Discrimination in the Classroom

The teacher's role. 

"Why do you wear the same old fashioned and stained T-shirt everyday? It's high time for you to get a new one, don't you think?" Such an innocent utterance can trigger off a painful experience in a child's life. Discrimination among students may sound very familiar to all school teachers. It is definitely a tall task for teachers to have to deal with these appaling daily situations. Is trying to avoid discrimination the foremost role of teachers? Maybe trying to make students aware of the consequences discrimination may bring about would be a starting point. 

Nowadays, it is very common to find multi-cultural classrooms, given that children from different contexts and backgrounds attend a same school. Although teachers know that a chocolate-box classroom does not exist, they specifically need to be on the alert as regards discrimination and the manifold reactions students can have. It is essential for teachers to be trained so as to be able to face these multicultural classrooms and prepare students to accept and live with different people from different contexts.

Students are used to facing discrimination not only in the classroom but also at home, in the streets and even on TV. Teachers cannot stop discrimination outside school but it is their role to find the roots of the problems in the classroom and to do away with it. An efficient teacher should first be a model for his/her students and secondly, figure out strategies to make kids aware of the fact that discrimination is present everywhere. However, they do not have the right to hurt others.

Another role of utmost importance that a teacher should be ready to play is to ensure a good education to students who suffer from discrimination. Their low quality performance in class is usually the result of how they feel: discouraged, frustrated and not willing to learn. Under these conditions, it is the teacher who should encourage and find the most suitable strategy to make the students feel comfortable and prepared to learn. 

All in all, it is the teacher's role to fight against discrimination in the classroom by providing students with tools in order to make them become aware of how rich it is to share the classroom with children from different social, economic and cultural backgrounds with different opinions and ideas. However, it is not only the teacher who should be in charge of changing this situation, but also the families. It is a collaborative task and everyone should cooperate.