Diversity In The Classroom

I have never felt as though I have been exposed too much diversity where I grew up, but now that I live in Terre Haute, I can see it more. I grew up in the smallest town one can think of. Cornfields after cornfields. It was so small if fact that I never seemed to see anyone who was much different from me. Our school system is made up of predominately white people, and it still does not seem to be changing. Growing up, I saw people who were like me every day. I guess I just was not looking hard enough because now looking back, I can see that we were diverse in many ways. I have met diversity face-to-face several times without even realizing what was going on. For example, for my Psychology of Women’s course, we had to participate in an activity …show more content…
For this specific activity, I went to the Student Recreational Center here on campus and participated is basketball with the guys. You may be thinking “well that is not really a big deal.” When in reality, it is unheard of for a female to want to play basketball with the guys at the rec. When I walked onto the basketball courts, all of the guys stared at me as if I was in the wrong place or lost. I was slightly discriminated against because I was a female wanting to play basketball, which is seen as a male sport. No one wanted to pass the ball to me, and they treated me like I knew absolutely nothing about the game, when in reality I have been playing basketball since I could walk. This is a very minor discrimination, but to me it was a big deal. I have never been looked at the way the guys looked at me that day. I almost felt hopeless, like maybe I was wrong and I could not really play basketball. This relates to the self-fulfilling prophecy we talked about in class. Because these guys had these thoughts about me not being able to play basketball, I started to …show more content…
Without intention, I judge people in my head. I put them into the schemas that I have for them in my head, and I do not even know these people. This is not a part of myself that I like. I wish that I did not do this, but I feel like sometimes it is done without really thinking. One specific situation I want to talk about is when I stereotyped people and believe that some customer were really rude people, but in reality they could have just been having a tough day. I see a lot of customers a day that range from different looks to completely different personalities. One day I worked a long shift and I was getting tired. An older man with scruffy facial hair came up and I could tell that he was not in a good mood. He grunted at me and said, “$10 on pump 7.” He put his money in the tray and walked away. I thought to myself, “That was really rude, you could at least wait for me to get through the process of putting your fuel on. You must just be a really rude person.” Situations like this happen to me often. I believe that because someone is the slightest bit rude or inconsiderate, that that is the kind of person that they always are, but in reality they could just be having a bad day and trying to get home. I noticed myself doing this the other day after the class when we talked about the fundamental attribution error. After this situation, I thought, “he is probably just having a tough day and