Intro

Welcome to the EduSpeak podcast, where education finds a voice. This week, we’ll be discussing forms of discrimination in the classroom and sharing some of our own experiences with combating these stereotypes. I’m Annemarie Patalano, and this week I’m joined by Krissy Piccolo, Jenna Andrasick, and Zachary Zeller. We’d like to begin with this week’s research section, discussing some of the previously written material on discrimination before going into our experiences with discrimination. The following information is derived directly from the websites of the Department of Justice, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Crisis Prevention Institute.

Research Section
The United States Department of Justice categorizes the five main types of discrimination that exist within classrooms. These include race and/or national origin discrimination, sex-based discrimination, religious discrimination, disability discrimination, and discrimination towards students learning the English language.
Racial and/or national origin discrimination is defined as “treating someone unfavorably because he/she is of a certain race or because of personal characteristics associated with race (such as hair texture, skin color, or certain facial features). Color discrimination involves treating someone unfavorably because of skin color complexion. Race/color discrimination can also involve treating someone unfavorably because the person is married to (or associated with) a person of a certain race or color. Discrimination can occur when the victim and the person who inflicted the discrimination are the same race or color.” This can be transferred into the classroom if the teacher is a different race than his/her students and treats them differently as a result. This can also occur between students and can lead to severe bullying.
“Sex discrimination involves treating someone unfavorably because of that person's sex, including the person's sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy.” Using someone’s correct pronouns has become a very important part of the classroom in recent years. Unfortunately, there are still people, including students and teachers, who refuse to accept the way a student prefers to be recognized. This can create an unsafe and disrespectful learning environment.
“Religious discrimination involves treating a person unfavorably because of his or her religious beliefs. The law protects not only people who belong to traditional, organized religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, but also others who have sincerely held religious, ethical or moral beliefs. Religious discrimination can also involve treating someone differently because that person is married to (or associated with) an individual of a particular religion.” Many different religions observe many different holidays that might differ from what the teacher practices. This can lead to the teacher not knowing about different religious practices and can prevent students from feeling comfortable enough to inform their teacher and receive whatever accommodations they might need. Belonging to a different religion and possibly wearing traditional religious attire that differs from classmates can also lead to teasing/bullying from other students.
Jenna: “Disability discrimination occurs when someone covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act treats a qualified individual unfavorably because he or she has a disability. Disability discrimination also occurs when a covered person treats someone less favorably because he or she has a history of a disability (such as a past major depressive episode) or because he or she is believed to have a physical or mental impairment that is not transitory (lasting or expected to last six months or less). The law also protects people from discrimination based on their relationship with a person with a disability (even if they do not themselves have a disability). For example, it is illegal to discriminate against an employee because her husband has a disability.” In the classroom, this kind of discrimination can been seen when classrooms do not have wheelchair accessability. It can also been seen as discrimination if a teacher expects less of one of their students after finding out about a past or present disability that wouldn’t otherwise alter the quality of their work. Mental illness is very common in students, especially high school students, so it is important to create a safe learning environment where students are not judged based on appearance or mentality.
Discrimination towards students leanring English can also just be called language discrimination. “Language discrimination occurs when a person is treated differently because of his/her native language or other characteristics of his/her language skills.” This is where we see teachers neglecting translanguaging. Refusing to acknowledge a student's cultural backgrounds or their native language can hinder a student’s learning.
Stoping discrimination begins with the teachers. Despite all forms of discrimination being found in schools, there are ways that teachers can combat this within their own classrooms. It is important for teachers to not ignore what they are seeing if it is others teachers or students discriminating. Call attention and shine light onto a problem that others might not be aware that they are creating.
Properly educating students on what discrimination is and how it can harm others will make students and the teacher aware of their actions and be able correct themselves before an unfavorable situation arises.
There are also many different ways to engage students in the classroom with fun activities that also teach them valuable lessons, such as the lessons we all put together for our virtual exchange partners.
Now we’d like to discuss some of our own experiences in this week’s discussion section.

Unscripted Discussion Section

Annemarie: Discuss her experience with family tree project and combating racial and national origin discrimination, creating a welcoming environment.

Zach: Embracing multlilingual learning as opposed to embracing language of discrimination was an eye opening experience for my project presentation

Krissy- For me, I never really noticed different kinds of discrimination taking place. I went to a diverse high school where I interacted with students and teachers of all different origins daily. I’ve taken several courses both in high school and here at Adelphi on culture and exploring new traditions and language and will definitely be incorporating what I’ve learned into my own future classroom.

Jenna: As a future educator in the classroom I want to create an interactive environment so all students can be involved. No matter what as the educator I will be in control of fighting against discrimination and ensuring eeryone is involved and included. Creating lessons that are interactive and inclusive can help us avoid discrimination in any form because students may have the knowledge but not being able to express it but that doesnt mean they dont know.

Annemarie: That’s all for today’s episode. Thank you to the three of you for joining us as today’s panel. Thank you to our listeners and sponsors. This has been an episode of EduSpeak, where education finds a voice. Thank you again for joining us, and we hope to be with you again next week. Have a wonderful week.