Reflection On Racism And Prejudice

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The first, and most important step, for the teacher in embracing the cultural differences is acknowledging his or her current beliefs and misconceptions about the varying cultures. The American society has racism and prejudice built into the system in many ways that Americans don’t even see: media portrayals, job statuses, and cultural cliques to name a few (Martinez, 2012). Often times, this results in prejudice viewpoints without intention or awareness. But, in order for a teacher to effectively teach, he or she must become of aware of his or her own prejudices and work to correct them. If not, those ideas will certainly come out in what the teacher teaches. The teacher also cannot simply pretend the culture differences don’t exist; “cultural blindness” gives the idea that one is unseen, invisible, and unimportant (Rychly and Graves, 2012). The teacher must begin to welcome the differences, believe that students from all backgrounds have the desire to learn and, therefore, set high expectations for each student (Brown, 2007 and Harmon, 2012). …show more content…

The next step is that the teacher begin to study and learn about the various cultures. Brown (2007) explains that “the knowledge educators need goes beyond mere awareness, respect, and recognition or the fact that ethnic groups have different values…teachers must develop a knowledge base by acquiring detailed factual information.” In addition, many researchers explain that the knowledge must go beyond the differences in holidays or food, which is what is seen in most classrooms. The resources are endless to help a person learn about a culture more in-depth. A teacher can gain extensive knowledge about varying cultures from books, articles, personal stories, magazines,

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