2. What is colorblindness? Is it a positive value to have or not? Explain your position.
3. Yer Vang, a Hmong student, complained that her social studies teacher never called upon her in class. She told the principal, “I know the answers, but the teacher won’t call upon me because he doesn’t want me to show up the white students.” The teacher admits that he didn’t call upon Yer too often, but the reason was that he didn’t want her to be embarrassed in front of the other students. “I know how lonely she must feel as the only Hmong student in class,” he explained, “so I don’t want to put any more pressure on her than I need to. And since this is an accelerated class, I was trying to be sensitive to the fact that it could be terribly embarrassing for her if I did call on her and she didn’t know the answer. I just didn’t want to put her in that position.”
Questions for discussion:
What is the problem?
How would you have handled it differently?
What does the situation say about teachers being extra sensitive or insensitive?
