Fink stopped. “I’m Asian,” she told the child, “and when you do that, it hurts my feelings.”
The student snapped to attention. “Oh! I’m sorry!” she told her teacher, and they went back to their book.
It was a quick back-and-forth with a big lesson, but it came from a trained teacher who had rehearsed what to say. Just as Fink learned to teach math and reading, she has practiced how to squelch unwitting bias and stereotyping before it has a chance to grow into bullying or racism.
Little insults and acts of disrespect once shrugged off or ignored — just kids being kids — are now treated in some schools as important chances to learn. Lessons have long been built around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Holocaust remembrance week, Women’s History Month and countless others holidays and awareness weeks. But at schools around the country, learning about bias related to race, gender and sexuality is part of everyday teaching.
Fink, who teaches at Pope Elementary in Puyallup, Washington, began anti-bias training with the Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming Schools program two years ago and immediately began to share those lessons with her colleagues. The program is active in 25 states and offers training and lesson plans around family diversity, gender stereotyping and ending bullying.
–
But even among educators committed to creating a healthy school climate, it can be tough. Fink recalls exercises such as asking teachers to write which identities apply to them — race, ethnicity, gender, for example — then asking them to examine which ones opened doors for them and which ones made life harder.
Conversations can be intense and revealing. There are reminders, too, that adults can learn from children, too.
After all, young students don’t like to hurt each other’s feelings, Fink said.
“We need to take advantage of that default to compassion,” she said, “and harness it.”
