Skills for Welcoming Difference - Part II

Tuesday evening I had the pleasure of speaking with a wonderful group of parents, teachers and community members at the Bush School in Seattle. Following my presentation, "Mirrors and Lenses: A Conversation About Race," we had a question and answer session during which participants shared some tips for navigating difference:

- A kindergarten teacher described the name activity with which the year begins each September. Each day one student is selected to share the story of his or her name, how the name was chosen, and what it means. The name activity is paired with a discussion of skin colors, including sorting through colored papers to find the exact shade of each child's skin.

What a positive and powerful way to start the year! These are just a few of the benefits I imagine as a result:

• Each child has the experience of being individually welcomed and celebrated.
• Everyone in the class learns how to pronounce each name correctly.
• A level playing field - a sense of "all of us"- is set up by having each name, each skin color, treated with equal curiosity. No one is singled out as being the different one.
• The children have been given permission and language to express their observations about difference, and the teachers have signaled that this exploration will be safe and welcoming.

- A father shared his strategies for expanding his five-year-old son's ideas of who plays which roles, by gender, race, or even species! Joining in his son's games with legos or action figures, he sometimes picks a non-traditional character to be the active one, the rescuer, the hero, the villain, etc. There's no need to impart lessons, but simply to have fun, imagining new possibilities together: "What would happen if ...?" "Wouldn't it be funny if ...?" This kind of play also provides opportunities to discover what ideas children are absorbing about difference.

- A parent who is Sikh talked of the importance of not just sharing diverse books with children, but connecting them with real live difference in the community. Look for stores, libraries, medical offices and playgrounds where children can interact - and observe adults interacting - in everyday ways with people of different races, different religions, different languages, and different cultures.

She described the impact of a presentation on the Sikh religion which she and her husband gave at the school. Previously, their child's classmates didn't make any overtures to these differently-dressed adults, but after the presentation, these middle school students greeted them warmly by name. (The students also visited houses of worship throughout the city where they were welcomed by practicing members of each faith.) This kind of genuine human connection can break down all kinds of barriers.

Skills for Welcoming Difference, Part I

During our "New Neighbors" presentation at International Reading Association (see previous post) we discussed skills for welcoming new arrivals. Such skills can be

• consciously chosen as effective strategies for interacting across culture, race and other difference; 
• adopted as guidelines for individuals or groups; 
• used as evaluation criteria for projects and events; and
• modeled for others.

Here are a few:

1. "How Fascinating!"

When author Margy Burns Knight and I present our book, Africa is Not a Country, to young elementary students, we frequently hear a similar response when we get to the entry describing three girls walking to school in Cairo, Egypt. Because she's always running late, we explain, one of the students has stopped to pick up breakfast on the way: beans in pita bread. Predictably, we hear a chorus of "Ewwww!"

We recognize the opportunity for a teachable moment. Stopping the presentation, I call attention to the response and discuss how we sometimes feel anxiety when we encounter something unfamiliar, and  react by labeling it "weird."

"But that's like taking a big step away from the new situation or person," I point out, "and you might miss discovering something wonderful, maybe a new friend." I challenge the students to notice whenever they feel that "Weird!" response coming on, and substitute the phrase, "How fascinating!"

We resume the slide show, and soon the entire class is responding with enthusiasm to their first encounters with the daily lives of children in African countries - "How fascinating!"

At this point, of course, it's just a silly exercise, but with practice, we can actually retrain our brain's responses to welcome new ideas, experiences and people.



2. Cultural Humility


The practice of yoga often includes an introduction to the concept of "Beginner Mind," in which one assumes a complete lack of knowledge and approaches a situation with a completely open mind. This is a useful choice to make when interacting with people whose backgrounds are very different from yours.

Especially those of us raised as members of dominant cultures may unwittingly harbor assumptions of our culture's superiority, and unbeknownst to ourselves, make comparisons and judgments about a different culture. As the host culture, we may think of ourselves as the ones with the most to give. An attitude of cultural humility allows us to suspend these evaluations and simply be open to receiving and discovering the newness in front of us.

3. Examining Difference through the Lens of Commonality

When planning connections between diverse communities - in this case long-term residents with new arrivals - it's useful to start with what we have in common. For example, in a discussion following a shared book such as A Path of Stars, we can start talking about relationships with grandparents, family stories, journeys, the love of the natural world - all universal aspects of the human experience.

This approach sets up important understandings that foster a respectful exchange among equals:

• Everyone has a story; every story matters.
• We have far more in common than we do differences.
• We can explore and appreciate our differences without making anyone alien or exotic.