Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

 —Nelson Mandela, Former President of South Africa and Nobel Peace

Throughout the course I have learned not only do I have “ism’s” but so do others.  We stereotype people by color, their dress, hairstyles, what they drive, where they live, how they talk, only to mention a few. 

I would like to share a story with you.  My husband now wears his hair a little long. It’s actually very pretty with little natural curls.  But when he goes to work and other certain events he puts his hair up and it appears short. When he wears it down people react to him totally different.

 We had a silver tea set stolen in a burglary and for the insurance to pay we had to purchase one for replacement.  We were attempting to replace a beautiful antique silver set valued at approximately $2,000. We had to drive into downtown Atlanta in a very elite part of town to look at some replacements.  Not really thinking about our dress or trying to impress anyone we put on our jeans and comfortable tennis shoes, my husband’s hair is down,  we did not look bad just comfortable. 

When we arrived you had to push a button to enter.  Once in we asked for the lady my husband had spoken with on the phone. She was not as nice in person as she was on the phone and she kept looking at us like we were BEEP BEEP BEEP.   The lady told us she didn’t think we could afford their commodities. She didn’t know this but my husband had cash in his pocket. 

We just looked at each other, my husband said “Thank you”, and we left.  We went there to spend our money but because we were not dressed the part we were sub-nosed and actually treated with injustice and stereotyped as less fortunate or something.  This was the only thing I could figure out.  Because as I watched other customers come in they were dressed in business suits, etc.  and the clerks nearly tripped over each other to wait on them.  That was not the case for us.

As an educator the one good lesson or advice I can recommend is the old saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.  Don’t judge students and parents on appearances.   It’s important to find out more about the culture, beliefs, etc. before you jump to conclusions.