I had taken my daughter to a doctor’s visit, and ran
into a friend that I had not seen in years.
He was taking his daughter in for her visit also. He stood up to give me a hug and my daughter
said “he has one leg”. I didn’t know
what had happen it took me a minute to register what to say, how to react, and
to turn to her. He just smiled at me; I
guess he could see that didn’t know what to do.
He turned to me and asked me “what’s her name”? I told him and he
explained to her that he had cancer and lost his leg to it. It was something else that he had to not only
given me a minute to deal with him having cancer but that he took the time to
explain to my daughter what and why. Children
not only notice colors and language, they notice differences and at the time
when they are asking questions there are no boundaries. Charles looked my daughter in the eyes and
just explained it to her showing her respect that she could ask him a question
and he would answer it. Once that was done he looked at me and said “I didn’t
know that you didn’t know”. I would have
silence my daughter had a had the moment to do so. He anticipated what she was thinking and
answered her questions and give her the information that she needed.
The Cycle of Socialization talks about how to change
where there is a turn in the path, I remember when I was a child people with special
needs where not seen very often and when we did we were not encouraged to ask questions. I had a cousin that had special needs and he frighten
me. No matter how often my Mother would
tell me it was okay. I am not sure if it
were the media messages that I received or if it was just so different or
both. The difference in now and then is
there is way more information out there for all to receive. We answer questions right away and give
children the chance to be comfortable with asking questions without making them
feel they are out of line. Inclusions in
the classroom means there is exposure to different abilities and it no longer
feels different. It has helped people to become more accepting and more
comfortable with people of different abilities.
I guess if an anti-bias teacher wanted to give a
lesson on how to handle questions and the comfort level of dealing with different
abilities they could use the persona dolls and make a history of how that
person could have gotten to the place that they are. Answer question
that come up openly.
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