Why We Can't Have Nice Things (Like Affirming Your Identity)

It's Tuesday, and "Julie" is crying. When I ask her what happened, she says that "Kate" is being mean to her in Spanish. I ask her if Kate knows how she feels. She shrugs and goes to tell Kate that she's sad. The two second graders come back hand-in-hand and tell me Kate has apologized for forgetting about The English Rule.

The English Rule, I learn, is exactly what it sounds like--you can only speak in English during recess. Some adult at some point in their lives (someone on recess duty, I'm guessing) decided that the way to stop kids from teasing each other in languages they don't understand is to stop them from using them entirely. Hearing that reminded me of the time I worked at ASU, when a manager decided that the way to avoid people leaving food wrappers at our front desk was to ban food altogether. This kind of behavior management is, I'm learning, ridiculously common. People arguing because of toys? No, let's not teach them how to share or respect each other's property, let's just ban toys from school. People arguing during lunch? No, let's not teach kids how to resolve conflicts, let's eat silently. Let's ignore these opportunities to teach kids really important social skills and ban things instead.

This is not the kind of educator I want to be.

Kate and I had a conversation about why it's not nice to tease people at all, let alone in another language.

"But Julie is my friend, I was just joking!"

"What's the difference between a joke and teasing?" (We had already talked about this last week.)

"Laughing with someone and laughing at someone..." (She remembered!)

"Can someone laugh with you if they don't know what you're saying?"

"No..."

She told me she hadn't thought about it that way before. She apologized to Julie again, not for breaking The English Rule, but for doing something hurtful. Before they left, I told both of them that they shouldn't think it's bad to speak other languages at school, and that it's cool that they know Spanish and Mongolian, respectively. I then learned how to say "Hola, me llamo es Grishma/Sain baina uu, minii ner Grishma baina" and taught them how to say "Namaste, mera naam Julie/Kate hai."

Taking "the thing" away when "the thing" causes conflict feels wrong. But it feels especially wrong when "the thing" is someone's culture. I don't want any child thinking their culture is inappropriate at school. You, your family, your background, your food, your holidays, your opinions, your personality--they're all needed at school. So speak in Spanish all you want, Kate. Just don't tease people.