube video “responding to microaggressions”, and I think this worksheet can help foster a conversation with my students about how their statements and conversations can be considered offensive and rude.

If you have worked in the District long enough, you will notice that every building has one or two individuals who find it to be their duty to target another staff member.  Unfortunately, there will always be a few sheep that will follow their lead.  There are two steps I follow. 1st, I always have something nice to say about the person they are targeting and 2nd,  I don't let that person sit alone at staff meetings or gatherings. Once you do that, others will follow suit.  The great benefit of  doing so is that the targeted person is often more interesting to hang around than the perps.

The article I read was called “8 Ways to Help Children Value Cultural Diversity” on parentmap.com. I think this article is relevant to the question because I feel like the first step of saying the right thing is having empathy for people who are different. If, as a family, you’re frequently learning and gaining exposure to different cultures, other people may look a lot less “other”. They suggested ideas like having a festive evening where you focus on another culture, eating something from that tradition, share a folktale, listen to music from the culture, etc. Another was “visit cultural centers”. I went to the Native American center a couple times in Syracuse (Great Law of Peace Center), and although it was wildly uncomfortable for me when they talked about their painful history, it was very informative. The last idea I really liked was to learn words in a different language, most helpfully, a language of someone who might be in their class at school. I feel like learning words in someone’s language is a powerful show of friendship and welcome, and a great place to start for having positive interactions.

You overhear colleagues discussing a coworker in an inappropriate way while in the breakroom. What do you do? Think of two ways to constructively address their remarks.

1. Separate intent from impact: I know you didn't realize this but when you say (comment), it's actually offensive because _____. 

2. Challenge the person: "Actually in my experience with _______ she was actually not that way at all!" 

You overhear colleagues discussing a coworker in an inappropriate way while in the breakroom. What do you do? Think of two ways to constructively address their remarks. 

1. I would say, "I hear you say... what exactly did you mean by that?"

2. I would say, "What makes you think that? Can you tell me more?"