Where I stand

As a teacher, I am interested in how children and young people learn. Even at the university level, I have found the process fascinating. Students come to the classroom with such different experiences of life, of books, of how we perceive other people. There is so much learning that takes place outside of the classroom. In fact, the most important lessons are learned outside of school. We watch those around us interact with each other. We take note of what our parents say about people who hold different beliefs, who look different from us, whose principles around parenting are at odds with what our parents practice at home. We learn how people settle differences, or don’t. How they compromise, or don’t. How they reconcile, or don’t. It’s amazing how our world is so shaped by all the gestures, tones of voice, and postures that we come to understand as having a certain meaning…at least in our world. How quickly we learn them! We get a sense of where we stand by assessing where we are in relation to the others who make up our community, whose signals we know how to read. The failure to move from one spot to another, to admit that the view might be different from another place, is the basis of all misunderstanding and all bigotry. Even the slightest turn reveals a new vista replete with a new set of possibilities and with signals that might hold completely different meanings than the ones they hold in our community. As I watch my granddaughter grow, albeit from a distance, I think of what she is learning. I am not there to see that learning take place, but I trust that this critical stage of her development is as full of open mindedness as my daughter’s was. I want her to know that the world is big and miraculous and full of all kinds of people. The more children become aware of the wonderful diversity the universe displays, perhaps the more open they will be understanding why diversity is our natural state. To give our children less than that is to cheat them, not only of beauty and variety, but to rob them of the skills needed to live in such a diverse world.