mulat-mata (eye-open[er])

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice and Oppression

The incident of bias, prejudice and oppression that I experienced and remember the most happened when I was in first grade.  It was during this age (7 years old) that I started to exhibit great difficulty with reading, writing and spelling and was diagnosed to have Dyslexia.  My teacher then got really frustrated with me because I could not read and spell as well, could not write as neat and as fast like the other kids.  She kept asking me why I could not seem to learn.  Because of her frustration, she became very negative towards me.  She would slap my hands, shout at me, make me stay overtime or throughout recess to write or copy her lessons from the board.  On one occasion, she made me copy the complete lyrics of the song 'supercalifragilisticexpialidosious' (I am not even sure if I spelled it correctly now as an adult, imagine how difficult it was for a 7 year old to get it copied correctly) from the board and did not allow me to leave until I finished copying the 3 boards full lyrics perfectly!  She also tore quite a lot of my work in front of the class.  She also, on a couple of instances, pulled my chair back that I would fall and at times hit my head on the floor.

She scared me tremendously that I did not want to go to school.  But because I was too afraid of her, I did not tell my parents about what has been happening to me at school.  So, every morning, they had to deal with a child who would hang on to the dining table, crying that she did not want to go school.  I did not learn to my maximum potential then.  I did not get the same quality of education my classmates received.  Moreover, I began to change.  From a very active and enthusiastic learner, I withdrew.  I dropped from being second in class during the previous to being 2nd to the last during that year.  I hardly recited in school even until my high school years and was very scared of speaking in front of the class.  I was not allowed or given some privileges that my peers enjoyed by my 1st grade teacher too.  For example, she did not allow me to join the girl scouts and even tore my application form.  I was not allowed to play outside at times and was not given the same attention (like when I had an injury, she did not even clean me up or bring me to the clinic).

My experience with this teacher made me feel insignificant, unloved and a failure.  She traumatized me so much that I changed and it took such a long time (years) before I could recover from it.  Nonetheless, I believe that this experience made me who I am today.  It was because of this horrible time that I wanted to be a teacher.  This is the reason why I am in this field and why I train future teachers. This was the source of my passion... I did not want any other child to go through what I went through.

For this inequity, I believe that the teacher needed to change to transform this experience into an opportunity.  She had to be more knowledgeable about differing abilities and learn to provide for individual needs to be able to provide equity in the classroom.  All children, of any race, or ability, has equal right to quality education and freedom from harm.         

posted by Elizabeth King Santos @ 6:23 AM