Evaluating Impacts on Professional Practice

There are many typed of ‘isms a educator or anyone can face in their everyday life. I would imagine that if I were to experience any of these -isms,  I would feel very hurt and self- conscious. Experiencing -isms is something that hurts the person and can shake up their world and life in an instant. It can be carried around like extra luggage and not go away for a while.
When I first came to Mississippi, I had experienced racism from a fellow teacher. They had never seen a person of color and immediately thought because I am darker skinned and I was a  African American. She began to treat me in a very negative way from accusing me of stealing, to judging me go around telling other that they should be cautious of me because I was “black”. She was always watching me and making me feel very uncomfortable in the workplace. Because of this experience, I realized that my behavior with the children began to change. Instead of being proud of who I was, I was constantly questioning myself and defending myself. I made it a point to tell the children I was not black. I was becoming very defensive when the children would ask about me and about where I came from. I began question myself and began to take my frustration out on the children and I was not as pleasant as I could have been.

This is just one experience. There are many other -isms that people face in a daily base. There can be many consequences  of dealing with these -isms and working with children and the families. For children, they may be able to notice that you are acting differently and becoming more easily agitated. While the educator is working, they may begin to treat certain children differently based on the -ism that was being thrown at them. Also, the educator would not be as focused on the child and situations that may arise may be overlooked because of distracting thoughts. Finally, children may feed off of the energy you give and begin to act out ” when a teacher acts out of unexamined internalized privilege or internalized oppression, that teacher runs the risk of of unintentionally undermining children’s development” (Derman- Sparks & Edwards, 2010, p.25).
When it comes to the families, I would anticipate me taking out my frustration on them. I feel this would happen especially if one of the families reminds me of the “person” or “situation” that made me experience this type of -ism. This is not something I would want to happen, but unintentionally it may happen. Another anticipation would be that I may say something out of anger or frustration that may hurt family or person. I know myself, and I do this when I am angry with my husband. When I am frustrated or angry, I do not really think before I speak. So, sometimes I say things that are hurtful because I am hurt. I know this is not right, but it does happen.

I think that educators are only human and we may one day be the victims of an -ism. I feel that it is important for us to learn ways to deal with this or have someone we can confide in to talk to. We as educators need to work on becoming comfortable with who we are and where we come from. This is no easy task. Everyday, we are surrounded by media and by what society deems as acceptable and not acceptable. Thinking about these feelings that I would have, makes me really think about the children and families who experience this everyday. It makes me realize that they find ways to cope and sometimes that is not easy. This is why we are here, to make that moment, that feeling, and that sadness, even if for only a moment, fade away. We wan to protect out families and have them realize that when they are around us, they are safe and their children are not going to be criticized or judged.

Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).