Sunday, December 03, 2006

My Child's Awareness

Okay, as I was typing that last post, my son got up to tell me, "Mama, I've been noticing something. My teacher is the only third grade teacher who's not-"

I stopped him there, way unready to deal with what I knew was coming. "Well, no. Ms. D is Latina."

"That's true," he said, "but my teacher is the only one who's black!"

Wow. I didn't even realize he was thinking about things like this. "What does that mean to you?" I asked.

"I don't know. But I don't feel very good about it." When I pressed him about why he didn't feel good about it, he couldn't articulate it. Instead, he pointed out that the situation was the same in first grade, where there is one black teacher and the one "brown" teacher left "because she had a baby." And then, he said, "And all the music teachers are white! I don't feel very good about that either."

And then he kicked my mattress and went back to bed.

To say that I am stunned is an understatement. Tomorrow evening is going to bring quite the conversation.

3 comments:

Gwyneth Bolton said...

Out of the mouths of babes... Amazing how astute children are!

Anonymous said...

i am so proud of your son!

see there *are* kids who can think about stuff beyond the latest gameboy thingie and bratz doll.

Julie said...

did you have the talk yet? hope that it went well. your son sounds brilliant at a young age!

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