Anti-Racist Education Presentation

I thought the presentation was quite interesting today and gave me quite a bit of information that I didn't have before.

I come from a small town in BC where there was only like 2 kids in my entire elementary school that were not white, neither of which were in my classroom. Therefore different races and cultures were not something I experienced very much of growing up. I guess this could either make racism a big issure or a small one. People who don't firsthand experience other cultures might buy into stereotypes a bit more and only believe what they hear because they have nothing else to go by. Or when they do see people of different colour they might give a big reaction becaue it's not something they are used to. However it could be a small issue because it just might never come up as we weren't experiencing other cultures in school. Like we discussed today it is most often found in social studies, perhaps in literature chosen in LA, but otherwise not all that much.

I think kids should definitely have the chance to learn about different cultures in the classroom, and have kids who have a different culture present that to the class so that everyone can learn more about it. We should also discuss the stereotypes and such and maybe have students do some research to learn what the actual facts are or to have a better knowledge of different cultures. We don't want students to have racist attitudes or behaviours obviously therefore if anything like that arises we would need to deal with it.

Since we are such a diversely populated country we should be more knowledgeable and inclusive of other cultures. I think experiencing other cultures is definitely beneficial and can also help you to understand your own culture better and make you more appreciative of things that you have or do.