The power of indifference

To let all of the information we're coming across in our readings resettle in my head, I'm finding a need to immerse myself in the words of people's stories and experiences, the smaller the better. Three resources that have been helpful to me are Vivian Paley's book White Teacher, the microaggressions blog (http://www.microaggressions.com/about/), and Widening the Circle by Mara Sapon-Shevin. 

Reading around in other non-assigned resources seems to help me sort out my thoughts and feelings in a different, looser way. I'm reading with no goal, and it's like mulling things over with honest friends.

The issue of indifference came up in the Godin reading (I think), specifically, that the opposite of passion is indifference. All three resources that I mentioned above talk about the damage indifference can do. It is easy to avoid difficult or sensitive issues, especially if we don't feel confidence in talking about them. But Vivian Paley says, "Anything a child feels is different about himself which cannot be referred to spontaneously, casually, naturally, and uncritically by the teacher can become a cause for anxiety and an obstacle to learning." I think there is a real danger that if we teachers do not get more used to speaking about racial, ethnic, cultural, class, ability and gender differences, our students will be prone to internalizing negative stereotypes, or at least feel shame about these differences.

The microaggression blog describes the damage that can be done by "slights," little comments that are not the most agregious slurs, so might not seem all that harmful:

"Each event, observation and experience posted is not necessarily particularly striking in and of themselves. Often, they are never meant to hurt – acts done with little conscious awareness of their meanings and effects. Instead, their slow accumulation during a childhood and over a lifetime is in part what defines a marginalized experience, making explanation and communication with someone who does not share this  identity particularly difficult."

People will misstep in the things they say, of course, but I think it is a person's not caring that their words have hurt someone that is the problem. "Political correctness" has a negative connotation, implying that people are thin-skinned and too quick to take offense. But I think we really need to care about the effect our words and actions have on other people - it seems like basic good manners, really. We don't need to fall on our swords for offending someone, but this kind of situation is a chance to practice getting better about talking about this stuff, and it's the right thing to do.

More later on Widening the Circle by Mara Sapon-Shevin, it's a wonderful book.