What do you tell a child of 6 who has just realized that there will be times when he has to face “biases” from his teachers…..

  • Nothing. you speak to the teacher concerned instead. not as a parent maybe, but as a principled being.

    Of course, i’m assuming the issue was important; seeing you disturbed thus!

    • The issue is not important the repercussions are…

  • That would depend on the “bias” involved.

    For example “my teacher didn’t choose my picture as the winner – she is biased” usually is an expression of disappointment, not an indication that there is any bias involved.

    I’d treat this on a case by case basis, examine the true facts, and then explain to him what the real story is in each case – e.g. “the teacher didn’t choose another picture becuase she was biased – she chose it because it was a great picture”.

    The worst thing one can do (in India) is to pull up the teacher for perceived bias – they will almost certainly take it out eventually on the kid in some fashion or the other. I specifically mention India because unlike in the west, where a teacher can go to jail for applying non-ethical teaching methods, or getting across the wrong values, India has no enforcable rules about such issues, so the teacher really has nothing to fear.

    • >I’d treat this on a case by case basis
      I too figured the same… he has to learn to deal with the disappointments and the small biases which while trivial are bound to be there (like in this case a teachers son being chosen for some small thing).

      I am sure Aasim will deal with it better than we are – He is already into “Spaceman Spiff” mode we are dreading the graduation to “Stupendous Red Man” mode 😀

    • I am not sure if you can/should hold the West to higher values. I don;t all biased/racist teachers go to prison. A white teacher will more often than not look at an Indian kid differently, it sometimes just feels you got to be white, christian protestant, but then the United States is just bigger and better.
      In India a teacher may treat a kid differently just because he belongs to a minority group, more often based on religion, but deep inside you know you are as brown with melanin as the teacher’s big fat aunt, it is a bit different with race, you just feel one of them with some people you know and boom, there it is some teacher who thinks you had ESL(ENglish as a Second Language) even before you open your mouth or write your first term paper. Sikh, singh, rao, sharma, sandeep, you are still brown, so whatever Indians are squabbling about amongst themselves is further trivialized.

      • Actually, my comment had nothing to do with racism.

        I was born and brought up in the west, so have first hand experience with education there, and policies and laws.

        What I was referrring to was the fact that there are actual laws that govern the behaviour of teachers there.

        There are no such laws (or if any, they dont have teeth) here in India.

        • discrimination/bias based on race religion or whatever is still discrimination. oops did i mention this, it takes a person of color, a colored child, to experience racism first hand, (black, brown, latino etc), and though I talk of racism, in the West(United States), the US is far more accepting than any other western nation. It only happens in America.

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